EU roaming data SIM
 

Hi. I'm one of many contributors of the WIKI prepaidwithdata.
There we are frequently updating prepaid data options for every country.

After the EU price cap on roaming data was lowered to 0.20 EUR per MB, I was looking around for good inter-EU data options. But still there are very hard to find.

The basic idea is a really European one: Why not take a SIM card from any country which has very low roaming rates and use it as data card in Europe. For a data SIM the number or origin is not so important as for voice or text.

As I'm a frequent traveller annoyed with the 30 something national SIMs I have already bought, I sucessfully tested two SIMs in the last months.

The Mundo SIM of Orange Spain with the Go Europe option and a Three UK SIM with the Feel at Home option.

See my article: http://prepaidwithdata.wikia.com/wiki/European_Union

I'd appreciate if this forum can give more suggestions for other SIMs too. The Mundo SIM I actually discovered thanks to this thread here: http://www.prepaidgsm.net/forum/showthread.php?t=8459

Btw. has anybody got any idea how to break this "geo-lock" of Three UK with top-ups? Is there a way to top up Three UK SIMs without being in Britain or having UK-issued credit card for people "overseas"? Neteller, Entropay, UK-prepaid gift cards? Or are there only these shady agencies charging 20% surcharge?

O2 UK: £1.99 a day for 50 MB

T-mobile UK: £1 for 20 MB for 24 hours (or £3 for 100 MB)

Meteor Ireland: €0.99 for 50 MB a day

Orange Spain: €1 for 100 MB a day

Alditalk Germany: €4.99 for 150 MB for a week

Lidl Germany: €4.99 for 150 MB for a week

Base Belgium: €15 for 500 MB for a month (offer during July and August)

Very nice guide! As far as online recharge is concerned, I regularly top-up using my German VISA on the Orange.es web page without any problem. It has Verifyed by VISA functionality enabled. www.recarga.com, tusaldo.com and topup.orange.com/ are alternative possibilities. Some of them require Spanish IP which should not be a problem using Orange Mundo SIM as Data card to access the top-up page.

There are two more offers that might be interesting for some users:
Vodafone Italy: 500 MB + 25/25 minutes/day @ 3 EUR (47 countries)
Simobil Slovenia: 500 MB+1000 minutes+1000 SMS/day @ 2,99 EUR (EU/EEA)
http://www.prepaidgsm.net/forum/arch...hp/t-8467.html
http://www.prepaidgsm.net/forum/showthread.php?t=8472

Thanks @Andy and @peterdoo for your suggestions.

Most of the offers Andy mentioned are more expensive than domestic data and most have a catch, so I need to revise my rules :-(

UK-cards: It's practically impossible to top up an UK SIM card from abroad without an UK-registered credit card, only top-up vouchers go, but are not available abroad. That's a big problem not entering the country for foreigners. Very dubious agencies charge you 20% extra.

German Cards: Germany is not so restrictive about top-ups and credit cards, but the Aldi and Lidl offers are very exclusively sold at their supermarket stores. You hardly find them on ebay.de or other platforms to be shipped abroad. Dealers wont sell them like independent SIMs (e.g. Lyca or Lebara) and private persons only when not yet registered.

Thanks to Peterdoo, I read your comments on Telefon-Treff too:

I will revise the strict rule about spanish credit cards only to top up Orange on their site to a more flexible statement about some international cards too.

With Vodafone Italy and their very interesting offer I don't see any way to get them out of Italy or to be sent from Italy without a "Code fiscali" registration. So you must go to Italy physically first. There used to be the distribution via the "Europasim" clone, but this has been closed. Are there any distributors left? With them, top-ups are not a problem with PalPal on the VF Italy site.

For Simobil from Slovenia which really looks good too: No registration, no restrictions. Only a small brand. Has anyone already made it to have a Simpl SIM sent from Slovenia, enable the "Tarifa EU NESKONČNO" from abroad (= is the activation SMS accepted out of a roaming network?). What are the top-up choices? How long stays the SIM alive?

Sorry for my curiosity, guys. But I don't like to post SIMs which are not verified by users. And the telcos put up a lot of hurdles just to buy any European SIM card, use it for roaming and recharge it again.

Still, we have a long way to go in Europe....

Thanks to your help I updated the site:
//prepaidwithdata.wikia.com/wiki/European_Union

I hope that we will have more offers soon. But no company came out with new offers when the new data cap of the EU took effect. They are still very strong in "preventing" the use of their products out of their home markets but still making the extra money for EU roaming from their loyal customers.

This whole roaming situation is a good example how "Europe" still sucks :chair: As a good European I hope for the better collecting SIM cards in the meantime.

And also TIM Italy has the "TIM in Viaggio Pass" offer, slightly different from that of Vodafone IT. The preference depends on individual needs:

http://www.tim.it/estero/tim-in-viaggio-pass

10 Euro
7 days
500 Mb
125 minutes calls in
125 minutes calls out
250 SMSs
APN: wap.tim.it

Vodafone caters for brief stays and allows more data and calls each (calendar!) day at a slightly higher daily cost.

TIM gives a lower average daily allowance but lasts a week (it should be a real week, but from very recent personal experience I would say that is more like a calendar week, whatever they might telly at the call centre or you can read on their site) and if resources are managed wisely, switching to wifi when available, it can end up being cheaper and more convenient to use.
I managed to stay well in the limits by using this strategy.

In theory no tethering or PC connections.
In practice, at this very moment it works with no problems, until any limits gets really enforced.

I have no definite choice here. I use both options depending on what I am going to do and how long I stay abroad. It is an individual choice to be made.

Warning: switch off the "TIM in Viaggio Full" option which is automatically activated every time with the "TIM in Viaggio Pass" option, in order not to get "ripped off" in case you go beyond the allowance.

Sleepy

Not prepaid and only for business customers with minimum 5 lines, however it shows, how the market is developing and that there still is a huge margin for lower tariffs from the other operators:

Orange Spain now offers a tariff with:
1000 minutes (the sum of in+out) in the EU/EEA+Switzerland+USA+China to all these countries per month.
1GB (incl. 4G where available) in the EU/EEA+Switzerland+USA+China per month.
29,25€+VAT per month.

There are more minutes and GB available inside Spain, however I am not mentioning that as we focus on roaming here.

http://www.orange.es/descubre/empres...OMO_CODE=23001

Peter,

With respect to Orange.ES, my concern would be what happens when the SIM is rarely used in the home country. Many companies have a fair use test based on this. For example, TMobile USA has throttled in 100 countries, but if your SIM isn't used in the US primarily they pull the plug. I had a Canadian friend who bluffed them into giving him a contract SIM (which paid for) and only used it on his foreign travels (switching it off in Canada). After 60 days, TMobile pulled the plug.

Hungary SIMs
 

There are more ways to get data roaming at relatively fair price with Hungarian SIM cards also:

1. Buy a T-Mobile prepaid card and top it up. You need to register for a SIM in the huge stores, gas stations etc. (cards bought there will not work without activation) but you can go to smaller GSM shops in Budapest (the ones sell second-hand phones as well) and can ask for an activated prepaid SIM card. Some of the sellers are really nice and surprisingly have some of those activated cards on stock.

Activate roaming:
*104#

After that you can use the Travel and surf option (send the text "+SURFS" or "+SURFM" or +"SURFL" to the 1430 number)
You can use the +36 30 3444 888 number from abroad instead of 1430 also.

For your information: 1€ = appr. 300 HUF

Data roaming plans:
Travel & Surf S: 690 HUF/10MB data in EU (+Norwegia, Iceland, Andorra and Liechtenstein)

Travel & Surf M: 1490 HUF/50MB data in EU (+Norwegia, Iceland, Andorra and Liechtenstein)

Travel & Surf L: 6990HUF/250MB data in EU (+Norwegia, Iceland, Andorra and Liechtenstein)

Travel & Surf works for 100 countries anyway, not only in the EU.

If you want to call T-Mobile Hungary in English:
Call 1777 and press 9 for English

If you want to use data in Hungary read this:
http://www.t-mobile.hu/english/mobilinternet

Now, as we need to realize that we are going to see roaming charges for the rest of our lives in Europe, I again reworked the WIKI section on EU roaming SIM cards.

Some of the feedback of the users here was incorporated. I'd appreciate your comments here or there:
http://prepaid-data-sim-card.wikia.c...European_Union

Orange Mundo - Go Europe
 

Hi,
does any of you happened to be using the Go Europe option from Orange.es? I just bought myself a prepaid Mundo SIM card and logged into my account to activate the Go Europe option, only to find that I am using a tarif called "tu Mundo" and this costs 1,21€ monthly. (!!!)
Has anyone experienced having to pay for the monthly fee already? :(

Thanks

Hi. I'm not sure if they really debit the €1.21 miminum consumption for prepaid. They used to do this only for contract customers. But there is a safe way to "park" your SIM without a monthly base rate, if you have still positive balance. Simply change it to their Ardilla (= squirrel) plan. This clearly has sin cuotas mensuales (no monthly charges). If you are using it on roaming only for data, you can stay on this plan instead of Mundo. The Go Europe option can be activated here too. Only for Spanish (= domestic) packages (and foreign calls out of Spain) Mundo offers much better rates. Changing plans is free anytime through your personal account miOrange and go to mi tarifa - cambiar tarifas.

As wolfbln mentioned, Orange has a same name tariff for postpaid contracts. On some places they use wrong links to that postpaid option also on prepaid. Do not worry. There is no monthly charge on prepaid mundo.

I recharged 10 euros in february on orange.es. They sent two codes for recarga y gana. Each one entered on that website gave 10 euros of promotional saldo.

I used the promotional saldo to book a spanish data plan. That way the SIM is LTE capable. Now I only have to take care that I do not refill so much that the saldo will stay below the amount required for another monthly data package.

thanks Wolfbln for the very interesting information!!
I've been using Vodafone Italy's SIM for years, and still have the €3 per day option. I only get 200Mb a day with that now, and that's not enough!
I would like to go to the 1GB option for 6 euros, but do not know how I can dial in to their new address, web.omnitel.it, since the dongle automatically dials in. Their English is just not good enough to help explain how to do that.
But it looks like I'll have to give that another try...

I found a GOOD solution now through wereldwijdwifi.nl
Maybe not the cheapest per GB, but you ONLY pay when you use it, and the GBs you don't use up, stay valid for a year. No more worries about not using up the monthly GBs you've paid for.
And no more obscure messages or warnings in Italian either.

And no, I do not have an interest in their business, am just SO relieved!!

It's interesting to see that the internatl. SIM card sellers in Europe are starting to get in panic and are lowering their prices.

This Dutch SIM card is actually a KeepGo SIM which is sold more expensively in the rest of the world:
https://www.keepgo.com/pages/europe_sim_card

Some considerations:
1) 1GB at €25 is expensive when you consider that Vodafone in the Netherlands sells 1GB EU data on regular prepaid at €10 valid for 1 month.

2) The major difference is that Keepgo/wereldwijdwifi has a 1 year validity for the data credit. So it can be used for lower volumes and at several occations/trips.

3.) But in about 8 months (that's July 2017) all roaming surcharges will be banned in the EU (within a possible FUP). This will dry up the whole EU market for these products. They can still try to sell them overseas, but I don't think that users will be so stupid.

So what's the use in spending in a long-term solution, when the rules are going to be changed (again) soon?

A few days ago Three UK extended its list of Feel at Home countries to cover all EU/EEA

So data bundle options can be used all over Europe and some other countries same cost as in UK, and this includes the Data Reward SIM with 200 MB a month free.

FreedomPop has just launched a new roaming product, most but not all EU countries plus USA, with optional paid bundles of calls texts and data, or a modest one free, with larger trial bundle free in the first month. I have a query in with them to ask if this can be ordered by people in other countries. Edit: answer no.

It seems to be very difficult to get FP's data only roaming SIM, but I was told this new one could be used in a router if someone wanted to.

Will they have a flat rate for overage GBs which would vitiate the FUP?

the FUP they are discussing says that you can have up to 90 days of roaming per year or 30 days in a row.
Excluded from the counting will be cross-border people who swap between home and roaming networks every day.
The data allowance corresponds to your local contract. so if you buy 1 GB you can use 1 GB also in Roaming etc.

Jean-Claude Juncker has stopped the latest proposal of Fair Use Policy. So as of now there seem to be no limitations of roaming within the EU. But, who knows...

There is already a new proposal. It talks about no limits. However at the same time it seems to give the decision about when one gets over the limit to the operators:

http://europa.eu/rapid/press-release_IP-16-3111_en.htm

After purchasing your own MiFi or SIM card can be purchased at any time data bundles. You buy credit data through our site which is valid for one year. On our site you can see exactly how much data you have left and how long it is valid. If you have some data have on your account and you buy a new data bundle, then everything is again valid for one year.


The advantages

- Cheap internet travel

- With multiple devices simultaneously online (up to 8 simultaneously)

- Data remains stable for as long as you have a new bundle 1x annually buys

- One bundle for all EU countries + Norway, Switzerland

- No subscription, you only pay for what you use

- Unlimited warranty on your MiFi as long as you use our EU sim

- Telephone support in case of problems, including weekends

- 4G as it's available at your destination



Where does it work?

Belgium, Bulgaria, Cyprus, Denmark, Estonia, Finland, France, French Guyana, Greece, Guadeloupe, Guernsey, Hungary, Ireland, Italy, Latvia, Liechtenstein, Lithuania, Luxembourg, Malta, Martinique, Netherlands, Norway , Poland, Portugal, Romania, San Marino, Slovakia, Slovenia, Spain, Czech Republic, United Kingdom, Sweden, Switzerland


When purchasing your Mi-Fi (€ 79.95) or EU sim (€ 24.95) you get all free 1 GB of data. If you need more, you can easily purchase additional credit data at any time. So go. Your logs in on the site with your customer number and then pay safely using iDEAL, credit card or PayPal. You can choose from the following data bundles:

500 MB (€ 15)

1GB (€ 25)

3 GB (€ 57) - € 19 per GB

5 GB (€ 90) - € 18 per GB

10GB (€ 170) - € 17 per GB



Google Translate does not like some of the website pages, but there is the just of it :) http://wereldwijdwifi.nl/kopen/

Some Americans are apparently buying Vodafone NL You SIM which are preactivated on eBay.

http://www.ebay.com/itm/Vodafone-YOU...-/282438519767

So it covers a lot of countries in Europe and for $7 you can hit the ground running, sort of.

You first have to top up, which may or may not work with US credit card.

And the top ups aren't that attractive, €15 for 1 GB?

the SIM includes some potential expensive destination like Switzerland, so the rates are OK for today.
After june ths year you will be able to use cheaper SIM as then all cards must include EU roaming (or block roaming in general)

Ah true, but the EU roaming doesn't include Switzerland or Norway?

That varies. Norway is EEA and always included in EU roaming. The EEA adopts EU rules and consists of Iceland, Norway and Liechtenstein.

Switzerland is different. Some providers include it, others don't as it's not mandatory. It actually varies with the same provider according to country:
For instance Vodafone in the UK includes Switzerland, Turkey, and Albania on a voluntary basis, Vodafone Netherlands includes Switzerland too, but Vodafone Germany which is neighboring Switzerland don't. All Italian and Austrian providers exclude Switzerland too. Vodafone Spain has actually included the US !!! to their EU Roam like home zone.

So this is what we can expect when the UK will eventually leave the EU/EEA. It will be treated like Switzerland and this is very variable. In Germany operators have changed their T&Cs for the case one member leaves the EU. So many will put it to their out-of-Europe-cat.

The rush for Vodafone NL as a roaming SIM is partly because of our recommendation in the prepaid-data-Wiki. But we will take it off in June as there will be many more choices with "roam like (at) home" implemented. In a few days I will give here an update about the implementation.

I'm collecting the new roaming rates from EU providers. The "roam like at home" principle with roaming rates equal to domestic rates will face some restrictions. Not according to where you roam, but where the SIM card is issued. As it looks like we have 3 groups of countries in the EU/EEA:
1.) those that adopt Roam like at home without restrictions or any FUP like UK, Germany, Netherlands, Spain, Czech Rep.....
2.) those that restrict large data packages from which only a part is given out at domestic rates like Italy, Ireland, France, Austria, Sweden ....
3.) those that opt-out completely and still will surcharge roaming under the derogation FUP like Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania and Poland

It looks like that Roam like at home will not be available to about 100 million users in the countries of 3.) But we need to wait a little bit more to see more roaming plans coming in for this summer and how the national regulators decide about the applications for the derogation.