Simyo vs Yoigo for Spain
 

Hi all.

Recently visited the site after a gap of a few months and noticed that Spain seems to have yet more MVNOs.

I am planning to go to Spain in July (Barcelona, Sevilla & Madrid) for just over 2 weeks and had originally planned to get a Yoigo SIM but I'm aware of the Simyo brand from back last year when I looked into options for Belgium.

Data useage would be nice (although possibly not life or death) so I'm wondering whether I should stick with the original plan of going Yoigo or whether I should opt for a Simyo (or perhaps other?)

Recommendations for Spain?
 

I've looked through the provider list for Spain, and quite frankly, it doesn't look too promising. I'm going there next month, for the first time in many years, and would like to pick up two SIMs (so I can talk to my wife) that will have relatively cheap calls to the USA and the rest of Europe (Poland, Germany, UK, Italy), as well as being easy to keep alive, in case I start coming to Spain more often; cheap-ish data would be good, too. I'd also like to not have to spend very much for the SIM itself.

However, it looks rather bleak -- for a country with lots of holiday visitors, there's no offer that seems like a good one for annual visitors, unlike, say, O2 has in the Czech Republic. In fact, roaming on my German/Polish/British/Italian phones would be cheaper in some circumstances than a native SIM. Yoigo seems to be the best all-rounder, but perhaps there's an MVNO or something that isn't listed yet. Any suggestions?

I'll be in Spain next month. I'm planning to go the Yoigo route, but will ask about alternatives at the Phone Warehouse. I'd like to maintain some level of data (though I'll also keep my T-Mobile USA SIM with its worldwide BB plan as a backup). If I find anything different, I'll post here.

Tell me about it!! Deals are quite poor in Spain. Yoigo on Tarjeta 2 (with no €6 min spend) is the best for casual visitors by far! Data is still cheap and capped on this, but peak calls (well from 04:00 to 16:00) are expensive. International rates at 30c/min are not too bad, though for longer calls you may consider a different card that gives you cheap calls at the time you want to a Madrid landline number and using a Finarea service. I now have a Spanish Vodafone contract which actually gives me upto 1000 mins for free to a selected number which works out well for me.

You're right though... roaming rates on many foreign Sims often work out cheaper than prepaid rates on many Spanish cards. e.g. When roaming on my UK o2 card I pay 31c/min to call any European landline or mobile which is even better than Yoigos peak rate to Spain on Tarjeta 2.

I will do a bit more research on other products. Anyone tried http://www.happymovil.es yet? Around 5c/min or 6c/min to landlines in USA and Europe. Not too bad!

I should follow up on my Spain trip. I bought a Lebara SIM for 5 euros (with 5 euro credit) from an open-air stand at the Heron City shopping center in Barcelona; it shouldn't be too hard to find elsewhere. It had good international rates between 20:00 and midnight -- other times they were more, although not too bad (something like 7 cents/min at the cheap rate to the USA and 20 cents otherwise). I don't know if data is supported, it didn't say. Lebara can be kept alive with a billable item (ie, an SMS) every 90 days, otherwise it starts charging a "maintenance fee" each month until the credit is gone.

As far as The Phone House goes, it's everywhere in Spain, so getting their Happy Movil international SIM should be no problem. Both Lebara and Happy have connection charges per call.

OTOH, finding free/cheap Wi-Fi hotspots anywhere in Spain was a real pain.

I think there are connection charges on all Spanish prepaids. The biggest problem with Lebara and Happy are their high international SMS rates (45c Lebara and 55c for Happy). Yoigo is a bit better at this as they charge the same as national SMS (10c + IVA) though in my experience they do not get through to all destinations!

Yes... I think this is thanks to the Telefonica almost-monopoly and the fact that until fairly recently they were the only ones supplying thousands of "free" routers with ADSL contracts. All of these are locked by default. From my house I can pick up no less than 13 signals (all starting WLAN_) and all locked.

However.. I have to say I have had fairly good experiences of picking up FON spots in Spain.

Not that anyone here would be considering it given the other recommendations, but I advise against using Vodafone simply on the basis that there is no way to check your balance without being charged for it. Checking it from your phone costs something like 13 cents, and even if you register your number on the Vodafone website you can't see what your balance is. It's idiotic. Is this common amongst other Spanish providers as well?

I agree. That really wound me up too. My only other experience is with Yoigo and Carrefour. Carrefour give you a certain number of free checks per month (I think 4) and then they also charge you after that. How ridiculous! Yoigo is free.

About 3 years ago when I visited Spain briefly and used Amena (or something like that), they charged to check your balance too.

Lebara has since gone down in price. It now appears to be 6 cents per minute to the US at any time with a 19 cents per call connection charge. International SMS is now 19 cents. All prices include tax.

See www.lebara.es for details.

>OTOH, finding free/cheap Wi-Fi hotspots anywhere in Spain was a real pain.

Most of the bigger McDonalds had wifi (Barcelona area) - same in Portugal - but there you had to get a username/password which was on a leaflet in the store

A few weeks ago, I saw something about another Spanish mvno with cheap int'l calls, but was busy and forgot to look again, and now I couldn't remember the name ...

I found 5 new ones, not all launched yet, Viva, XL, fonyou, Masmovil, Hitsmobile, the last two with cheap int'l calls. There are connection fees of course; the off-peak rates to foreign mobiles might be worthwhile

http://www.masmovil.es/MasVidaMovilSelfcare/es/201.html

http://www.hitsmobile.es/web/en/tarifas/internacionales

Do you mean http://www.simyo.es/ ?

For Germans they have a very decent option offering calls and SMS from Spain to Germany, from Germany to Spain and within both countries for just 9 ct (+ 15 ct call setup fee) to all networks: http://www.simyo.es/alemania/

Simyo and Yoigo are the best in Spain

Buying Yoigo
 

Hello.. all the information here has been useful to make me convinced I want Yoigo. But buying Yoigo SIM card has proved to be a real ball breaker.

My friend is spending few weeks in Alicante area, and I instructed him to visit The Phone House (there are few in Alicante). Staff doesn't really speak English there, and even if they do, they claim:

- Yoigo Prepaid Sim cards are not available
- They do not support data
- You only get data working with non-Nokia phone
- You need NIE etc number (=be resident) to buy one

I really hope it's just crap, either due pure stupidity or vicious plan to get people buying more expensive products.

One problem that confuses me a bit, is price of the starter kit. Posts here suggest it costs either 20 or 15 euros. But my friend was asked 10 (and they said it doesn't support data) and he didn't have courage to buy it. I hope they have just reduced the price without changing the product itself..

As I understand, Yoigo Prepaid supports data up to 384kbit/s so maybe they were trying to explain that contract SIM with monthly subscription would give MORE speed (up to 2mbit/s). I really hope it's about this.

So could somebody confirm that Yoigo prepaids are still available and those 10 euro starter kits are fully fuctional (like described here, 1,2e+vat for one day usage etc)?

My friend is whining me I don't take this matter seriously enough (because I just asked him to go to The Phone House and buy Yoigo - which in most countries would be ENOUGH).

He also tried to order Yoigo online (also Simyo) but without luck. He of course doesn't have NIE, local bank account or debit/card. Has anybody succeeded in ordering one online with foreign Visa / bank account?

I don't understand Spanish, so websites are not very helpful :)

I bought a Yoigo prepaid SIM at Phone House in Madrid about 10 days ago when I discovered that my Greek prepaid would not roam in Spain. The biggest issue was waiting for my turn. When I told the clerk I was in a hotel, he said 'no problem' and entered something into the forms I had to sign. The forms were printed in English, I assume because I do not speak Spanish.

The SIM was €10 with a full €10 of credit. After each call or Internet connection, there was a message with the cost and my remaining balance. The deduction for a full day's Internet use was €1.2 and there seemed to be no VAT added.

Since every hotel I visited had free WiFi, I only used the Internet access twice. First to set it up and test and then this morning at the airport. Local calls and calls to Greece were reasonably priced.

Spain Mvno
 

http://img.xatakamovil.com/2008/10/Imagen-5-12.jpg

http://www.xatakamovil.com/2008/10/0...nos-operadores

Great comparison table! Sorry... just spotted it now!

Surprising that they all have such high 'call establishement' fees. I am on Yoigo, and though it is 0c/min between Yoigo users... for the 10-15 calls per day I make... the minimum call setup fee still tots up! It's annoying too when the called partY is engaged, you get an answering machine and pay the 12c!

Also there is no IVA/VAT shown on these rates above. The interesting thing with Yoigo is that when you buy a card for 10EUR, you get 10EUR of credit (i.e. it appears no IVA charged). When you do subsequent topups for 10EUR, you only get 8.40 or something in credit as they swipe off the tax. So it is not really 1.20 per day for the internet!

Hi, i just returned from MWC 09... I bought 2 Yoigo simcards (note: 2 different prefixes! 622 and 633 for "Yoigo 8" tariff plan) and I used the web service.

The quality is still poor: the price is ok, but coverage and service is almost crappy... I had coverage troubles in Gerona, then in Barcellona too :wall: When I had coverage, I had bad service too... a lot of website really slow and a "false" HSDPA service. Next time I'll use them only for international SMS... :(

I can confirm what Andrea said. Most problems were when we tried to access google-related sites, and having every email domain using gmail / google apps it was almost impossible to connect to our mailboxes with Yoigo :(

but anyway the girl @ The Phone House inside a shopping mall near Girona was nice enough to activate our SIM cards without any issues, and not asking anything but the ID cards :)

Apparantly Carrefour have recently lost their MVNO licence.

Several new players have also joined. One of the more interesting ones is the low cost spanish airline Vueling have just launched Vueling movil, tu telefono movil.

Currently they have a deal that gets you a free flight with them provided you spend €15/month with them for 3 months! They have a good deal of getting a cheap handset and SIM package (ALCATEL OT211) for €19. This includes €20 of credit. To make it more appealing there is coupon code in a newspaper here today to get a further €10 off! The code is: VLG200XI.

Basically, you spend €9 and get a phone, €20 of credit and for €35 more spend in the first few months, a flight thrown in too! (Note that the taxes are not included in the flight!)

MVNOs in Spain:
Comparativa de las OMVs - BandaAncha.st

My Lebara SIM has just expired without warning, despite the fact that I had carefully sent an SMS or placed/received a call on it every couple of months; I had never been charged the "monthly account maintenance fee" that occurs if you don't do this. It still had credit of €15 on it. I'm a bit annoyed, as I was keeping it alive for my next visit to Spain.

That is bad! I have no experience with them here, but it sounds like you should perhaps speak to their CS. They have a geographic number here in Madrid. I heard that they have a few English speaking operators, (and many Eastern European speaking ones too). From Germany, try (+ 34) 91 276 9170

The newest comparision:
http://img.xatakamovil.com/2009/08/complowcost.PNG
Comparativa tarifas móvil low cost: Movistar, Vodafone, Orange, Yoigo y OMVs

Lebara's cheap but watch out
 

LEBARA IS INEXPENSIVE
I've gotten two Lebara cards, each for less than $30 with €10 of credit (so basically, the card costs €10/$15). Each time I top off €20, I get a free €10. That's worked both in the spring and fall of 2009. So far, it seems to be a permanent promotion.

The rates are terrific to call the U.S. €0.06/min.+connection, and good for within Spain €0.15/min+con. Coverage is excellent. Not having a monthly fee if you're using it makes it great.

Incoming SMS messages in roaming are FREE. That was a lovely surprise.

THE CAVEATS
Though they claim they only deactivate your card if you don't use it at all in a 90-day period, this ends up not being true. They deactivated it (though it was still able to be reactivated) a month after I sent an SMS from the U.S. I had to call their customer service center to have them reinstate it, and the agent told me to call the customer service center every 30 days or so to keep it active. She said once they permanently deactivated the card, that was it.

CONCLUSION
In the future, I should probably not even bother trying to keep the card/number active. It's just that I had €17 left on the card and my phone number this time was so easy to remember.

By the way, Carlo and Andrea,
what a terrific website you have here!
la tua Suzie

That's pretty much standard for most places other than the U.S. - there's not a single European operator that charges for incoming SMS, roaming or otherwise.

Another comparision: Comparativa tarifas de voz low cost

MÁSmovil nowhere in stock
 

Just wanted to share my recent experience of MÁSmovil SIM cards being unavailable on the whole island of Gran Canaria. I checked half a dozen Cepsa gas stations, several Correos post offices in larger cities and all Telecor shops on the island and none had SIM cards in stock. Only two Telecor shops had some months earlier, while the others mostly even never heard of MÁSmovil.
So better purchase it online and let it be delivered to your Hotel.

I finally ended with a Vodafone SIM with the "Bonos por Tiempo Semenal" pack giving unlimited traffic for 7 days for € 19 (throttled to 64 KBit/s after exceeding 1GB). Unfortunately there are two issues for non-Spanish customers with Vodafone: On the one hand you can't recharge your credit from an ATM with foreign debit cards and on the other hand they don't accept foreign credit cards for online recharges at http://tienda.vodafone.es/recargas, which would give a 30% bonus for each recharge.

Anyway compared to countries like the US and France (the axis of wireless evil) Spain has absolutely great and widely available prepaid internet offers!

Wow! And I though I was alone in doing that sort of thing on a holiday! i.e. Driving all over an island looking for a SIM!! (of course very much to my girlfriends delight....) :p

If you want, drop me a PM/email with the number and I will top it up with my Spanish card and you can paypal me later.

:rotfl:

I'm a totally sick internet addict and the worst thing is I like it. But Google Maps in your pocket is so extremely practical, that it really pays off to invest some time to get mobile internet access even for normal people.
My girlfriend fully supported my search until the fourth gasstation, when she insisted coming with me and so found out I wasn't actually asking for that outlet shopping mall.

Thanks a lot, I'll come back to you next time, when I need a topup.