Hungary
 

There seems to be very little recent information here about Hungary, so why not collect it in this thread?
Fortunately, all three carriers have good information online in English.

**Telenor**

Coverage / Speed
Both EDGE and HSDPA are provided. Target speed values seem to be rather low...

Prepaid

Internet
Internet for mobile phones
Internet for your computer
I think their only prepaid offer is Internet Praktikum Recharge Card Mobile Internet where you pay 5HUF/min which is about 1EUR/h.

**Vodafone**

Coverage

Prepaid
VitaMAX Party seems to be the best deal.

Prepaid Internet
50MB is free! Very flexible, but rather expensive.

**T-Mobile**

Coverage

Prepaid Domino plans
What a mess. I don't like any of their plans.

Prepaid Data plans
Not as flexible as Vodafone, cheaper only for 3GB/7GB.

I'll be in Budapest from September for at least 4 months.
I'll use a regular phone, a dongle and maybe a smart phone.
Actually I wouldn't mind post-paid either, as long as there is no loyalty.
What do you think of those offers? Anyone with hands-on experience?
Thanks.

The only thing I may add is that a passport was required about 1 year ago in order to buy a pre-paid sim, however after spending 20 minutes in the Vodafone shop a saleswoman told me that I can't buy their sim as I need to provide a hungarian address. As I was only traveling for a short time and visiting various parts of Hungary I decided to give up and left this shop with nothing.

Interesting.

Required Documents

According to their site a passport/ID should be enough for prepaid.
Maybe it's best if I print out their whole website before I go to the store...

Does anyone know a websites where you can top up Vodafone-HU by credit card online?

Hi,

I live in Hungary and I think I know the market. It would be a long story for one single post, and also, offers change every other day :)

All I can promise right now is that if you tell me what you want the best option for, I'll try to give you hints.

Mobile internet is not cheap, but a lot depends on how much traffic you want to generate. You can get dedicated data SIMs, or you can get mobile data bolt-ons with a certain amount of traffic.

As for dedicated prepaid data SIMs, all three providers have offers, Telenor has hidden their offer, it is worth taking a peek at 'Djuice Reload Net', which is an alternative to Telenor's own, minute-based offer. Unfortunately I cannot find a link in English, perhaps because their target audience is local youth :)

T-Mobile and Vodafone both have their flexible prepaids, where you pay for the amount of data you use and not a fixed monthly fee, but these offers are meant for people who only use the card occassionally and do not generate a lot of traffic. Like me. If you know for sure that your traffic will exceed a certain limit a give month, you might be better off with a normal voice SIM with a certain amunt of prepaid gigabytes.

People are different, and the choices are abundant:)

Vodafone - Elektronikus egyenlegfeltöltés

But you'd better speak Hungarian. Enter phone number twice, choose the amount you wanna topup, and click its icon. Amounts over HUF 3000 extend validity with a year. You also are eligible for free minutes or free SMS, you can choose which bonus you want by sending an SMS.

Once you are okay, click on "Feltoltes" and then you can proceed to the payment page.

Lots of options. I do not think postpaid is reasonable if you are just staying for 4 months, but who knows. I would not recommend it without a Hungarian company, good local friends or relatives... Getting rid of a subscription is not easy either, even if not bound by loyalty.

From what you are saying, it looks you need at least two cards: one for your (smart)phone and one for the dongle.

I suppose that something like 50-100 MB/month should be enough for the phone, while you definitely need a couple of gigabytes for your dongle. Can you make a rough guess at the amount you use the net? And what for? Do you want all traffic on 3G or just when on the go? Is there no internet at your apartment / office /school?

Write back here, or drop me a message, we sure can find some options for you.

Thanks for your help, hkr!

I don't know yet if my flat has internet, as I don't have any yet.
I'll soon be on flat hunt though for three days. During those three days it would be perfect to have a sim for calls and a sim for the dongle, so that I don't have to rely on WiFi.

T-Mobile prepaid doesn't look very flexible to me.

You can also use Google chrome which has Google translate integrated.

Hi,

T-Mobile is not renowned for being the most flexible or cheapest... However, their 'Domino Web' package is sort of copying a similar package of Vodafone. It is for people who need to have a stick ready for emergency, and use it a few times, but cannot/don1t want to commit themselves to paying a monthly fee for something they do not use that heavily. I have the similar package from Vodafone in a backup modem, should my CATV and ADSL connections fail at home, the router automatically uses the 3G. I do not pay a penny apart from topping it up once every year. If I use it, it certainly costs more than it would, but it is still cheaper than paying for X Gbyte each month if I only use it once a year... Another similar card I put in my stick, once every week or so, when I am out with my netbook, I check my e-mail on the road. Only once have I used up more than the free allowance of 50MB/month...


Certainly, if you know you are to use your 3G heavily, you can buy a normal voice SIM and activate a data package. I believe such packages are available with all three providers.


T-Mobile offers the following bolt-ons for voice packages:
Mobile broadband

Vodafone has the following bolt-ons:

Vodafone - Mobil Internet - dij_vitamax


Telenor's offers are around here:
Mobile Online 5 GB - Telenor
Mobile Online 10 GB - Telenor



Telenor has the Djuice brand aimed at young people, their Reload Net package might also be interesting: djuice



Mobile internet is not cheap, and there are no real "unlimited" offers. But if you only use the net moderately (ie. surfing, some emails) a few gigabytes must be enough. For applications like FTP, videos etc, you can be better off by finding a neighbour who can share his internet access with you :)

Another point to consider is coverage, a lot depends on which carrier has best signal and bandwidth in your area. It is perhaps worth checking before purchase.