Poland

[Przemolog]

Originally Posted by Motel75

Big shops don't close on Sundays in Poland, and many smaller ones don't, either.

OT - basically you're right but "Catholic talibs" that rule my country want to change this "violation of God's law". So far, they forced closing shops on 12 days of religious and national holidays. However, even them, they don't want to close petrol stations on Sundays

Originally Posted by Motel75

Look for a Plus authorized dealer in a shopping center, and you can get your iPlus simData card there. Alternatively, get Heyah, available in lots and lots of places and is probably the best all-round choice for data/international calls/local calls. You may or may not have to activate GPRS, but if so you can do it online (in Polish, though you might be able to figure it out), and if it works, sign up for the Megapaczka lower data rate (see the Poland page). The Heyah SIM costs 5 zloty, or about EUR 1.30, so there's not a lot to lose (it has 4 zloty credit).

Another good voice/data solutions are MVNOs mBank mobile and WPmobi but both SIMs and top-ups are available online only . As to Heyah, there are new 5 PLN starters now. The inital credit is 1 PLN only but they give 5 PLN extra after the first top-up. Because the minimum top-up is 5 PLN, then in fact it's 11 PLN credit for 10 PLN spent. Not a bad deal, especially bacuse it's necessary to have at least 5 PLN credit to activate Megapaczka.

As to buying SIMs/top-ups by a foreigner in Poland - I think that the best places are Media Markt stores because they offer all brands of non-MVNO SIMs, SIM+phone kits and top-up scratch cards on self-service stands and payment can be done by debit/credit card so neither the "language barrier" nor even the lack of Polish cash are any problems.

[Effendi]

Originally Posted by Przemolog

OT - basically you're right but "Catholic talibs" that rule my country want to change this "violation of God's law". So far, they forced closing shops on 12 days of religious and national holidays. However, even them, they don't want to close petrol stations on Sundays

[OT] God save Poland... and Przemolog sack the talibs!

[Przemolog]

Originally Posted by Effendi

[OT] God save Poland... and Przemolog sack the talibs!

Hehe, in fact they don't say about "God's law" but they call their fantasies what is right and wrong "natural law" because one can ignore God but nobody can ignore the nature

Going back to the main topic. I think that new Simplus 30 day internet packets may be quite a good deal. It's either 50 MB for 10 PLN (activation *121*11*04#) or 20 MB for 5 PLN (*121*11*05#), balance check *121#. The data are counted per single byte so there are no "wasted" bytes. If both packets are active, the 20 MB packet is used as the first one. When you run out of the packet, you can immediately buy another one. GPRS activation is *101*11*02#. The packets are valid for the internet APN www.plusgsm.pl, not the WAP one: wap.plusgsm.pl.

[sleepy]

Dear all,
I thank you all for your help.

I was in Poland and I am back home now. I am here to report my experience after all the help I got from you.

Actually, there are many shops, mainly shop arcades and department stores open in Warsaw, even on Sunday afternoon.

Before leaving, I had selected IPlus, Plus and Orange (Orange Free na Kartę) as my best choices. Reasons were coverage and availability of 3G/HSDPA (the latter almost essential for Skype to work very well. 3G is sufficient, but sometimes conversation is not good enough) coverage, at least in Warsaw.

When in Warsaw, it was easy to find Hera, Tak Tak and similar SIMs, rather more difficult to find Plus or Orange. Kiosk and similar did not seem to have any, and the big luxurious shops of Orange and Plus were closed.

Anyway, in the new Department store near Centralny in Vobis I found the Iplus SIM. Therefore I got it. I paid 20 PLN and got full 20 PLN worth of traffic (about 66 MB of data transfer). Using it was very easy and it worked at first attempt. Also data speed was good.

The following day, following Przemolog's advice, I went to Plus shop under Marriott and got a regular Plus SIM for 9 PLN. I recharged it and bought 50 MB of traffic for 10 PLN, as he said. Then I used up all the remaining IPlus credit and switched to the Plus SIM.

Recharging the SIM is very easy. If you do not find the scratch cards, people at kiosks sell you via their terminal the credit and give you the number which you have to enter on the phone (*123*CODE#).

All went on well until the traffic in the Plus SIM was almost over. At that moment I tried to renew the data option before the credit was over. I could not understand the polish of the SMS I was receiveing back, but I think they meant that the option was altread active and that I could not have two at the same time. Therefore I closely monitored the credit with *121# in order to renew it as soon as the data was finished.
The counter however does not update in real time and in the end, when I managed to renew the option 2 extra PLN of credit were gone, since I had used data at the normal price.
The same happened the following time I finished the data, but worse, since, while I was trying to renew the option (which I did), I eventually went 15 PLN in debit (the option was renewed, but afterwards revoked).
It was the last day, so it did not matter a lot.

Anyway, I would say that this is a bit of a problem to be taken into account. So, the Iplus is a bit more expensive, but easier to use. The data packets in the Plus SIM are cheaper (and not even the people at the Plus shop seem to know about all this...), but the recharging mechanism is a but more delicate and there is a big risk of using data at the normal rate, however careful one can be.

All in all, a good experience. It does not happen in many places, that you can get into the country, buy the SIM and activate a data option at reasonable rates and almost no time.

The problems I pointed out where minor glitches. I only talked about it just in case!

Thank you again,

Sleepy

[Przemolog]

Originally Posted by sleepy

When in Warsaw, it was easy to find Hera, Tak Tak and similar SIMs, rather more difficult to find Plus or Orange.

Hera? Do you mean Heyah or Era ?
That's strange that you couldn't find Plus and Orange SIMs at kiosks. BTW, Plus's prepaid SIM is named Simplus. Anyway, Tak Tak and Heyah, prepaids from Era are in fact wider avaialble. Kiosks sell Orange Go and POP SIMs but not Orange Free na kartę. Each of those SIMs can be converted to Orange Free but it's not immediately - requests are processed once a day, about 8:00 AM.


Kiosk and similar did not seem to have any, and the big luxurious shops of Orange and Plus were closed.

Originally Posted by sleepy

Recharging the SIM is very easy. If you do not find the scratch cards, people at kiosks sell you via their terminal the credit and give you the number which you have to enter on the phone (*123*CODE#).

You can also reachrge in some ATMs ("bankomat") but then usually you type your phone number and the credit is added w/o any extra codes.

Originally Posted by sleepy

All went on well until the traffic in the Plus SIM was almost over. At that moment I tried to renew the data option before the credit was over. I could not understand the polish of the SMS I was receiveing back, but I think they meant that the option was altread active and that I could not have two at the same time.

Didn't you switch the language of messages to English? Anyway, not all Plus messages are translated .

Originally Posted by sleepy

Anyway, I would say that this is a bit of a problem to be taken into account. So, the Iplus is a bit more expensive, but easier to use. The data packets in the Plus SIM are cheaper (and not even the people at the Plus shop seem to know about all this...), but the recharging mechanism is a but more delicate and there is a big risk of using data at the normal rate, however careful one can be.

Yes, packets of any services may be "tricky" for the user. But in this specific case, it's usually easier to buy a Simplus SIM than an iPlus...

Originally Posted by sleepy

All in all, a good experience. It does not happen in many places, that you can get into the country, buy the SIM and activate a data option at reasonable rates and almost no time.

The only problem is that you can't get a good voice and data rates on the same SIM. IPlus and Orange Free have horrible voice rates. The 'compromise' SIMs are from MVNO's and are practically not available for foreigners (online sales from Polish-only websites)

[sleepy]

> Hera? Do you mean Heyah or Era ?

Heya. Sorry...

> That's strange that you couldn't find Plus and Orange SIMs at kiosks.

Not in the vicinity of Central station and Centrum at least.
I actually could find Orange at Eriks (I hope this is the name of the book/newspaper shop in Maszakowska and in the new mall at Centralny), but I was more after SIMPlus

> BTW, Plus's prepaid SIM is named Simplus.

Right, I was using it in abbreviated form.

>Each of those SIMs can be converted to Orange Free but it's not immediately - requests are processed once a day, about 8:00 AM.

This is what prevented me from Orange (at least as a first choice). With SIMPlus I could be online right away and not the morning after.

> You can also reachrge in some ATMs ("bankomat") but then usually you type your phone number and the credit is added w/o any extra codes.

Right. But someone somewhere (not necessarily in Poland, since I had been on holiday in Argentina some days before,) had cloned my debit card and I had to block it the second day in Poland and I found myself without access to this possibility.

> Didn't you switch the language of messages to English? Anyway, not all Plus messages are translated .

I did not know about this possibility... If you already wrote about this, I overlooked it. Sorry!

> The only problem is that you can't get a good voice and data rates on the same SIM. IPlus and Orange Free have horrible voice rates.

I agree. Therefore I switched to SIMPlus, with better data rates also, but with some "side-effects" on recharching the data.

Thank you again!

Sleepy

[Przemolog]

Originally Posted by sleepy

Not in the vicinity of Central station and Centrum at least.
I actually could find Orange at Eriks (I hope this is the name of the book/newspaper shop in Maszakowska and in the new mall at Centralny), but I was more after SIMPlus

You probably mean Empik. That's great that they still sell Orange since they involved into a stronger partnership with Play .

> You can also reachrge in some ATMs ("bankomat") but then usually you type your phone number and the credit is added w/o any extra codes.

Originally Posted by sleepy

Right. But someone somewhere (not necessarily in Poland, since I had been on holiday in Argentina some days before,) had cloned my debit card and I had to block it the second day in Poland and I found myself without access to this possibility.

Unfortunately cloning the cards in ATMs also happens in Poland . Basically, only ATMs located in banks or some well-monitored places are safe (but you can never exclude some "conspiracy" from the people who serve the machines ).

Originally Posted by sleepy

> Didn't you switch the language of messages to English? Anyway, not all Plus messages are translated .

I did not know about this possibility... If you already wrote about this, I overlooked it. Sorry!

I didn't. I thought it's located on the Simplus page on this site and you had read about it b> The only problem is that you can't get a good voice and data rates on the same SIM. IPlus and Orange Free have horrible voice rates.

I agree. Therefore I switched to SIMPlus, with better data rates also, but with some "side-effects" on recharching the data.ut this code must have disappeared during some update in the past .

Originally Posted by sleepy

Thank you again!
Sleepy

U r welcome