??? DATA SIM ??? - Cruising 32 ports - from Baltic thru Med
 

Hi all,

I will be doing 42 days, 32 port stops thru the Baltic and down thru the Med. As far north as Helsinki, and down and around the northern Med, and over to Instanbul.

It would be nice to have a data sim (or 2).

I have an unlocked Galaxy Note (GSM 850 / 900 / 1800 / 1900, HSDPA 850 / 1900 / 2100, LTE 700 MHz Class 17 / 1700 / 2100)

I have done a bit of reading from you Pro's here, and it appears Piranha is the way to go.

I would like to use a voip app or 2?

??? What would you Pro's suggest ???

!!! Thanks in advance !!!

What are you looking for? Data or voice and how much of each?

For best offshore data coverage you would need a device that supports UMTS (aka HSDPA or 3G) on the 900MHz band which your phone unfortunately doesn't. That means your choice of networks is limited to those using GSM900, GSM1800 and UMTS2100. The earlier two are pretty slow when it comes to data, especially in coastal waters with many martime users and the latter has a pretty high frequency thus a short signal range which will cause coverage to deteriorate quickly once you set sails.

I was hoping for just data, lots of it, and fast; for on shore during the 32 port visits.

A little slow data, is better than no data at all,

and wiFi sniffing is not so much fun.

What do you recommend I do inquisitor?

I'll also be traveling in Baltics in summer, will mostly use Piranha for calling, but in some countries can be expensive for data
Two data only sims to check out: Roamline is good for EU, and Abroadband for non-EU countries. Will use in a Mifi device (so get one with all the right frequencies!)
Also just got an O2 sim, which has a good roaming data rate in Europe, 2 pounds (GBP) for 25 MB, so actually much cheaper than roamline.

According to this thread O2 UK (25MB for £2/day), Vodafone UK (25MB for £2/day) and Europasim (50MB for €3/day) are among the cheapest deals for data within the EU. Unfortunately there's still no affordable offer for heavier data usage.

In any case you should consider taking two or more SIM cards along so you always have an alternative if one of your SIMs doesn't work in a specific country or you run out of your daily data allowance.

On my last cruise in the Baltic Sea four years ago I first noticed that my Vodafone UK SIM was not charged for inbound calls using the onboard GSM network (run by Icelandic "On-Waves") despite it should have costed at least £ 1.50/min and then in St Petersburg I placed an hour long call to Germany with a German prepaid SIM that had just a few cents credit left, so this call obviously was not billed either. Playing a bit around and monitoring balances saved me a couple hundred bucks, which I wouldn't have spent anyway if those numerous and long calls would have been charged. ;-) So sometimes it's really worth to travel with multiple SIM cards.

!!! Fantastic !!!

So what affordable pre-owned Ebay acquired MiFi device is recommended for the entire European data enjoying experience?

Some observations.
 

Some observations.
1. Have multiple SIMs. 'One will always be better.' Perhaps it will work when others do not. Or be cheaper.
2. The MiFi idea is good. As the david the prof said:
3. Have you verified the on-board 'at sea' cost of data??
It will only work at sea but it might be useful and cost effective at times.
4. There is a chance that inbound SMS at sea will be free.
And outbound SMS might not be bad for short messages.
5. Find out what rates are charged for at sea for all your SIM cards. Perhaps one is sufficiently better that it might prove useful.
6. All the research and preparation will prepare you and perhaps will pay off. BUT, don't be surprised if some of the things you find out in your research turn out not to be factual or true. Trust, but verify!

Finally, assuming you are not a part of the crew, a MiFi and 3 or 4 SIMs spread out over 32 ports can be pretty cost effective for you needs.

Also, please take notes and share the results of your adventure!

as to 2.
Unfortunately I still haven't seen any MiFi that supports all the global UMTS frequency bands. Instead they either support American bands (850 and 1900MHz and/or 1700/2100MHz) plus the short-ranged European frequency (2100MHz) or only European ones (900 and 2100MHz). The only devices that besides both European frequencies support at least one American one are one specific version of the Huawei E583C and the Vodafone R201 (an OEM device also built by Huawei), which support UMTS900 and UMTS2100 for Europe and UMTS1900 (the latter being used in urban regions by AT&T and T-Mobile in the US).
So if you want a device that will be useable back in the States, look for the Huawei E583C with UMTS 900/1900/2100-configuration or the Vodafone R201 (which comes unlocked and will work on any network).
The other issue is that you will hardly find an American seller who sells MiFis targeted for the European market. So you'll probably need to order a device from Europe or Asia if you want UMTS900-support which would provide best coverage during your trip, especially in the Nordic countries.
This is the only seller of the Vodafone R201 I could find on eBay.com:
Portable Vodafone Huawei R201 HSUPA 3G WiFi Router Tri Band Supported | eBay

Another interesting SIM card for roaming in Europe is toogle mobile who offer very low voice rates in all those European countries from which they offer local numbers that can be activated free of charge for 30-day periods (so-called "toggle countries"). With toggle you could receive calls free of charge and you could call home to the US for just £0.03/min while you get a signal from German, Danish, Swedish or Polish networks. And once you sail down to the Med you would also get these low rates while you pass Dutch, British, French, Spanish and Italian waters (after you've activated local numbers from these countries which is all done easily online before you depart).
Toggle have had plans to offer cheap data bundles for all those "toggle countries" for quite a while which may become a reality before you board the vessel.

The O2 UK sim claims that you can add £2/day multiple times in one day. A bit of a pain, but cheap! (again, only EU).
Avoid using on-board data if possible, usually very slow, expensive, and I found my various sims never register with on-board network anyway.

Thanks, Inquisitor, for your expertise on frequencies - been using a Zoom We3G, which has served me well, might have been Edge speeds in some places. Looking to upgrade, so will look at your Huawei E583C suggestion.

Be careful with the Huawei E583C as it seems to be sold in at least three different frequency configurations:

• UMTS 900/1900/2100
• UMTS 900/2100
• UMTS 1700/2100 (FCC ID QISE583C-52)

A bit offtopic, but there's at least one MiFi type device that covers all five UMTS frequencies (850/900/1700/1900/2100MHz) and that's the Huawei E587u-5. It was available from both Telus in Canada for CDN$150 and T-Mobile in the US for $200. The T-Mobile version was rebranded as a T-Mobile Sonic 4G).

Some dealers still sell it: Buy Unlocked T-Mobile Sonic 4G Mobile HotSpot 4G Router | Huawei UMG587 | E587u-5 | 4GSource.net Wholesale Shop

From discussions I had with a Vodafone Europe rep a few weeks ago, it is unlikely that Toggle will be able to offer the kind of mobile data deals that members on here will be looking for.

Discount voice is not a problem - with data there are a lot of politics and red tape involved.

+Steve :)

Vodafone UK also has a 100MB rate which is not very well published:

• £8 for 100MB in Europe
• £25 for 100MB outside Europe

Vodafone's definition of Europe includes not only the EEA but also closely connected and enclaved countries and territories as well as Croatia and Bosnia.

Thanks. That's a neat device, which I wasn't aware of. I hate Huawei for having such a fragmented product portofolio - at least product names seem to finally indicate those different frequency configurations:
E587u-2 UMTS900/2100
E587u-5 UMTS850/900/1700/1900/2100

Two additional products come to mind
- ATT Prepaid data sim - ATT Prepaids Now Support International Data Roaming Buckets - FlyerTalk Forums
- "Three like home" to utilize one data bucket in Italy, Ireland, Sweden, Denmark, Austria, & Hong Kong.

I recently sailed on a transatlantic from Miami to Rome, stopping in Spain, Italy, & France. Then I spent a layover in Vienna and time in Lisbon. Here's my findings in case you travel to some of these countries.

My strategy:
For voice, I used Piranha and Piranha VOIP when I could find a free wifi signal (usually in a mall).

For data, use wifi and get local sims when I'd have the chance to consume large buckets of data. Otherwise use Vodafone UK sim for data bucket.
Use ship's wifi for crossing from 7-9 pm and after 11 pm when the sky is clear. Most people get on wifi during the day and disconnect during dinner.

Shortest amount of time needed to buy a SIM - possibly 15 min. Longest - Vodafone Spain ~ 1 hr to receive data package activation notice (associate called CS, too, and possibly added some more details to the account). Only place which didn't add the data package without using SIM included credit - Vodafone Spain. They added the credit and purchased the package via the phone. All others added the data bucket to the sim, leaving credit available on SIM.

@Spain
Bought Vodafone Spain for 1.2 GB bucket for < 20 EUR, speeds < 7 Mbps for me. 2G worked a good distance off shore (15 min sailing out from port). No tethering allowed. Clockwork Tether did work. Passport Requested.

@France
Used Vodafone UK 25 GB. I think I saw 2-4 of the major carriers for roaming (Orange, SFR, Bouygues, etc). I think autoselect used Orange for me? Would have expected SFR as a Vodafone partner.
Bought an SFR French sim for family with the prepaid 1 month 300MB data. They said it never connected correctly in Nexus 7 Tablet in Paris. Passport Req.

@Italy
Picked up a TIM Italy sim for 500 GB bucket TIMxSMARTPHONEMAXI. Didn't get > 3 Mbps despite using it in a Verizon iPhone 5 (HSPA+ in Florence). Tether Ok. Passport Req.

@Vienna
Used Vodafone UK 25 GB. Took > 15 minutes to register to a network, longer than what I experienced in France.

@Lisbon
TMN shop couldn't sell me a SIM. FNAC electronic store had Vodafone Pt prepaid sim 1GB bucket for ~15 EUR. It is capped to 1Mbps down but TMN's prepaid bucket was only 250 MB. I still managed to use over 600 MB in 4 days. Tether Ok. No Passport Req.

@Sea
The satellite connection was via OnWaves and my Icelandic prepaid Siminn sim did pick up a voice signal but didn't seem to connect to data. Vodafone UK didn't get a voice or data signal. Vodafone ES might not have gotten a voice or data signal at sea. I believe Italian TIM did roam with voice to OnWaves but it was in the Med. sea and mostly close enough to land.

I also topped up my Vodafone UK sim at WH Smith while on a layover at Heathrow. Also got a data bucket Freebee top up bonus almost instantly after top up.