Greece HSPA (prepaid and postpaid offers)

[OldBawley]

Rhodes town. Wind shop. Friendly salesman. Want to buy a prepaid broadband stick and a 30 days start. Sailing the small islands of the Dodecanese, i now it wil be inpossible to find the Airtime Renewal Scratch Cards, so i decide to take two 30 € cards with me, in order to charge up on the way. The salesman explanes that ading a new card only charges the data amount, NOT the days.
he schows it to me on his ( Greek ) monitor. So only activate new scratch card after the other is expired.
Problem no cards availeble on Rhodes, kiosk vendor explains that those cards are not available. Greeks charge with some kiosk electronic thingy. Not possible in a deserted bay on a small island.
Cosmothe and vodaphone : Only charge up in store. No store.

[DaveRo]

My experience last year is that the scratch cards are becoming obsolete, though some kiosks (periptero) still had some. Look for a 'payzone' sign at newsagents and similar shops. They sell you a recharge for whatever value you like and give you a paper receipt with the 16-digit number. You send the number by SMS when you want to use it - the details are printed on the receipt (in Greek, of course). I've done this with Wind and Cosmote.

Sometimes the credit you get is less than the amount you pay. Maybe it depends where you buy them - commission?

[kuba.g]

Been to Greece last week and bought Cosmote (because of the widest 3G coverage).

Paid €5 for the simcard, which includes €1 and then €1/month for the following 4 months (finally making the simcard free).
I needed to show my passport and the salesman was so kind to call the customer service for me from his phone to make them change the 1314-menu (which is free in Greece) to English

Activating the 60MB package wasn't a problem. Internet worked very well.
What didn't work though is checking how much MB's were left to be used. To do this, one should send an SMS "INFO" to 1313, according to: COSMOTE: CIOTP for prepaid Customers
When I did so I received the following message back: "Η ΥΠHPEΣIA ΠOY ZHTHΣATE ΔEN YΠAPXEI", using Google Translate I can't really figure out what it means

Is it true there is no *101# - like code to check the account status in Cosmote? I found the only way to check it is by sending "YP" and "LIXI" to 1314 which is free in Greece, but is charged for when in roaming...

Also, where do I find information about extending the validity of the card? Mine is valid until april 2012. How much does one need to recharge to extend this? (I couldn't find this information on their website).

[Evan]

Originally Posted by wisniak

My question is, every time I turn off the iphone and turn it on again, i'm required to unlick the Sim using the PIN cide provided in the envelope.

Hiw can I permanently unlick it?

All phones have the option of disabling the SIM PIN. On iPhone go to Settings > Phone > SIM PIN and slide the slider to "Off".

Originally Posted by kuba.g

Activating the 60MB package wasn't a problem. Internet worked very well.
What didn't work though is checking how much MB's were left to be used. To do this, one should send an SMS "INFO" to 1313, according to: COSMOTE: CIOTP for prepaid Customers
When I did so I received the following message back: "Η ΥΠHPEΣIA ΠOY ZHTHΣATE ΔEN YΠAPXEI", using Google Translate I can't really figure out what it means

It means "The service that you've requested does not exist". Which is strange because I didn't have problems with this service last time I've tried it. Did you try to send also "info" instead of "INFO"? Perhaps it has something to to with the language codepage of your phone?

Originally Posted by kuba.g

Is it true there is no *101# - like code to check the account status in Cosmote? I found the only way to check it is by sending "YP" and "LIXI" to 1314 which is free in Greece, but is charged for when in roaming...

USSD codes are used for many services but not for checking prepaid account balance and validity. This is true for all three operators and their MVNOs. Cosmote may charge those texts when roaming (haven't tried it myself) but Wind certainly doesn't charge those texts for some reason.

Originally Posted by kuba.g

Also, where do I find information about extending the validity of the card? Mine is valid until april 2012. How much does one need to recharge to extend this? (I couldn't find this information on their website).

The information is here but unfortunately only in Greek. In short, the validity is 12 months. Every time you recharge, the validity is extended for 12 more months. There isn't any limitation regarding the amount. You can recharge with the cheapest 5€ scratch card. At the Wind stores the minimum you can top-up is 1€, I don't know if Cosmote/Germanos stores do the same or have a minimum of 5€.

[kuba.g]

Originally Posted by Evan

It means "The service that you've requested does not exist". Which is strange because I didn't have problems with this service last time I've tried it. Did you try to send also "info" instead of "INFO"? Perhaps it has something to to with the language codepage of your phone?

Will check this out the next time I'm in Greece!

Thanks for your reply.