Poland

[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

[sumeet]

Hi all can anyone tell me how to recharge a orange SIM from italy with orange.pl website..
i can reach till the option after filling in th ephone number of thsi polish number.,....but on payment page there si no visa/visa electron option..all are related to polish banks.. ..please if someone knows how to recharge with credit card option let me know..asap.
ciao
its urgent.
thanks everyone in advance over here!!

[Przemolog]

Originally Posted by sumeet

Hi all can anyone tell me how to recharge a orange SIM from italy with orange.pl website..
i can reach till the option after filling in th ephone number of thsi polish number.,....but on payment page there si no visa/visa electron option..all are related to polish banks.. ..please if someone knows how to recharge with credit card option let me know..asap.
ciao
its urgent.

Do you mean https://doladowania.orange.pl/?
Then you should select "Karta płatnicza" option under the POLCARD logo. POLCARD is not a bank but an acquirer of payment cards. The problem is that for security reasons, the first recharge of any user can't be done from the card but via a bank transfer anyway .

There are some other recharge services e.g. http://doladowania.telepolis.pl/ which accept using cards w/o stuoid restrictions as the one described above. However, they restrict the cards to those issued by Polish banks only .

How much time do you have to recharge the SIM and what amount are you interested in? Perhaps there's some other solution but I must look for it...

It seems that http://www.doladowania.pl isn't restricted to Polish cards only.

If it fails, try eBay.pl:
http://telefony-akcesoria.listings.e...istingItemList
Select Orange Go or POP and look for "doładowanie" or "doładowania" (=regarge(s)). Most items people sell there are recharges (even if not described, but some may be SIMs.

[sumeet]

Hi Prem Thanks very much for the info..
I am at the https://post.polcard.com.pl website..
but are you sure if i send money to a SIM in turkey, my friend is there...she loves to travel without money.., it will be recharged in real time.?
from ebay i have to register there for buying..and its a difficult task with me not knowing any polish.

ayway i wait for your responce..or alternate solution.
ciao!!
thanx again!
sumeet

[meh]

hi, um..I just moved to Poland and I use Orange..and my credit finished..and I bought credit from some shop, whatever..but what do I do to recharge it? I cant do it..ive tried everything T_T HELPPP

[Przemolog]

Originally Posted by meh

hi, um..I just moved to Poland and I use Orange..and my credit finished..and I bought credit from some shop, whatever..but what do I do to recharge it? I cant do it..ive tried everything T_T HELPPP

What did you exactly buy? A scratch card - a black carton (credit card format) with the Orange logo and a nominal in zlotys printed on it or a terminal printout - a piece of paper with the 14-digit code? If it's a scratch card, remove the protecting paint carefully and discover the code. If it's a printout, find the 14-digit seqeunce (with the word "kod" somewhere around).

If both cases, dial *125*14digitTopUpCode# and press OK/green button on your phone. After the confirmation SMS arrives, the credit is increased.