Hello all,

I am already grateful for the advice I've found on this site regarding SIMs useable in more than one country.

Is it really the case--as the small number of posts (only 2 came up when I searched) on the subject would suggest--that there are no equivalent prepaid cards/plans for data transmission rather than voice. I'm happy to have found ways to make my in-country calls much more cheaply than T-Mobile offers in its tender mercy (and to be able to use the same card throughout Europe). But I'd be doubly happy if there were some way for me to use GPRS throughout Europe (or even country-by-country, if necessary) at rates lower than T-Mobile's international data roaming.

Any advice would be greatly appreciated.

Marc

GT-sim (see the threads on here) has gprs roaming to some countries at Euro 1c/kB (US$0.012/kB, I don't know how that compares with your T-mobile rate). They say the countries they cover so far (more "coming soon") are:

I've also used it for GPRS on Vodaphone Ireland and Manx Telecom, so that list is not complete.

Another option is a Virgin Mobile SIM from the UK, that has good GPRS roaming (more than the above) at a flat global rate of 0.5p/kB (US$0.00875/kB).

Hi RTuesday,

Thanks for the quick reply. For comparison, T-Mobile's international data roaming is priced at $0.015/KB in all countries besides Canada. So the GT-sim would be a small improvement; the Virgin Mobile a substantial one. Though neither is as good as the in-country data plan rates we can find here. (Mostly with pretty slow connections, it must be admitted.)

I'll look into Virgin.

Thanks again.

Marc

(It's silly, I know. But it gives me great pleasure--the Internet does these things, I'm aware--that this first reply came from the Isle of Man. I love it that these irreducible small outlying nations and counties--Liechtenstein, Iceland, Jersey, the Isle of Man--are such big players in telecommunications. And then there's also the fondness my wife had for her Manx cat when she was a young girl.)

Marc one good solution could be the Italian Wind prepaid card with the "Mega No-Limit" option: paying Eur 20.00 per month you get 1GB of data while in Italy, or 200MB while outside my homecountry. So it would be Eur 0.0001 per KB if you plan to use it all.

Salve Effendi,

Thanks very much for that tip. Now, that's a distinct improvement--especially those months I will be in Italia.

Tante cose.

Marc

Oh, if you plan to come to Italy that's really the best choice, 1GB for 20 euros is really good, and you can use it on UMTS network too. Wind is also upgrading its GSM network to use EDGE, just in these days I knew they started EDGE in some city in southern Italy, I hope very soon they will open it throughout the peninsula. Also because UMTS still have big problems (mainly for voice calls, not for data).

Did anyone try the EUR20 Wind data service in the US or Canada? EUR20 for 200MB is quite good for Canada. Is it a limited time or a permanent plan?

Yes, Wind has GPRS roaming agreements with both Rogers and Microcell (which are now the same thing, aren't they?), so you should use that option with no problem.

By now it's not permanent, July, 31st 2006 is the last day it can be activated for other 30 days, but we all hope they will let use use it for more...

This is great.

How can I get my hands on Wind card? Do any of their dealers ship overseas? Also can top-ups be purchased online with a non-italian credit card?

I fear the answer is no to both the questions, but it's better to ask Andrea, he know it much better than me! :D

No, but maybe someone :whistle: can buy a wind sim card for you B)

I don't know, but usually using a AM.EX. you can recharge everything in Italy. Maybe you can have troubles about that only with Visa or MasterCard.

Also for recharging you have to use http://www.mondowind.it; pay attention that it's only in italian language :(

Since we've gotten back on the subject of Wind's Internet service, it reminded me that I needed to use my Wind SIM to keep it active. When I did this, I had a problem because the WAP gateway I've been using (a friend's) is down. I wanted to confirm that it's still true that when you sign up for any of Wind's Internet plans (low or high usage) that you do not get access to Wind's WAP gateway, but must use a 3rd party gateway. If that's not true, what's the address of Wind's gateway?

Wind has 3 different rates for wap, i-mode and web. Honestly it has really little sense to use the first 2, which are higher, when you can do almost everything with the third. Anyway:
- Wap: wap.wind (? 0.03/KB)
- I-Mode: imode.wind (? 0.01/KB)
- Web: internet.wind (? 0.003/KB)

With the Mega No-Limit you get a forfait of ? 3000.00 per month and you can use al the 3 APNs, but of course you get 1GB/200MB with the web APN, while using the other 2 you get much less data included.

I'm signed up for the "Web" option, which for me sitting here in the US and only keeping my Wind account alive, is just fine. Is it possilble to use Wind's WAP gateway with this option? It used to be that you could only use a 3rd party gateway, such as the one my friend let me use. If so, what is the gateway address?

This plan sounds great.

I'm looking at the Prova Wind advert on the site - new customers who ask for the Passa a Wind service get doubled recharges of value on the SIM card - every month that the card is topped up, the same amount is added the next month, until the end of the year.

But it also says that you can keep your number, and the activation cost is waived - so does that mean this is this available only for customers switching in from another network?

So, another question or two. Would this doubled credit still be compatible with the Mega No-Limit plan? If so, and it is supposed to be only for people porting in, then does it make sense to buy a card on another network first?

If it does, someone owes me a drink. If not, apologies for my poor understanding of a foreign language - Google Italian-to-English.

It needs to be bought and activated by 20 February.

Yeah, "Prova Wind" is a promotion for the mobile number portability. Of course you can buy a Vodafone IT prepaid sim-card (they are on offer at 5 euros) and ask Wind the MNP with this promotion and you get double recharges. Once you move to Wind, keeping your Vodafone number, any time you recharge you get the recharged airtime at once, and then the following month you get the same recharged airtime once again, for free (max 50 euros per month; consider that 25 eur recharge has 20 eur of airtime). I have to inform myself, but I think there are no limitations in the free credit, so it should be "normal credit" which you can use for the Mega No-Limit option as well.
If you want to do that choose Vodafone since they are much better than TIM in "loosing" clients! :) And it's also cheaper by now.

Answering to DRNewcomb: if you want to use wap you have to use wap.wind, which is the official gateway. You can use it with the Mega NoLimit option, no problems, except that you pay 10 times more than with the web gateway. I don't know any 3rd party gateway which can be used paying the web rate. You can try the i-mode gateway as well, it's 3 times cheaper than wap and it could work for you.

Thanks, Effendi

I had forgotten previous remarks about ?5 of credit being taken off, but even so, it looks an interesting idea.

I have an internet friend who quite often stays in hotels on business. I was horrified when she mentioned recently that she gets charged ?15 per day for a dial-up connection.

I started wondering about a 3g datacard in the laptop, and looked on a couple of phone dealer websites. This was when I remembered having read about this Wind deal, and asked you about it (by coincidence, the day after they announced the extended promotion).

UK networks seem to have very expensive monthly deals for low usage - eg Vodafone nearly free rental but 80p per MB. But it gets better towards ?20 for 65MB with Orange or 100MB with T-mobile, ?25 for 250MB with Vodafone, ?45 for 1GB with Orange or Vodafone (all plus VAT) ......... and roaming deals are more expensive ....... all contract deals, so not very interesting for members here.

So this Wind deal looks an interesting option, especially as it isn't necessary to do it every month, although it would mean buying an unlocked card separately for ?100 or more, and hoping that Wind would extend the offer again. Do Wind's roaming agreements with most networks automatically include 3g, and is the tariff the same for GPRS use?

But I'm tempted to wonder if it is OK for a sort of hobby level, but maybe not for a businesswoman who says she isn't too technical, and if there isn't extensive 3g coverage everywhere yet [at my home, Orange is better than 3, and those are the only 2]. Apart from this case, I can see it being useful for other friends next summer.

Some of the datacards are so-called Fusion ones, with wi-fi as well. The mobile networks are setting up deals with wi-fi networks - I don't know if these data tariffs includes wi-fi use as well, or if this is charged on top - I've noticed mention of ?6 an hour, but hope that was a different deal. And I don't know if a laptop with separate wi-fi already installed would roam across different standards as easily as the fusion card.

I don't have a laptop myself yet, so I apologise if some of these remarks are at a rather naive level. So can I ask people here for experiences of using 3g data services with a laptop like this? Is it as easy as other network connections eg dial-up, broadband or wi-fi - just a couple of clicks to connect - how do the server arrangements work?


ps - I'd reckon on installing a compression accelerator like Onspeed, not so much for the extra speed, but to chop down the bandwidth used. Text gets compressed by a factor of 15 or 20. So 200MB a month really should be plenty, unless going mad on music and video.

The rates are the same for GPRS and 3G networks. Officially Wind has no 3G roaming agreements, but in reality it has. I can tell for sure that I could use 3G in both Germany and Austria, while if I'm not wrong AndreA used it in Switzerland and Belgium recently. I think also in the UK Wind has 3G agreements, surely with Three, but also with other operators. I think that all 2G agreements should include 3G as well in the nearby future.

Wi-fi data cards are a good choice, and I think wi-fi is the best deal in many hotels, airports and public places. Here in Italy we still have very little access points in cities, but abroad it's much different, and not hard to find some free public access.

Andy, what is your friend's useages. Nokia is coming out with a Blackberry killer which is 850/900/1800/1900 + 2100hz UMTs. It also includes EDGE and wifi. I cannot tell whether it supports 3g. I find its reference ambiguous. Clearly, it supports 3g voice. I just cannot tell about data.

http://www.phonescoop.com/phones/phone.php?p=834

Boingo offers a good PAYG wifi spot service which you can combine with this service with good international roaming. If you combine this service with a PAYG data chip, it might prove a great laptop alternative which can be tethered to a laptop in a pinch.

I'll just ask my friend if he can reactivate his WAP gateway. It may just be that his Linux gateway PC has a new IP address.