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drama queen (Offline)
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Default Austria Prepaid Data - update - 25-07-2014, 23:03

Some updates on Prepaid data options in Austria.

On arriving in Vienna airport there was a stall selling Vectone SIMs for €10. This was convenient as it was a Sunday, and shops in Austria are closed - so I bought one. Vectone is an MVNO off the T-Mobile network which is the 2nd best network in Austria. The guy on the stall claimed the data was "unlimited". I pressed him for a FUP or cap - but he said there wasn't one. Research on their website afterwards suggests that there is a 3GB FUP - but this is still quite good. I used about 2.5GB in the week - so I didn't get to find out if the FUP kicks in at 3GB.

Overall performance was generally good. However, there is one really annoying feature in Austria - all the networks seem to have 2G national roaming, and since A1 (Austria Telecom) have the best network - your phone keeps jumping to A1 to get the best 2G signal. I didn't want voice, and 2G data is very poor - so I set my phone to WCDMA only to avoid it jumping back to A1 2G. The roaming agreement doesn't work for 3G - so this ensures that you stay on your own network. It worked much better after that.

The SIM also came with free on-net Vectone calls/texts and some Austrian & International calls/texts - but I didn't need these.

Another member of my group got a Hofer SIM card - "Complete" starter pack - €14.90 in a Hofer(Aldi) store. This worked even better than my Vectone card - but had a cap of 1.5GB on it. It was on the A1 network - so coverage was better than my Vectone card on T-Mobile.

Avoid the 3 network in Austria - like most other countries, 3 usually has the worst coverage.
   
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