Greece HSPA (prepaid and postpaid offers) - Page 16

DaveRo · 25-06-2011, 06:33

Update on Wind NS surf:
I just texted '100MB' and got 200 for 5€
(I got 500 back on May)

ssjmichal · 27-06-2011, 21:24

Quote:

Originally Posted by DaveRo

Update on Wind NS surf:
I just texted '100MB' and got 200 for 5€
(I got 500 back on May)

Hey ! I'm about to visit Greece soon. I was looking around for a good prepaid offer and the one you mentioned seem to be an ideal one for me.
Ive got just one question - what should I have with me in order to buy a starter kit - for example with WIND F2G? ID Card and passport will be enough? What informations, as forgein visitor should I provide?
What's more important, when I leave the country can I just throw the card to dumpster or do I have to sign out somehow (despite the fact its a prepaid) ?

greektourist

After some revisions of mobile operators offers in Greece, I concluded that Vodafone would be better option for me for the needs I mentioned here.
Apropos Vodafone I do have a few questions:
I see that international calls are so much cheaper when Vodafone international prepay is chosen. I see the prices are even lower when some blank sms is sent: "Charges after sending a blank SMS to 1235". Can anyone explain that to me? How much will I be charged for sending that sms? Do I need to send that sms only once, or maybe before every call I wanna make? Maybe stupid question, but I haven't founded any related info.

According to internet offer I see Surf & Email 200 data plan. I just wonted to ask if this is available to activate on the Vodafone international prepay plan, and would you recommend this plan better than wind data plan mentioned in my previous post?

After all, would your advise be to use Wind or Vodafone prepay plan for my needs explained above.
Thanks in advance.

timmfive · **My experience with Cosmote and WIND -** 07-12-2011, 00:15

Hi all,
Just a quick update to share what our experience with PAYG SIMs in Greece this year.
We had one phone with Cosmote and one phone with WIND.
Just a few key points:
- WIND was a better deal in terms of GB/€
- WIND always had reception, but on some of the more obscure islands I found I would only get Edge reception. On some of the more populated islands or bigger towns/cities, I would get 3G and speeds were good, etc.
- However, while Cosmote was not as good a deal in terms of GB/€, it would often get 3G reception, even in places where WIND was only getting Edge.

I am sorry I don't have more specifics as to exactly which islands. BUt thought it was worth sharing.

Basically, I suppose what I'm saying is that if you don't use alot of data, then Cosmote might be better as it seems it is almost always 3G.
But if you use alot of data, then maybe WIND might be better as it is cheaper... but just don't expect 3G unless you are in a major town, or more touristed island.

Or another perspective might be, if money is no objective and 3G connectivity is a priority, then probably Cosmote would be your best bet, as the 3G connectivity seemed to be pretty consistent, even in some of the more remote islands.

I had no experience using Vodaphone.
I had some experience using Q earlier in the year... but seems now that WIND bought the Q company... seems that WIND are leveraging their stuff and not really worth going with Q anymore.

Wish I had something more detailed to share.. but thought I would log in and share it in case it helps someone make a decision. Hope this helps.

jgp · 28-06-2011, 15:42

This thread was very helpful so I wanted to thank everyone for all of the provided information. Also, I thought I would share my experience. I just returned from Greece yesterday. I went into the Cosmote store that was in walking distance of the Plaka area of Athens to purchase a data only sim. The sales person I spoke with tried to tell me the data only sim (20 €) would not work in phones and that I needed to buy the USB stick so it would work with a laptop. I ignored her and attempted to buy the SIM anyways but even after reading this thread before going to Greece I had left my passport in the hotel so it was a no go. Went back in the store later that day and the next guy I talked to did not hassle me at all. He just wanted to know if I wanted the small sim for iphone or the standard size. I got the standard size and they activated it right there in the store.

As mentioned in previous threads when you purchase the 20 € you get 20 € of credit that you can spend buying different combinations of data and duration. I went with the 10 days / 3GB combo; it gets 15 € off your credit and you still have 5 € so if you run out of data you can top it with the extra 5 € and you'll get 1 GB more.

Don't forget you need an unlocked phone. I was using a Samsung Captivate Android phone from AT&T so prior to going to Greece I had to root and unlock it which is a very simple process that can be found on the internet. It is also easy to undo.

I had no problems getting to the website and purchasing the 15 € plan from my phone. I book marked the page in my phone so I could check my data usage throughout the trip.

Once up and running I didn't have many issues. There were a couple of times where I would lose the data signal because of poor coverage (mostly on our way to smaller towns to visit family) but the data would not come back online once I was in a very good coverage area. I found I could correct this by turning off the data communication on my phone and then restarting it. This was rare and the coverage was very good throughout my trip.

My wife's phone was an iphone with the latest updates so the jailbreak/unlocking was not readily available for her phone so the data only sim for her phone was not an option.

The nice thing about the rooted/unlocked Android phone is I could then use the 3rd party "Wireless Tether" android app that allows my phone to look like a wifi router and tether multiple devices to it and all share the same data connection. During our trip we tethered my wife's iphone, our ipad and my laptop to my android phone over the same Data only Sim.

For voice we used Skype over the data connection. This worked great and we had no problems whatsoever. Of course you can then make Skype to Skype calls for free but we also loaded our Skype account up with $10 and made daily calls back to landline/Cellular lines in the US and to local Greece numbers for only $0.023 per minute. We ended up using $2.50 in Skype dollars and used less than 1 GB of data throughout the trip. We could have purchased an inbound number from skype so people could have called us but we just didn’t feel like it was necessary. We could call our cellphones numbers back at home and check messages pretty easily so it just wasn’t needed but it is an option. Having Data and being able to use Google Maps was huge help throughout our trip as well as keeping up with email and surfing the internet.

The one thing I failed to realize prior to my trip was that I would not be able to stream any of the copyrighted material from the US while in Greece. For example, I thought it would be nice to stream a Netflix movie for the kids during one of our layovers or driving trips but Netflix, Hulu, streaming sports (ESPN3, etc), and other copyrighted material will recognize from the DNS servers that you are not in the US and prohibit the content from streaming. Sometimes this can be worked around by using VPN connections so it appears as though it is coming from a domain in the US but since the data was all flowing through the Cosmote network there was no quick and easy way around this even when using my work VPN or some of the Free VPN solutions via my laptop. It is possible but it requires a level of hacking in the Android phone that I just wasn’t comfortable with. I sure would have liked to have watched the end of the US Open the first couple of nights we were in Greece when I couldn’t sleep. If you really need access to US copyrighted content while overseas you really need to go the route of sling box but we actually found none of us really needed the US content and it was nice having a break from TV.

Thanks again for everyone’s help in this thread.

kalico · 20-06-2012, 01:17

I'm just back from the Ionian and can report the following:

I researched all the networks and for this part of Greece it seems that Cosmote is by far the best network. It is almost constantly 3G.

I was told in a Wind shop that their network is not 3G.

Vodafone had an offer on a 3G SIM but nothing came close to the Cosmote "Internet on the go" offer. This gives 2 options when you buy it:-

1. SIM only. Costs €20 and comes with €20 of credit.

2. SIM and USB dongle. Costs €40 and comes with €20 of credit plus the first month included.

You'll need a passport to get the offer. It takes a little while to activate and the SIM card you get will have a PIN on it.

You have a number of options for data allowance and period, which you choose via their website. It starts at €5 for 1 day and 1GB. I took the 10 days and 2GB option, which is €15. Bargain if you ask me. The 3rd option is a 30 day offer with 5GB.

There are 2 things of which you should be aware:

First, when you top up, be sure to ask for "Cosmote Internet on the go" and not just a regular Cosmote (or Cosmokarta) top-up. They are different and the code you get for regular Cosmote will not work with Cosmote IOTG.

Second, if you get the SIM only, don't be fooled by the settings of the access point. My laptop installed it as 3G automatically, but this repeatedly would not work. When I set it up manually to be just GPRS, then no problem - it connected and also at 3G speeds.

Full HSPA was supported. Skype did work, but I found it could be variable and disconnected fairly frequently.

I hope this helps someone.

timmfive · 12-07-2012, 15:53

I agree with Kalico above:
Cosmote is probably the best mobile internet for USB dongles.

I was in a place, and couldn't find the Cosmote or Germanos shop, so went Vodaphone.

Here is my experience so far:
Initial setup was more expensive (€50 for dongle + 2G/20day data).
Top ups were also more expensive (€20 for 2G/20day data).
However, the 20 days versus Cosmote 10 days justified it for me. (ie: I find I usually run out of time before I run out of data)
Why they put such aggressive time limits on such a small data cap is crazy...

- - - - -

Anyway, just noticed today a summer offer on their website:
K????Internet | Internet ?? ????? Vodafone ?????Internet - Vodafone.gr

New users Vodafone KartoInternet
-> Promo pack & USB modem - 35 €
A USB wireless access modem K3770 which allows for connection speeds up to 7.2 Mbps, SIM Card, Free access to the Internet for 15 days.

-> Owners of a USB modem
devicekartointernet Connection pack - 15 €
Select this pack if you already have a wireless modem and do not need additional equipment. The pack includes: SIM card, Free access to the Internet for 15 days!

- - - - -

Hahaha... I love this "free access to the internet for 15 days"... WTH? I just paid you €15... so why is it free?

Anyway, so the €35 USB modem + 15day internet is pretty competitive.
Not sure how many Gigabytes they are allowing in 15days... hopefully 2Gigs.
Will let you know when/if I top up again.

The coverage has been good. There has only been one place that wasn't 3G. (Note: Cosmote had 3G in that location).

I've only run Speedtest on it twice: average is ~3M down, 0.75M up, 160ms ping.

Yeah.. stay away from WIND if you want 3G. Wind's data is the cheapest.... I have it on my phone... but very rare to get 3G. And honestly... GPRS (2.5G) is so slow: 57k down, 28k up. The Facebook app barely works on GPRS. Ok for email though, and "always on" data. But would be useless on an ipad or USB dongle, etc.

Hope this helps.

hubel · 15-08-2012, 13:34

Hi, does anyone know if it is possible to purchase a Cosmote Internet sim card at Rhodes Airport? I'll be going there soon and it would be great if it was easy to get one on arrival.

Thanks

fsotirop · 02-09-2012, 10:26

the wider HSPA coverage in Greece is offered by Cosmote.

caliston · 31-01-2013, 03:03

Stupid question... are all the 'internet on your phone' tariffs clean internet, or do we still have mangling proxies, port blocks etc etc? So will apps like SSH and Skype work?

	(#1)
DaveRo (Offline) Senior Member Prepaid Fan Posts: 153 Join Date: 07 Jul 2006 Country:	25-06-2011, 06:33 Update on Wind NS surf: I just texted '100MB' and got 200 for 5€ (I got 500 back on May)

	(#3)
greektourist (Offline) Junior Member Newbie Posts: 5 Join Date: 15 Jun 2011 Country:	Vodafone is maybe even better with cheaper international costs? - 30-06-2011, 17:58 After some revisions of mobile operators offers in Greece, I concluded that Vodafone would be better option for me for the needs I mentioned here. Apropos Vodafone I do have a few questions: I see that international calls are so much cheaper when Vodafone international prepay is chosen. I see the prices are even lower when some blank sms is sent: "Charges after sending a blank SMS to 1235". Can anyone explain that to me? How much will I be charged for sending that sms? Do I need to send that sms only once, or maybe before every call I wanna make? Maybe stupid question, but I haven't founded any related info. According to internet offer I see Surf & Email 200 data plan. I just wonted to ask if this is available to activate on the Vodafone international prepay plan, and would you recommend this plan better than wind data plan mentioned in my previous post? After all, would your advise be to use Wind or Vodafone prepay plan for my needs explained above. Thanks in advance.

	(#4)
timmfive (Offline) Junior Member Amateur Member Posts: 14 Join Date: 12 Oct 2010 Country:	My experience with Cosmote and WIND - 07-12-2011, 00:15 Hi all, Just a quick update to share what our experience with PAYG SIMs in Greece this year. We had one phone with Cosmote and one phone with WIND. Just a few key points: - WIND was a better deal in terms of GB/€ - WIND always had reception, but on some of the more obscure islands I found I would only get Edge reception. On some of the more populated islands or bigger towns/cities, I would get 3G and speeds were good, etc. - However, while Cosmote was not as good a deal in terms of GB/€, it would often get 3G reception, even in places where WIND was only getting Edge. I am sorry I don't have more specifics as to exactly which islands. BUt thought it was worth sharing. Basically, I suppose what I'm saying is that if you don't use alot of data, then Cosmote might be better as it seems it is almost always 3G. But if you use alot of data, then maybe WIND might be better as it is cheaper... but just don't expect 3G unless you are in a major town, or more touristed island. Or another perspective might be, if money is no objective and 3G connectivity is a priority, then probably Cosmote would be your best bet, as the 3G connectivity seemed to be pretty consistent, even in some of the more remote islands. I had no experience using Vodaphone. I had some experience using Q earlier in the year... but seems now that WIND bought the Q company... seems that WIND are leveraging their stuff and not really worth going with Q anymore. Wish I had something more detailed to share.. but thought I would log in and share it in case it helps someone make a decision. Hope this helps.

	(#5)
jgp (Offline) Junior Member Newbie Posts: 1 Join Date: 28 Jun 2011 Country:	28-06-2011, 15:42 This thread was very helpful so I wanted to thank everyone for all of the provided information. Also, I thought I would share my experience. I just returned from Greece yesterday. I went into the Cosmote store that was in walking distance of the Plaka area of Athens to purchase a data only sim. The sales person I spoke with tried to tell me the data only sim (20 €) would not work in phones and that I needed to buy the USB stick so it would work with a laptop. I ignored her and attempted to buy the SIM anyways but even after reading this thread before going to Greece I had left my passport in the hotel so it was a no go. Went back in the store later that day and the next guy I talked to did not hassle me at all. He just wanted to know if I wanted the small sim for iphone or the standard size. I got the standard size and they activated it right there in the store. As mentioned in previous threads when you purchase the 20 € you get 20 € of credit that you can spend buying different combinations of data and duration. I went with the 10 days / 3GB combo; it gets 15 € off your credit and you still have 5 € so if you run out of data you can top it with the extra 5 € and you'll get 1 GB more. Don't forget you need an unlocked phone. I was using a Samsung Captivate Android phone from AT&T so prior to going to Greece I had to root and unlock it which is a very simple process that can be found on the internet. It is also easy to undo. I had no problems getting to the website and purchasing the 15 € plan from my phone. I book marked the page in my phone so I could check my data usage throughout the trip. Once up and running I didn't have many issues. There were a couple of times where I would lose the data signal because of poor coverage (mostly on our way to smaller towns to visit family) but the data would not come back online once I was in a very good coverage area. I found I could correct this by turning off the data communication on my phone and then restarting it. This was rare and the coverage was very good throughout my trip. My wife's phone was an iphone with the latest updates so the jailbreak/unlocking was not readily available for her phone so the data only sim for her phone was not an option. The nice thing about the rooted/unlocked Android phone is I could then use the 3rd party "Wireless Tether" android app that allows my phone to look like a wifi router and tether multiple devices to it and all share the same data connection. During our trip we tethered my wife's iphone, our ipad and my laptop to my android phone over the same Data only Sim. For voice we used Skype over the data connection. This worked great and we had no problems whatsoever. Of course you can then make Skype to Skype calls for free but we also loaded our Skype account up with $10 and made daily calls back to landline/Cellular lines in the US and to local Greece numbers for only $0.023 per minute. We ended up using $2.50 in Skype dollars and used less than 1 GB of data throughout the trip. We could have purchased an inbound number from skype so people could have called us but we just didn’t feel like it was necessary. We could call our cellphones numbers back at home and check messages pretty easily so it just wasn’t needed but it is an option. Having Data and being able to use Google Maps was huge help throughout our trip as well as keeping up with email and surfing the internet. The one thing I failed to realize prior to my trip was that I would not be able to stream any of the copyrighted material from the US while in Greece. For example, I thought it would be nice to stream a Netflix movie for the kids during one of our layovers or driving trips but Netflix, Hulu, streaming sports (ESPN3, etc), and other copyrighted material will recognize from the DNS servers that you are not in the US and prohibit the content from streaming. Sometimes this can be worked around by using VPN connections so it appears as though it is coming from a domain in the US but since the data was all flowing through the Cosmote network there was no quick and easy way around this even when using my work VPN or some of the Free VPN solutions via my laptop. It is possible but it requires a level of hacking in the Android phone that I just wasn’t comfortable with. I sure would have liked to have watched the end of the US Open the first couple of nights we were in Greece when I couldn’t sleep. If you really need access to US copyrighted content while overseas you really need to go the route of sling box but we actually found none of us really needed the US content and it was nice having a break from TV. Thanks again for everyone’s help in this thread.

	(#6)
kalico (Offline) Junior Member Newbie Posts: 5 Join Date: 19 May 2010 Country:	20-06-2012, 01:17 I'm just back from the Ionian and can report the following: I researched all the networks and for this part of Greece it seems that Cosmote is by far the best network. It is almost constantly 3G. I was told in a Wind shop that their network is not 3G. Vodafone had an offer on a 3G SIM but nothing came close to the Cosmote "Internet on the go" offer. This gives 2 options when you buy it:- 1. SIM only. Costs €20 and comes with €20 of credit. 2. SIM and USB dongle. Costs €40 and comes with €20 of credit plus the first month included. You'll need a passport to get the offer. It takes a little while to activate and the SIM card you get will have a PIN on it. You have a number of options for data allowance and period, which you choose via their website. It starts at €5 for 1 day and 1GB. I took the 10 days and 2GB option, which is €15. Bargain if you ask me. The 3rd option is a 30 day offer with 5GB. There are 2 things of which you should be aware: First, when you top up, be sure to ask for "Cosmote Internet on the go" and not just a regular Cosmote (or Cosmokarta) top-up. They are different and the code you get for regular Cosmote will not work with Cosmote IOTG. Second, if you get the SIM only, don't be fooled by the settings of the access point. My laptop installed it as 3G automatically, but this repeatedly would not work. When I set it up manually to be just GPRS, then no problem - it connected and also at 3G speeds. Full HSPA was supported. Skype did work, but I found it could be variable and disconnected fairly frequently. I hope this helps someone.

	(#7)
timmfive (Offline) Junior Member Amateur Member Posts: 14 Join Date: 12 Oct 2010 Country:	12-07-2012, 15:53 I agree with Kalico above: Cosmote is probably the best mobile internet for USB dongles. I was in a place, and couldn't find the Cosmote or Germanos shop, so went Vodaphone. Here is my experience so far: Initial setup was more expensive (€50 for dongle + 2G/20day data). Top ups were also more expensive (€20 for 2G/20day data). However, the 20 days versus Cosmote 10 days justified it for me. (ie: I find I usually run out of time before I run out of data) Why they put such aggressive time limits on such a small data cap is crazy... - - - - - Anyway, just noticed today a summer offer on their website: K????Internet \| Internet ?? ????? Vodafone ?????Internet - Vodafone.gr New users Vodafone KartoInternet -> Promo pack & USB modem - 35 € A USB wireless access modem K3770 which allows for connection speeds up to 7.2 Mbps, SIM Card, Free access to the Internet for 15 days. -> Owners of a USB modem devicekartointernet Connection pack - 15 € Select this pack if you already have a wireless modem and do not need additional equipment. The pack includes: SIM card, Free access to the Internet for 15 days! - - - - - Hahaha... I love this "free access to the internet for 15 days"... WTH? I just paid you €15... so why is it free? Anyway, so the €35 USB modem + 15day internet is pretty competitive. Not sure how many Gigabytes they are allowing in 15days... hopefully 2Gigs. Will let you know when/if I top up again. The coverage has been good. There has only been one place that wasn't 3G. (Note: Cosmote had 3G in that location). I've only run Speedtest on it twice: average is ~3M down, 0.75M up, 160ms ping. Yeah.. stay away from WIND if you want 3G. Wind's data is the cheapest.... I have it on my phone... but very rare to get 3G. And honestly... GPRS (2.5G) is so slow: 57k down, 28k up. The Facebook app barely works on GPRS. Ok for email though, and "always on" data. But would be useless on an ipad or USB dongle, etc. Hope this helps.

	(#8)
hubel (Offline) Junior Member Newbie Posts: 1 Join Date: 15 Aug 2012 Country:	15-08-2012, 13:34 Hi, does anyone know if it is possible to purchase a Cosmote Internet sim card at Rhodes Airport? I'll be going there soon and it would be great if it was easy to get one on arrival. Thanks

	(#9)
fsotirop (Offline) Senior Member Prepaid Expert Posts: 362 Join Date: 28 Jan 2012 Country:	02-09-2012, 10:26 the wider HSPA coverage in Greece is offered by Cosmote.

	(#10)
caliston (Offline) Junior Member Amateur Member Posts: 22 Join Date: 11 Jun 2007 Country:	31-01-2013, 03:03 Stupid question... are all the 'internet on your phone' tariffs clean internet, or do we still have mangling proxies, port blocks etc etc? So will apps like SSH and Skype work?