Prepaid DATA in Spain

[8eaker]

Originally Posted by august

Hi !


Just looking for the simple (classic) prepaid/prepago solution for the foreigner coming to the vicinity of Javea city / Alicante coast area for a week holidays in September.

Interested in buying some SIM solution with the following :


- instant use after a few hours after buy, clear instructions on startup codes;
- purchase cost up to 20E, with the start top-up ready to use for the /calls&data/ or /data only/;
- no need to activate the data transfer separately via web/phone;
- rates up to 10cents/1MB, less the better ,or the preactivated data bulk available;
- daily data rates less preffered, cause I suppose may be difficult to activate;
- no need to fix it much with the residential proof, etc;
- also microSIM coming soon for iPad would be an advantage.


any idea which prepaid provider to choose for the mentioned or similar requirements ?


Thanks in advance! PM's also welcomed.



--
best regards,
August

Looking into the same thing. Want to take my Android phone with me to Javea in August and not have to turn everything off such as email and navigation and a bit of browsing.
Favouring MasMovil as the coverage map has good coverage around Javea area.
Can you get MasMovil to deliver to the UK or would it be best to get one from ebay?
Also, do these sims expire as we go back to Javea quite often i.e. annually.

[petkow]

Originally Posted by 8eaker

Looking into the same thing. Want to take my Android phone with me to Javea in August and not have to turn everything off such as email and navigation and a bit of browsing.
Favouring MasMovil as the coverage map has good coverage around Javea area.
Can you get MasMovil to deliver to the UK or would it be best to get one from ebay?
Also, do these sims expire as we go back to Javea quite often i.e. annually.

You will not be able to get them to deliver to the UK. I am not sure how many genuine sellers there are on ebay, but you may be lucky. Spanish SIM's tend to not be sold on ebay because of the compulsory registration issue. Best is to try and get a MasMovil SIM once when you are here, but the experience of another member on here recently suggested that they are not always easily available.

In terms of coming back again with the same SIM in the future, just remember that on the masMovil SIM you have a minimum obligation to spend 1 euro per month. (This is one of the reasons why personally I prefer the Simyo card that has no minimum spend requirement). On MasMovil, if you do not spend 1 euro in credit, (such as if you are back in the UK), it will just take this from your credit. After your credit gets to zero, you have 90 days to top up the SIM if you want to keep it active, or else it will be blocked for good.

What it boils down to is this. If you are planning on coming back again in 6 months, make sure you have at least 3 euros of credit left before you leave. 1 euro will be charged every month, and after 3 months your credit will go to zero. Once this happens, the clock will start ticking, and you have roughly another 3 months (90 days) to top it up again to reactivate the SIM. During those 3 months you do not need to be paying 1 euro a month (i.e. the account does not go negative).

[lios727]

on a different matter : Movistar sells pre paid sim cards and somehow or other the shop says the normal Internet plans Movistar offers will not fit on this card, but that internet will be billed at 1 eur per mb. He states that my card will not support the same plan a dongle would (for which a separate pre paid card is available). Yet, when they try to sell the plan, they also try to sell you an iphone.
This sounds like absolute nonsense to me; can someone knowledgeable shed light on this ?

this is the plan I want to put on the card:

http://www.tarifas.movistar.es/parti...mium#contratar

Isnt this how it should work? Or does Movistar simply not have pre paid cards with a data plan other then 1 eur per mb ?

[petkow]

Originally Posted by lios727

on a different matter : Movistar sells pre paid sim cards and somehow or other the shop says the normal Internet plans Movistar offers will not fit on this card, but that internet will be billed at 1 eur per mb. He states that my card will not support the same plan a dongle would (for which a separate pre paid card is available). Yet, when they try to sell the plan, they also try to sell you an iphone.
This sounds like absolute nonsense to me; can someone knowledgeable shed light on this ?

Sorry I cannot help much, but I do know for a fact that any of their "Tarifa Plana" (flatrate) plans are not available on prepaid but only available as add-on's to higher value contracts. This is actually quite normal for most mainstream operators.

But why on earth are you with Movistar? They have the least value data packages you can ever imagine. They are also an "absolute nonsense" company!

[8eaker]

Originally Posted by petkow

You will not be able to get them to deliver to the UK. I am not sure how many genuine sellers there are on ebay, but you may be lucky. Spanish SIM's tend to not be sold on ebay because of the compulsory registration issue. Best is to try and get a MasMovil SIM once when you are here, but the experience of another member on here recently suggested that they are not always easily available.

In terms of coming back again with the same SIM in the future, just remember that on the masMovil SIM you have a minimum obligation to spend 1 euro per month. (This is one of the reasons why personally I prefer the Simyo card that has no minimum spend requirement). On MasMovil, if you do not spend 1 euro in credit, (such as if you are back in the UK), it will just take this from your credit. After your credit gets to zero, you have 90 days to top up the SIM if you want to keep it active, or else it will be blocked for good.


What it boils down to is this. If you are planning on coming back again in 6 months, make sure you have at least 3 euros of credit left before you leave. 1 euro will be charged every month, and after 3 months your credit will go to zero. Once this happens, the clock will start ticking, and you have roughly another 3 months (90 days) to top it up again to reactivate the SIM. During those 3 months you do not need to be paying 1 euro a month (i.e. the account does not go negative).

Thanks for the advice.
The ebay seller states that you have to send a copy of your passport to masmovil in order to register and has been co-operative on my questions, so might be worth a go. Its £12 for a MasMovil SIM with 10 euro credit on it, so not such a big deal if it have to throw it away after my visit - just get another next year!
Can you confirm that the faxing/emailing of a passport scan would be what MasMovil would want to register and that a UK passport would be ok?

Whats the deal with Simyo? They don't expire as they don't have a minimum spend?
Thanks again

[laptopnomad]

Here's the deal with Yoigo in summer 2010:

Yoigo 3G PAYG prepaid internet in Spain

IData with their MoviData card is trying to get a share of the market by lowering the daily fee to € 1.50.

However it's not flat-fee. Above 100Mb they charge 6 eurocents / Mb. At 3G speeds it can ruin your prepaid balance in no time.

Cheers!

[finisterre]

I'm off to Menorca (Balearic islands) tomorrow for a week. would love to have a week's unlimited(ish) internet and reasonably priced texts to UK. Will need a SIM for my Nexus One phone rather than a dongle.

Any suggestions?

Thanks.

[drama queen]

Originally Posted by finisterre

I'm off to Menorca (Balearic islands) tomorrow for a week. would love to have a week's unlimited(ish) internet and reasonably priced texts to UK. Will need a SIM for my Nexus One phone rather than a dongle.

Any suggestions?

Thanks.

I am also heading to Spain tomorrow. I did a bit of research. Carrefour(supermarket chain like Tesco) have an MVNO on the Orange network. They appear to have a SIM for €1 per day up to a max of 100MB per day. That would give you 700MB for €7 for your week. Not bad. Orange seem to allow VOIP, unlike Vodafone or Movistar. The SIM is intended for dongles, but it should work in a phone, at least for incoming calls. It might not work for outgoing calls, unless you use VOIP. I intend to use it in my Android phone. I am not too bothered about voice, as I will put my home SIM in another phone, and I really want Internet for the Android.

Inicio > Internet Móvil > Carrefour Telecom

Most of the networks have deals for around €10 per month, but most of them force you to have a voice plan first - so expect to pay around €20 with the other networks.

[drama queen]

Originally Posted by finisterre

I'm off to Menorca (Balearic islands) tomorrow for a week. would love to have a week's unlimited(ish) internet and reasonably priced texts to UK. Will need a SIM for my Nexus One phone rather than a dongle.

Any suggestions?

Thanks.

Just to report back-in Spain now for a few days. I got the Carrefour SIM on the first day, as planned. It is working out really well, and I am posting this from my Android phone while using it.

The only slight glitch was that it did not appear to have correct APN settings on it. Instead it had Orange APN. I added the Carrefour APN settings and then it worked fine. They forced me to buy a €10 top-up when buying the €5 SIM. I am not sure whether this is mandatory? It didn't bother me as I am in spain for 10 days and €1 per day for 10 days is exactly €10.

Orange coverage seems great, so other Orange MVNOs are probably good also. However, some only sell on Web for delivery to Spanish address - Carrefour can he picked up at any Carrefour store.

[flyfisher]

Originally Posted by drama queen

Just to report back-in Spain now for a few days. I got the Carrefour SIM on the first day, as planned. It is working out really well, and I am posting this from my Android phone while using it.

The only slight glitch was that it did not appear to have correct APN settings on it. Instead it had Orange APN. I added the Carrefour APN settings and then it worked fine. They forced me to buy a €10 top-up when buying the €5 SIM. I am not sure whether this is mandatory? It didn't bother me as I am in spain for 10 days and €1 per day for 10 days is exactly €10.

Orange coverage seems great, so other Orange MVNOs are probably good also. However, some only sell on Web for delivery to Spanish address - Carrefour can he picked up at any Carrefour store.

Hi Drama Queen or anyone else that knows - this sounds very interesting as I am off to Menorca in a few weeks. However I have been many times but never come across a Carrefour shop or supermarket. Can you let me know where the shops are?? Additionally are the APN settings inside the data sim pack? What speeds were you getting?? You mention 100mb per day and the £1.00 per day top-up. Would you be kind enough to explain the costs more? Many thanks in anticipation.