Prepaid data (3G/HSPA) in Slovenia

[Effendi]

A dear friend of mine lives in Italy at the very border with Slovenia. There's no DSL connection there and also Italian carriers have all quite bad coverage, except Wind, but only with GPRS (not even EDGE). At the same time SI Mobitel and SI Mobil have good 3G coverage there.

Do you know if there's any prepaid offer (she cannot make a contract since she's Italian) for a data-only sim to use for fast internet?
On their websites I couldn't understand much, but maybe some of you had some experience there...

[Aclan]

Any news in this subject? I will be traveling to Slovenia at the end of April and it would be nice to stay connected to the world. Unfortunately, all the data services in Slovenia I can find are ridiculously expensive (like 20€/10 days packet with Mobitel), and most of the interesting (=cheap to buy) prepaid offers (izi-mobil, tušmobil) seem to have none (and the basic tariff is 0.5€/MB.

It is really annoying since in neighboring Croatia mobile internet is very cheap (under 5€/300MB valid for 30 days).

Does anyone know how far the 3G signal from Trieste reaches into Slovenian teritory? I have an active Italian SIM I could use as a last-resort alternative...)

[Effendi]

Prepaid data offers in Slovenia are really high and only available on Mobitel and SiMobil. It's strange since their postpaid offers are rather good, but the prepaid ones really not.

Italian coverage is rather limited since the border is quite mountaineous. Koper has no Italian coverage, while you can get some in Izola or Piran (which should have rather good Croatian signal too). The only town in Slovenia which has rather good coverage from Italian operators is Nova Gorica. Where in Slovenia are you going? Maybe you can get free wifi.

[sakr]

You should not really rely on Italian coverage in Piran. Last year in June, during my short visit in this beautiful town, I was not able to log in to any Italian network, although the signal seemed to be quite strong. The reason for this might be too large distance (the limit for GSM is about 35km) or too much interference from Slovenian, Croatian and other Italian GSM base stations. There might be some spots well screened from other interfering signals where you could log in to Italian networks, however definetly this does not apply to the whole town.
It was slightly better with Croatian networks. As far as I remember as I was able to log in to at least one of them (either Vip or T-Mobile, I'm not sure now), however I also don't expect it to work very well everywhere. It was just fine next to the coast, nearby the charming old white church.

[Effendi]

Exactly, I was in Piran last saturday and I tried to register on Wind by the church on the hill but without success. Searching for networks I could see all Italian and Croatian networks, as well as Slovenian ones. I think it should be easier with Croatian ones since Savudrija is surely much closer than Grado or Trieste (and Croatian operators usually work with much higher power than Italian ones), but I did not test it since I prefer to roam on EU operators