Data Roaming

[warblentnl]

Hello dudes!

Im from brazil, and im going to Europe in september.

First country to visit will be Spain, then i will go to france, italy, germany, france again, england and finally holland.

I really need to use DATA (3G or Edge), so i need one sim card with cheap roaming taxes

So, my question is: How can i buy a "pay as you go" sim card to use in Europe?

I need to buy it before i travel to Europe, so delivery to brazil is necessary.

Btw, i know that probably vodafone italy and T-mobile are the best in prices, but i need to know if they delivery it to brazil.

Thanks!

[weekilter]

Originally Posted by warblentnl

Hello dudes!

Im from brazil, and im going to Europe in september.

First country to visit will be Spain, then i will go to france, italy, germany, france again, england and finally holland.

I really need to use DATA (3G or Edge), so i need one sim card with cheap roaming taxes

So, my question is: How can i buy a "pay as you go" sim card to use in Europe?

I need to buy it before i travel to Europe, so delivery to brazil is necessary.

Btw, i know that probably vodafone italy and T-mobile are the best in prices, but i need to know if they delivery it to brazil.

Thanks!

If you're going to several countries you should probably get an international SIM. With international SIMs you're going to get a cheaper rate than if you roamed from one country to another. However, it's still not going to be cheap. As far as getting the SIM before you leave you can contact companies such as Telestial but you will pay a hefty premium for the convenience factor to have the card sent to you. On the prepaidgsm.net site there is a section for international cards. Check there. It would probably be cheaper to get a prepaid SIM in each country rather than use an international SIM. If you get the card within the EU it will likely cost you €10 for the initial SIM plus some starter time.

[kuba.g]

How much data do you expect to use?

As all the countries you want to visit are included in Vodafone-roaming-packages the three most obvious offers to look into would be:

- Vodafone Italy: €2,50/day for 50MB, €1/MB afterwards (LINK)
- Vodafone Ireland: €2,99/day for 50MB, not sure how much afterwads (LINK)
- Blau Germany: €4,99/week for 50MB, can be bought as frequently as you like (LINK)

With the Vodafone offers your main problem is when you use up the 50MB. Then you get charged the normal rip-off rates ! With Blau you don't have this problem, but the package is a bit more expensive, but it's valid for a whole week.

So you need to think about what amounts of data you are planning to use.

If you get problems with the shipping to Brazil, let me know. We're here to help each other after all

[drama queen]

Originally Posted by kuba.g

How much data do you expect to use?

As all the countries you want to visit are included in Vodafone-roaming-packages the three most obvious offers to look into would be:

- Vodafone Italy: €2,50/day for 50MB, €1/MB afterwards (LINK)
- Vodafone Ireland: €2,99/day for 50MB, not sure how much afterwads (LINK)
- Blau Germany: €4,99/week for 50MB, can be bought as frequently as you like (LINK)

With the Vodafone offers your main problem is when you use up the 50MB. Then you get charged the normal rip-off rates ! With Blau you don't have this problem, but the package is a bit more expensive, but it's valid for a whole week.

So you need to think about what amounts of data you are planning to use.

If you get problems with the shipping to Brazil, let me know. We're here to help each other after all

Vodafone Ireland have an interesting offer at the moment - free data roaming anywhere in Europe. It is not just restricted to Vodafone countries or networks. This means you can get data throughout Europe for Irish prepaid rate 0.99c per day - up to 50MB and €1 per MB over 50MB. probably the best rates available across Europe at the moment. Minimum online topup is €10 so you can have 500MB over 10 days for €10. Each day you use Internet, credit is decremented by 0.99c

If you combine this with the Meteor Ireland free voice roaming these two Irish SIMs will let you roam Europe with minimum roaming costs. Hard to beat these Irish offers.

[andy]

Originally Posted by drama queen

Vodafone Ireland have an interesting offer at the moment - free data roaming anywhere in Europe. It is not just restricted to Vodafone countries or networks. This means you can get data throughout Europe for Irish prepaid rate 0.99c per day - up to 50MB and €1 per MB over 50MB.

I'm not sure I understand this. The rate used to be 99 cents a day, but increased last winter to €2.99 a day, and that's what the website appears to say at the moment. Is there a reduction again, somewhere I can't find?

[drama queen]

Originally Posted by andy

I'm not sure I understand this. The rate used to be 99 cents a day, but increased last winter to €2.99 a day, and that's what the website appears to say at the moment. Is there a reduction again, somewhere I can't find?

The 99c rateis for a voice/ SIM that allows up to 50MBdata per day.The 2.99 rate is for a data only SIM intended for dongles.

ttp://www.vodafone.ie/offers/free-data-roaming/

I am using the 99c rate travelling in Europe at the moment-it works fine. You can also get a €20 for 30 days rate - advantage plus.

[inquisitor]

You assume Vodafone are always paying those € 0.50/MB set by the EU to foreign operators, but this is just a price cap not a fixed price, so operators can still agree lower wholesale prices. Even if they didn't have such agreements Vodafone could limit their customers' roaming ability to their own (or partners') networks like they've recently done for German postpaid customers who subsribe to the "ReiseFlat Data" option, which extends validity for any national data option to 22 countries at the disadvantage of being admitted to only one partner network per country.
Actually I expect such tariffs where roaming is limited to certain partner networks to become standard in the mid-term, at least if you head for the lowest roaming rates. Multinational carriers like Vodafone, T-Mobile and Telefonica will start this race as they can let customers roam in their own networks at almost zero costs and alliances of smaller carriers (like the one between KPN, 3 and Play) will join this race sooner or later, too.

[drama queen]

Originally Posted by inquisitor

You assume Vodafone are always paying those € 0.50/MB set by the EU to foreign operators, but this is just a price cap not a fixed price, so operators can still agree lower wholesale prices. Even if they didn't have such agreements Vodafone could limit their customers' roaming ability to their own (or partners') networks like they've recently done for German postpaid customers who subsribe to the "ReiseFlat Data" option, which extends validity for any national data option to 22 countries at the disadvantage of being admitted to only one partner network per country.
Actually I expect such tariffs where roaming is limited to certain partner networks to become standard in the mid-term, at least if you head for the lowest roaming rates. Multinational carriers like Vodafone, T-Mobile and Telefonica will start this race as they can let customers roam in their own networks at almost zero costs and alliances of smaller carriers (like the one between KPN, 3 and Play) will join this race sooner or later, too.

Some reasonable points there - I don't know how much exactly Vodafone pays other operators. However, they appeared to go to great lengths to resist the EU roaming price cuts, and I think it is reasonable to assume they won't pay 1c less than they need to and vice versa with other operators who interconnect with them. Clearly some of the smaller operators will need to do deals to compete with the power of the big guys - so it is understandable that those alliances will spring up.

The differential between the Wholesale cost of 50MB and the 99c daily rate is such that it is hard to see this deal being economical for Vodafone in the medium term. I would say that they will revert to offering special deals if you stay on Vodafone partner networks only.

The Vodafone Ireland deal is particularly interesting because there are no restrictions on which European operators you can roam on. You can switch to any operator who has a roaming agreement with Vodafone Ireland.

I think that the deal is just a panic reaction to the Meteor Voice roaming offer, and that they have overlooked the risk that Millions of Europeans might exploit it to get free Data roaming across Europe.

[inquisitor]

I agree, Vodafone won't make a fortune at € 0.99 for 50MB and this offer is surely driven by competitive pressure. But even today Vodafone can direct their customers into their own networks through the preferred network list (so-called "PLMNsel") stored on their SIM cards (which can also be updated over the air), so upon arrival in another country the majority of customers will wind up on a Vodafone network. Of course some customers will switch to other networks once their phones get outside Vodafone's coverage and so may generate losses, but in the end this is surely cheaper than an exploding customer-churn rate in favour of Meteor.

[Stu]

How is Switzerland treated in these dealls? Part of Euro roaming or not?