Updated Spain iphone/ipad data packages?
 

Hi,

Traveling to Spain in about a month, for ~12 days.
Will be using a 3GS iPhone and/or iPad2 (most likely the iPad, which requires a microsim).
Will be in the Barcelona/Costa Brava/Spanish Pyrenees area.
What are the most updated data packages applicable?
Are there any registration procedures?
How long until the SIM card will be activated?
Any recommended provider concerning 3G coverage?
Thanks.

I have almost the same timing and itinerary, and question (weird), so I'm replying to subscribe to this thread...

I used MásMovil in Spain, which is probably not the best choice from the tariffs point of view (they have a minimum charge of €1 each month, for example).
But I can tell you something about the registration procedure: it is strictly necessary (by law), although sim cards bought from unofficial vendors can be used for a limited time (I thought 1-2 days, correct me if I'm wrong) in which you are supposed to register your sim card by posting the registration form to MásMovil. I bought my card from an official MásMovil dealer and it was activated within 15 minutes. No need for an address/social security number in Spain.

In my research I've found Carrefour - they seem to offer a good deal for my and the OP's needs. Can you give any feedback on this?

Spain - carrefour - Prepaid Wireless Internet Access

Here is the plan that interests me:
"A 'bono 3GB' add on is also available:
29 Euro for 30 days, 3GB at full 3G speed, thereafter speed is reduced to 128k
Make sure that you have enough balance on your SIM card (at least 35 Euro).
Enable the plan by sending SMS to 22864 with the text ALTA BONO 3GB
Check the amount of data you have used by sending BONO 3GB to 22864 (5 free SMS per month)"

Nothing? :(

The bono 3G plan seems useful, especially since I'll have my iPad 2, which gobbles up data.

But still I'd love to see a comparison chart, as in the Greece, Italy and France forums.

Seems like that's not going to happen. I've posted on about 5 forums and gotten literally zero information.

We are arriving in Spain on the 24th. When are you arriving? My email is cameronjpu at hotmail - I will certainly update you if we are there before you with what we found, will you do the same?

I've spent the last few hours browsing the various providers' web sites, trying to make some sense of the various plans.

I'm preparing an excel chart with the info.

We'll be there only next month (July 20th), arriving Barcelona airport and immediately traveling north (we'll stay in Barcelona only at the end).

So for me it's critical to locate stores on the way, where I'd be able to purchase the microsim card.

I expect that at the airport there would be a Vodafone or Orange shop, but they don't seem to be the best options, according to various posts I've read today.

I plan to complete the chart within the next few days, and I'll certainly share (that's the purpose of this site, after all, and I've received lots of help here in my previous trips).

cameronjpu, pls check your hotmail.

Ah darn, so it looks like you'll be benefiting from my experience, not the other way around ;) Oh well! It's too bad Barcelona is at the beginning of our trip rather than the end, otherwise I could leave you my SIM! You're coming from Israel, not the USA, right?

I'll be interested in seeing your spreadsheet. Unfortunately what I have found is a lot of conflicting, out of date, bad information mixed in with the rest, so you never know until you are in Spain, how it will actually work out.

I didnt get anything to my hotmail account though. Let me check my spam... Ah there it is. Thanks! I'll read when I can later today.

Maybe our best bet is to somehow track down travelers going to spain before us (before you, at least) who can tell us their experiences. People who have already finished a trip spend a lot less time on forums talking about it ;)

Yes, I'll be coming from Israel.

The info I sent you is the most updated, straight from the cell providers' web sites.

Any update on your thoughts? I'm moving towards trying out the Carrefour 100mb per day for 1e plan, since all of our hotels offer free wifi. 11 days for 11e will be better than 30e. 100mb is an OK amount if it's only for web and email during the day, with higher volume transfers requiring wifi. I thought it was 250 and was thinking it would be plenty, 100 is not so great but maybe enough. We'll see...

Last September i used Carrefour Movil myself on the 1 euro a day tariff. Which worked great for me on my laptop in and around Figueres and the Costa Brava. Maybe there is also some useful information in these threads.

cameronjpu,

I prefer not to rely on Wifi.
Are you certain you'll have free wifi, even in your room? Many times the free WIFI is available only in the lobby etc. Other times you have to ask for some sort of voucher containing access codes that are valid only for a certain period of time, pretty annoying.

There's a Carrefour a short distance from the Barcelona Airport, I think we'll stop there to fill up with water bottles etc, and I'll purchase the SIM as well. But they haven't returned to me yet on SIM availability in that specific store.

From what I've read, all but one has wifi that covers the whole hotel, and the last has wifi only in the lobby and 1st floor rooms. The hope would be that 100mb per day would allow me to use 3G freely and without limit when out and about, and rely on wifi in the hotel. If I'm walking around trying to conserve, that's no good. Certainly you could try the 100mb plan for the first day and then top up to the 30e plan if that didn't work well.

My typical usage in the states is about 750 MB per month, but of course that's not the same type of usage as it is when traveling. Plus this iPhone will be performing MyWi functions for another phone and for an iPad. I'm torn. It's a long way to travel just to try to save 20e. But then 20e is 20e ;)

The Carrefour on Las Ramblas seems to not be of the type that sells the SIM cards. Grrr.

Edit: scratch that, it does seem to be that type: http://translate.google.com/translat...6prmd%3Divnscm

Services at this location include Carrefour telecom. I couldn't find it using Google street view but it must be there somewhere....

Try looking for "La Rambla de los estudios" or "La Rambla dels Estudis".
and look here:
Carrefour Express, La Rambla 113, Barcelona. Shops - Time Out Barcelona

I searched Google street view for the address - it takes me there, but I see no sign. Not that that would make any difference, to see it from the outside. The Carrefour website says that location, which is only 2 blocks from my hotel, does have the telecom department, so I'm all good.

Well, last September it really was there, i saw it myself. In Streetview the shop and the sign can be found here.

I need to find a Carrefour, Yoigo or Simyo store that is along my route, as we leave from the airport along the highways to our 1st day destinations.

Seems there are no such locations for these 3 providers (most of the stores are located inside tows/villages and I don't want to deviate too much from our route.

Initially I thought that the Carrefour at the Prat would have a telecom service, but they have not answered my emails yet. This would be the most convenient location for me, as we could stop there right at the start of the trip to buy water etc as well as the SIM card.

The problem is buying the card and activating it, afterwards you can buy the refills in many locations.

I think there are. Have a look here for all the Carrefour locations in Catalunya.

I did find that link.
Indeed there are many Carrefour locations, but all of them (except the Prat) require some sort of deviation.
My family's going to be with me and they don't have the patience I do for this stuff...
So I'm waiting for the reply from the Prat location.

And another way to see all of this info on map at one time, rather than going one by one, is to go to google maps and enter "carrefour tienda" (or yoigo etc, whichever carrier you're looking for).

Weird, I dont know why my searches for the address came up with a different, but very close, location! Glad to see the real sign that says "express" though :)

Carrefour's website indicates that it does, and it indicates that all Carrefours and Carrefour Express do have that service. The one in Prat is a Carrefour so you should be fine.

The one in Prat is a very big 'shopping mall size' Carrefour. So, if your family likes shopping you're fine. Take a look here how it looks from the outside.

Manual Carrefour Internet Movil : http://www.carrefour.es/telecom/docu...rnet_movil.pdf

Yeah they call it a hypermarket, which is scary to those used to supermarkets in America. I suspect though that a hypermarket is about the same as a Wal Mart in the USA far as size goes. It's funny, the one on Ramblas, on the website, says it's just a Market, not an Express, which would mean that it does not have the telephone services. But the street view makes it clear that it's an Express. I think I'm good :)

I'd appreciate it if someone living in Spain could call the Carrefour Prat de Llobregat at Autovía de Castelldefells, km. 5 and ask them whether they sell the prepaid microsim for iPad.

The Carrefour email responses are not helpful and I haven't been able to contact them by phone (+34-902 20 20 00).

This branch is the nearest to the Barcelona airport so if the microsim is available there - this would be my 1st stop.

Thanks.

@cameronjpu: Carrefour Market is the new name for most of the Carrefour Express stores in Spain. Carrefour started this transition last May.

Your family must be TOUGH! ;)

Oh yes...
They've had plenty of "waiting time" in the past years while I looked up SIM cards...
:-)

Here is a follow-up, for those who find this thread while hunting for answers. I know how frustrating it is when you hear all the debate but never the answer.

I went to Spain and headed straight for the Carrefour express in the Ramblas area of Barcelona. I quickly found that this didn't feel much like a cell phone shop - it was a grocery store in every sense. I went to what appeared to be the customer service area and asked for a SIM card and did my best to convey to them what I was looking for. The guy gave me a SIM card and, though he was clearly not happy to have to deal with me (activating it took him 3-5 minutes) he did. We made a phone call to activate the SIM and I headed out.

The data did not yet work, and he said it might take 10 minutes or so. I had all the information that you see above with me and was not able to get the APN settings to be correct to get data working. After spending an hour on the phone with Carrefour's support people, I gave up. Their suggestion to me was that the SIM card could not be used by a non-resident, so I had to MAIL them a letter with my local address and passport, and they would MAIL me back a SIM card that had been activated. That, or get a refund.

I found that very unlikely, but clearly the first option was not possible. I took the card back to the store and amazingly, got a full refund.

I went across the street to the Phone House (or something like that) and bought a Yoigo SIM that gave me 100MB of data per day at full speed, and then down to 64K afterward. That worked fine for me, as I did find wifi at our hotels. I had to fix the wifi at one hotel which hadn't been working for months, according to the staff. Fixed it in 10 minutes... fixing computers is a good skill to have.

So my advice? It would have to be to go to the Phone House and let their specialists give you what you need. They have multiple options, they only deal with cell phones (no lettuce or Pepsi) and they know what they're doing. Carrefour clearly had a better deal than what I got, but I also wasted 2 hours of my precious vacation failing to get connected, which is worth a lot of money to me.

And now for Daniel's reply. Below are all his words:

--

I had a Carrefour SIM card that I purchased in their store (Prat de Lobregat) which is about 5 km from the Barcelona airport, on the left side of the road . It might be hidden from view coming from the airport, although it's a huge building. Look it up on Google maps to see which exit you need to take (on the right), then go under the highway and turn left.

I paid 1 Euro per usage day, had pretty good 3G coverage (except out in the mountains, deep inside the Pyrenees nature reserves we visited, and in some towns up there, where it was somewhat slow).
My SIM card was activated within 1 minute and I had to look up the APN un the manual provided with the SIM. Note that you need to enter it with the appropriate case (Upper/Lower, just as it appears in the manual). If, after 3 minutes of your card being activated, you're still unable to browse, just check that you entered the APN correctly. It takes 10 seconds.

If you bring an iPad 2 or iPhone 4 -I recommend bringing with you a SIm card cutter that you can purchase in eBay for a couple of Dollars. Usage is extremely simple (it was my 1st time). The Spanish cellular providers don't always have microsim cards.

Your 3GS needs to be SIM Free to use SIM cards that are not from your "natural" cellular provider.

If you arrive in the Barcelona airport, you won't find a store there to purchase the SIM card, but in Barcelona there are many stores from which to purchase, either directly from the cellular providers, or in a chain called "The Phone House".
Remember that the Spanish don't speak English very well and many of the stores people aren't technical at all, so they won't be able to support you with something they aren't familiar with.

Last, you need to know the APN info for the various cellular providers there, without this info (that needs to be entered into the 3GS, many times manually) – you won't be able to browse, even though your SIM card will be activated.
See the attached which I prepared for more info on this.

Further, in order to readily have the APN info, follow these instructions:
Install APN Changer using the browser on iPhone or iPad to visit the following URL: OpenAppMkt Changer and then, from OpenAppMkt, install APN Changer.

You also need to read this.

And an alternative site to the APN changer (but it neeeds an on line, eg WIFI connection) is Unlockit - APN Changer for your iPhone.

Hope this helps.

Daniel

Thanks, Cameron
:-)

I concur that the Carrefour people (in my case - the Prat branch) had no idea on how to install the SIM in my iPad or how to config it (ie - enter the APN settings).

But in my case they were very fast and helpful while purchasing and activating the SIM.

Since I had an iPad, I had to cut to size the regular SIM to microsim size, using a cutter I had previously purchased on eBay. The actual cutting process was straightforward.

Since I don't switch SIM cards on my iPad, I'm embarrassed to say it took me a couple of minutes to remember where the slot was, this was the greatest delay in the process.

After that I quickly found the APN in the manual provided with the card.
I was not able to browse, so I asked the sales person to verify that the SIM was indeed activated (and it was, I know this because I saw the 3G icon).

I then rechecked that I had properly entered the APN, and indeed, it was incorrectl (lowercase rather than uppercase). No user/password were required.

After correcting the APN, I was able to browse using 3G and had no further issues throughout the trip.

The only thing (apparently unrelated to Carrefour) was, as I wrote, that deep inside the various nature reserves we had no cellular coverage, neither with the iPad or with our own cellular phones (non-Spanish SIM cards).

The sales person was helpful in pointing out that if I paid only one more Euro, I would have a full month usage.

I do agree with Cameron that it is better to go to a specialist store, where they do this stuff for a living.
In my case it was not an option since we did not go straight to Barcelona from the airport, nor was there any The Phone House branch along our 1st day route.

And in our case our flight was 5 hours late, so this basically was the only viable option I had.