Are there any decent providers of 3G pay as you go for the Universal? I bought an unlocked handset and am currently using gprs with Orange, but would like to try3G.
Cheers
Rowan
Vodafones pay and go is 3g, but the Internet is restricted but can be unlocked by giving you credit card details to prove your 18, if you don't have a credit card your restricted to vodafones site...
Or there's Three's pay and go but last time i used it the internet was in a "Walled Garden" you where restricted three's sites only
Cheers - I think I might give them a go..
Cheers
Rowan
orange 3g payg sims are £5 from orange shops, and the £1 per day orange world access works with it.
richard
Related
Hi,
I have a US model XDA and will be traveling to the UK. My wife has a Virgin Mobile account which I think uses the Orange network, but I believe they are on the 1800 band.
O2 uses 900mhz, but I noticed that only 1 meg of gprs is free then it's 2.35 a meg. My last US tmobile bill showed my use at 0ver 100 meg. (I can't believe it's that much, but . . .)
Any suggestions on Pay and Go sims with GPRS?
Is it possible to get one in the US so I don't have to pick it up when I get there.
Thanks in advance for any help. This group has been very helpful.
UK SIM CARDS
You can buy a UK Pay as you go from between $10 to $30 O2 the main UK net for the XDAII's are doing 300 text (or 75 MMS) a month for a tenner ($18) so hard to beat (sure some one knows different).
I'm in the US (from UK) at the moment and I need a prepaid sim card on a US carrier as I'm here for 5 months (to go in my hermes). I bought a cheap virgin mobile one just to use the sim but it turns out it doesn't have one. What carrier can I get an actual sim card from and what's the cheapest?
Not overly bothered by data charges or anything.
Any help would be appreciated.
Thanks,
Stoo
stoo said:
I'm in the US (from UK) at the moment and I need a prepaid sim card on a US carrier as I'm here for 5 months (to go in my hermes). I bought a cheap virgin mobile one just to use the sim but it turns out it doesn't have one. What carrier can I get an actual sim card from and what's the cheapest?
Not overly bothered by data charges or anything.
Any help would be appreciated.
Thanks,
Stoo
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
go to a Wal-Mart or a K-Mart, last time I was in the US, they had a phone section there with these cheap-ass sim cards for a few bucks... it's $2 to the £1 anyway now, so use a british card to pay for it if need be
Most telcos will try to charge you $50.00 for a prepaid sim card. Check out your local 7-11 store and look for a sim/phone combo by Speakout (service by Cingular). They are the cheapest I have found...
I have not seen sim-only kits in retail stores, but you could always pick up a cheapy phone and use the sim in that.
That said; no US carrier offers data on their prepaid sims.
You are right about the Virgin phones; they use a non GSM network...
T-mobile is probably the cheapest at the moment. What you can do is pop into a T-mobile store and ask them for a prepaid sim, they can turn any of their own sims into prepaid, and if you add some call credit they'll usually give you the sim for free.
Thanks guys,
I'll have to check out some of these suggestions on saturday
stoo - buy T-Mobile, put $100 to account and you will have 1 year validity for outgoing and incoming phone-calls.
It is not true what ScottC says - T-Mobile will offer you free data - use wap.voicestream.com APN. With no proxy you will have good internet access - speed limited to their EDGE network (around 200 kbps).
If you have any other questions - PM me.
Cingular offers Pay as You Go, and has data at $.01 KB, Texts at $.05
There are SIMs available at Cingular stores, or eBay
and, yes, I use one in a higher end phone (8525)
update
$120 dollars in new york for t-mobile sim, 600 free usa minutes, free internet and $5 credit (7c/text, not sure of international call charges yet)
i'd be lost without internet on my phone so money well spent. (better than £5/megabyte, 40p/text, 50p/min call/receive international on uk roaming)
(in N.Y. at the moment)
Can you get Tmobile's contract type internet packages on Flexpay?
AT&T's go phones are a good idea.
stufried said:
Can you get Tmobile's contract type internet packages on Flexpay?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
i'd contacted t-mobile usa customer services beforehand and they said there was no way I could get data on prepaid.
it appeared the guy in the shop put it through as a contract with fake id and no billing data.
Does anybody know what network(s) the TyTn will be on (or already is on) in the UK?
I recently canceled my phone/internet contract with Orange thinking that the TyTn would be with a network by now so that I could start a new contract with it, but its been 2 weeks without a mobile or internet and I still cant find it on any network and I'm not going to pay £450 for it.
I'm worried that it never will be over here.
I preferebly dont want it on Orange as my previous broadband deal with them never had a signal, which is why I canceled halfway through.
Thanks,
Sebastian
GOOD NEWS
It's out on T-Mobile NOW!
Free on flext 50, 90quid on flext 35
Oh thankgod for that! Thanks. But do T-Mobile do internet as well (like Orange, Vodafone and O2 do)?
Sebastian
surprised you haven't heard of web n walk. You pay 7.50 flat rate per month for unlimited internet usage through your phone. You can also use your phone as a modem, though technically speaking you're supposed to upgrade to the 12.50 web n walk plus add on for this. T-mobile is amongst (if not THE best) for it's mobile broadband (hsdpa) coverage in the uk and will very soon be upgrading to support speeds of up to 7.2 mb per second. Orange and o2 are **** for data. This is a fact. Voda and 3 are ok but seem a little more strict with their fair usage policy, and they also don't have the kaiser
Sounds like a good deal.
But I'm looking for a phone contract that also includes broadband. For the last 10 months I have payed £35 for Racoon 35 and free 2Meg internet, and I'm looking for something similar with the Kaiser.
Do you know if T-Mobile are planning to do a broadband service like the other 3? I dont get 3G signal in my area so the modem wouldn't be any use.
sebastian
I'm going to spain on holiday for a couple weeks. (I know luxery )
But I do want internet when I'm there.
I want to buy a Huawei E160 USB-UMTS dongle.
And then I need a (UMTS) SIM card and an internet subscription.
Do you know company's who have prepaid cards?
I've searched, but only found old threads.
One thread of 2 years ago speeks about Movistar.es
That costed 21 euro for 4 weeks unlimited internet.
I'm also looking for that.
Is that still possible, or are there better alternatives?
Hope you can help me.
Thanx in advance!
hey! I'm from Barcelona (Spain) and have done some searching. It looks like the best option is buying a yoigo prepaid card. costs 3 euros every day you connect to the internet and you're allowed to download 100mb, then your speed is reduced to 64 kbps.
I was just looking for the same thing in the US, I'm going to cali in vacation and will be taking a nexus one to use it as gps, find hotels etc. do you know what options I have?
Just out of curiosity, where in spain are you going?
PS: here's a link http://www.yoigo.com/tarifas/internet_para_llevar.php
At&t used to for $20.00 a month.. untill the iphone came along and screwed everything up.
But i see that in europe you have to make a contract no matter if you want a phone from them or not.
In america, a plan and a contract are different things,
If you go to a cell phone company provider with your own phone, you do not need to sign a contract for 2 years to use thier service plans.
I am also going to spain (galicia) this summer, and i was going to call about that.
(And im sure you know, that At&t and T-mobile are the only GSM provider in the US)
TurboX2 said:
At&t used to for $20.00 a month.. untill the iphone came along and screwed everything up.
But i see that in europe you have to make a contract no matter if you want a phone from them or not.
In america, a plan and a contract are different things,
If you go to a cell phone company provider with your own phone, you do not need to sign a contract for 2 years to use thier service plans.
I am also going to spain (galicia) this summer, and i was going to call about that.
(And im sure you know, that At&t and T-mobile are the only GSM provider in the US)
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
You don't need to make a contract in spain to get a prepaid card. Only thing you need to do is give them your ID for security purposes
josealb said:
You don't need to make a contract in spain to get a prepaid card. Only thing you need to do is give them your ID for security purposes
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Click to collapse
that is right, it is not worth paying an 18 month contract if you are only staying here a couple of weeks, Personally I would recommend Vodafone cause they have better internet quelaity connection (at least in southern spain), and they offer prepaid sim cards and usb modems without a contract (although movistar, yoigo and orange offer them as well). The question would be, what part of spain are you traveling to and wich company has the better internet reception on that area... if you are traveling to rural areas, I would stick to the 2 major companies (Vodafone and Movistar). Hope it helps.
I'm going to Salou, about 150km south of Barcelona.
Thanx for your answers.
I hope yoigo has coverage over there.
And are there any other alternatives?
Hi,
I'm from Reus, a city near Salou (about 8km). The UMTS coverage in salou is good for all the service providers in spain.
My mobile ISP is Simyo with good prices, the only inconvenience is that don't have physical shops to buy prepaid modems/sim. My voice provider is Yoigo and they have good prices too.
My advice is that you go to a ThePhoneHouse shop, there are Vodafone, Orange and Yoigo, and they will tell you which solution was better.
You can find thephonehouse in tarragona (10km from salou) and Reus in
http://www.phonehouse.es/app/searchStore.do
Ok, I hope so that the coverage will be good.
And how are Vodafone and Orange? Are they more expensive and/or better?
ronh said:
Ok, I hope so that the coverage will be good.
And how are Vodafone and Orange? Are they more expensive and/or better?
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Click to collapse
Vodafone will almost always give you the best coverage, at a higher price. Orange is cheaper and with a little les coverage, Simyo borrows the network from Orange so its coverage will be the same at best.
I didn't know Vodafone offered prepaid cards, if they do I'd recommend you vodafone
PS: Offtopic, Salou is cool, I've been there in vacation often but it's full of tourists, I would recommend you to move a little bit if you wanna see more of Spain than beaches, maybe driving up to Barcelona
Hi,
I will be traveling to Greece (Paros, Naxos, Santorini) and Berlin next month.
I already have a SIM unlocked Motorola Milestone. I want to purchase a European SIM.
1) Can I expect to use the same SIM card and plan when both in Germany and Greece? Or am I better off just getting 2 different ones?
2) What are good companies and plans? I don't really need voice... but I expect to use a lot of data for Internet access and hoepfully tethering. I found out about
WIND Paygo in a different thread, but no details on what to expect price-wise.
Anybody (either local to these countries or a fellow traveler) have any experience with this?
Thanks
Caz666 said:
1) Can I expect to use the same SIM card and plan when both in Germany and Greece? Or am I better off just getting 2 different ones?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
You should get a separate SIM card for each of the countries... they are two different countries after all, and carriers will charge you higher roaming fees if you want to use their SIM card in a different country. The EU did regulate a maximum for roaming fees just recently, but you'll still be better off getting a new SIM card there.
2) What are good companies and plans? I don't really need voice... but I expect to use a lot of data for Internet access and hoepfully tethering. I found out about
WIND Paygo in a different thread, but no details on what to expect price-wise.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
For Germany, I'd go with a prepaid data flatrate plan, e.g. http://www.simyo.de/tarif/flat-internet.html (€15/mo up to 3GB @HSDPA/7.2 Mbit, after that GPRS), or e.g. http://www.klarmobil.de/tarife/datentarife/Internet_Flat_5000/index.html (€20/mo for up to 5GB HSDPA speed, after that GPRS). These are just two examples for pure data flats (since you said you didn't need voice).
I think you can get these types of discount carriers at gas stations and supermarkets. There are a lot to choose from; just make sure it's a prepaid data flat. The major carriers like T-Mobile, Vodafone, O2 (that have their own POS stores) are usually more expensive for prepaid as they focus more on 2y contracts.
No idea about Greece... maybe someone else can help you out there.
Hope this helps.
bobblack said:
You should get a separate SIM card for each of the countries... they are two different countries after all, and carriers will charge you higher roaming fees if you want to use their SIM card in a different country. The EU did regulate a maximum for roaming fees just recently, but you'll still be better off getting a new SIM card there.
For Germany, I'd go with a prepaid data flatrate plan, e.g. http://www.simyo.de/tarif/flat-internet.html (€15/mo up to 3GB @HSDPA/7.2 Mbit, after that GPRS), or e.g. http://www.klarmobil.de/tarife/datentarife/Internet_Flat_5000/index.html (€20/mo for up to 5GB HSDPA speed, after that GPRS). These are just two examples for pure data flats (since you said you didn't need voice).
I think you can get these types of discount carriers at gas stations and supermarkets. There are a lot to choose from; just make sure it's a prepaid data flat. The major carriers like T-Mobile, Vodafone, O2 (that have their own POS stores) are usually more expensive for prepaid as they focus more on 2y contracts.
No idea about Greece... maybe someone else can help you out there.
Hope this helps.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
This REALLY helps, at least for my week in Berlin. Thank you very much.
For Greece, I would advise you to choose COSMOTE Internet On The Go Prepaid. You may find more information on their website:
http://cosmote.gr/cosmoportal/page/...p/section/Internet_E-mailwithLaptop/loc/en_US
You are better off buying two seperate SIM-cards (one for each country), as cheaper data-roaming options typically are only available with contracts.
In regards to tethering, this shouldn't pose a problem - european providers typically don't police a "one-device-policy", especially not with internet-on-the-go-type products.
An alternative to COSMOTE is Vodafone KartoInternet, but their prepaid plans are a bit more expensive and COSMOTE is said to have better coverage in general: http://www.vodafone.gr/portal/client/cms/viewCmsPage.action?pageId=8638&request_locale=en
Both sell SIM-only starter packs which include their sell-value (EUR 20) as prepaid-balance for internet use.
PartyMango said:
For Greece, I would advise you to choose COSMOTE Internet On The Go Prepaid. You may find more information on their website:
http://cosmote.gr/cosmoportal/page/...p/section/Internet_E-mailwithLaptop/loc/en_US
You are better off buying two seperate SIM-cards (one for each country), as cheaper data-roaming options typically are only available with contracts.
In regards to tethering, this shouldn't pose a problem - european providers typically don't police a "one-device-policy", especially not with internet-on-the-go-type products.
An alternative to COSMOTE is Vodafone KartoInternet, but their prepaid plans are a bit more expensive and COSMOTE is said to have better coverage in general: http://www.vodafone.gr/portal/client/cms/viewCmsPage.action?pageId=8638&request_locale=en
Both sell SIM-only starter packs which include their sell-value (EUR 20) as prepaid-balance for internet use.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Thanks for the tip. I looked both web sites and they are what I am looking for. The prices seem similar enough for my purposes...MUCH better than roaming
I do have a follow-up question:
Both companies have DAY PACKS for 1Euro per day that includes something like "unlimited data" but is throttled after a specific amount of data is consumed. Does anybody know the specific of the the Thottling? I don't mind a bit of a slowdown...but how crippling are we talking about? Are they booting me down to 2G speeds?
I couldn't find any details on either web site about the specifics.
Just an update after my trip. Germany was a problem as a lot of the prepaid carriers don't have English customer service. I bought 2 different SIM cards and could not get them activated. I didn't have much time to mess around, but I was really disappointed.
Greece was good. As suggested in this thread, I went to a Cosmote store and got great service. I got a data only sim and an additional regular sim. They activated them for me with my passport. My only problem is that the data only sim ran out of cash and it is not possible to refill them from most outlets....I used the cash on the other sim, but the price per GB is not the same.
The moral of the storey for me: go to a carrier store directly and get as much as you need right away. Being in remote locations can make it hard to refill prepaid cards.
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