Andorra now a no-go area for mobile data users?
 

Andorra has only one mobile network - Mobiland. As a monopoly, it charges a whopping €60 for its prepaid SIM card which includes €60 of credit, and this expires after 7 months.

One way to get around this, at least for data, is to use a foreign SIM card such as Vodafone UK, which has always been one of the cheapest networks for data roaming, years before Vodafone Italy and Orange Spain started offering anything cheaper. Vodafone UK charges £2/day for 25MB/day but, according to this page, it is soon going to exclude Andorra from its Europe zone, which, according to this page, is because Mobiland has increased its wholesale charges. This being the case, I would expect others such as Vodafone Italy and Orange Spain to have no choice but to follow suit. If the wholesale charge is now too high for Vodafone UK to charge £80/GB, then it is unlikely that Orange Spain will be able to continue charging only €10/GB.

It appears that Mobiland is abusing its position as a monopoly to charge unreasonably high prices, both at a wholesale and retail level, which will soon leave visitors to Andorra with no choice but to be ripped off.

Or not use data there. Or not visit there.

That's what I meant by "no-go area"!

A few WiFi hotspots should be able to cover most of Andorra, no? ;)

As a tourist, I wouldn't use free wifi in Andorra.

I just read this on telegeography:

Andorra Telecom (STA) has deployed a Wi-Fi network that offers two levels of service for visitors and residents in Andorra, using Cisco’s Service Provider (SP) Wi-Fi platform, the vendor announced in a press release. The network provides a free basic connection for access to local, commercial and tourist data as well as a Premium Internet option, for accessing other web pages and applications. The network covers the central areas of Escaldes-Engordany and Andorra La Vella, which see the highest density of tourists. Cisco’s SP platform consists of Cisco ASR1000 access router, the Cisco Wireless LAN Controller and the Cisco Mobility Services Engine, which captures contextual information provided by Cisco Aironet Access Points. The Wi-Fi network also includes the Cisco Conencted Mobile Experience (CMX) platform with ThinkSmart, which the vendor claims provides greater intelligence and analytical capacity to offer customised services based on location: ‘This functionality makes it possible to offer contextual data about network usage to the Ministry of Tourism, with the aim of optimising the information and services for users, and it will also be possible for shops in the area to use it in the future, while safeguarding identity and privacy.’ TeleGeography’s GlobalComms Database notes that STA has raised the possibility of selling anonymised data gathered through its ‘Smart Country’ programme and is currently investigating ways to ensure that such data could not be abused to glean personal information. The Smart Country programme looks to partner STA with players from a range of sectors to make use of the availability of high-speed broadband connectivity to launch new and innovative services.

http://www.telegeography.com/product...orm/index.html

Just don't go to Andorra, there are beautiful mountains in many other places around the world, with much less hassles ;)

I've been within 20 kilometers of Andorra, but not made the effort to get closer.

I understand that one of the big reasons to go there is to buy cheap cigarettes.

I don't smoke.

There's plenty of cheap booze and petrol too.

I remember when I first went there in 2000 which was after the euro had been introduced but before euro banknotes and coins were issued. Restaurants in Andorra were still operating dual ESP and FRF prices, but didn't use the correct conversion rate (166.386 ÷ 6.55957 = 25.3653), and in fact each dish on a menu had a different conversion rate. This breached the rules of the euro which had been firmly laid down by the European Central Bank and European Commission whereby the legacy currencies such as ESP and FRF had become mere non-decimal denominations of EUR. Of course, nobody could enforce these conversion rates on Andorra because it is outside the EU. Likewise it now seems that despite most of Europe being about to abolish roaming charges and bring wholesale charges down to a reasonable level, Andorra is doing its own thing and going in the other direction. Despite their cheap booze and cigarettes, it doesn't strike me as a country of fair play.

Orange Spain has Andorra in the Zone 2 where there is no Go-Europe discount for data available. They charge 6,05€/500 KB for data in Andorra which is more than €12000/GB. Very good offer for EU/EEA countries but not really usable in other countries.

Many are tracking you and sell your data in aggregate; sometimes they are even going inside your connection messing with it, (nastily) re-compressing pictures and videos, etc (yes, Vodafone, I'm looking at you).

As my permanent connection I would probably object but right now just by looking at my mobile usage there isn't much they can gather from here, yea I'm using gmail and skype and google drive and download updates for apps from play store. All those connections are encrypted so anybody in between will only know when I connect and how much traffic I do, that's all. If I start doing a lot of random browsing yes, that might be worse but not much - for any "free wifi" not only the provider but also anyone in range can sniff your traffic. If I would be concerned about this I would use something like opera mini that does tunneling to their server or some normal VPN service (you can even use your home router for this, there are many cheap routers that support VPN).