H3g in Ireland without the phone

[flodis79]

Originally Posted by SpaceBass

Hey folks,
Is it possible to get an H3g SIM and top-up plan only? On their site they seem to only sell the top up plans with a phone.

I'm going to be in Ireland for about a week. I have an O2 SIM that I can top-up when I get there. I'll mostly be using call-back (my own VoIP server) for voice calls...but I'd love to use mobile broadband if its feasible and affordable. We'll be in a few places (Dublin, Shannon, Cork) and typically hotel internet can be as high as 20 Euro / day ... if I could spend $50 and use my phone (Nokia e61i) as a modem for data, then I'd be happy.

Any thoughts?

You can use the mobile broadband option on 3pay, it's €5.99 for a month, for 100 MB download. The problem is that it can take a few days for it to be activated. You can pick up a sim card on http://www.adverts.ie/showcat.php?cat=14, it's a buyandsell discussion board. I think they are about 15 euros there.

[SpaceBass]

Thanks guys, great info!
I found tons of options on ebay.ie (didn't think to look there after striking out on the US site).

If I get the SIM prior to my trip, can I activate the data plan before I get to Ireland or will it depend on some SMS that I can only get on their network?

[flodis79]

Originally Posted by SpaceBass

Thanks guys, great info!
I found tons of options on ebay.ie (didn't think to look there after striking out on the US site).

If I get the SIM prior to my trip, can I activate the data plan before I get to Ireland or will it depend on some SMS that I can only get on their network?

You can't activate the data plan because you have to go into a 3store (their retail stores) and show identification to verify your age. Then you can activate the add-on €5.99 per month for 100 mb, €9.99 for 250 mb or €19.99 for 2 gb.

That's the way it is at the moment, and it makes it complicated for foreigners travelling here, to have the service setup upon arrival.

There is (was) also a proxy server through which all the traffic is (was) going, but it's gone now so you can use Opera Mini and other java apps which need data connection. Before this wasnt possible since you could only access http pages, and not socket connections within java midlets.

Hope this is of help! If any more problems, reply in the thread or PM me.

[AndreA]

Originally Posted by flodis79

You can't activate the data plan because you have to go into a 3store (their retail stores) and show identification to verify your age.

Why? So strange... to verify the age for a data promotion