Greece GPRS?

[DaveRo]

Originally Posted by gmmour

The http-mangling, unfortunately is a browser problem, so it depends on the Tablet's browser and the way it handles errors... What happens actually in Opera is that you get an XML error message prompting you to click on a link for the browser to parse it as HTML....

I've been doing some research on this, to try to predict what might be happening. Can you post the URLs of some sites that cause this problem? My theory at the moment is that they are served with content type "application/xhtml+xml" instead of "text/html". This is what seems to cause browsers to parse the site as XML.

There is no 'parse as html' facility in Gecko browsers. There's a Firefox Addon called 'Force Content-Type' which changes the content type - unfortunately the wrong way: html to xml! But it could be changed.

[DaveRo]

I've been studying the Wind GR website. I think I'll get Wind 1 postpaid provided I can add Plus non-stop to that; calls to Europe are 2½ times cheaper than F2G. There's a €25 one-time fee but I intend to spend several summers in Greece so it'll probably be worthwhile. Is the bill just charged to the credit card?

In case the http-mangling mentioned above is too bad I tried to find out the default cost of GPRS/internet. I can't find it. I did find this page:
http://www.wind.com.gr/pages.fds?langID=2&pageid=1213
which (apart from containing an error - I assume you get 40Mb on the WIND GPRS 40 plan) is odd. If you take WIND GPRS 10 you get 10Mb for €17.85 - which is €1.79 per Mb. But extra Mb cost €0.0014/Κb - which is €1.40 per Mb - which is cheaper.

Is this right? Or should it be 10Gb and 40Gb - or something else?

[DaveRo]

I'm now in Greece (Corfu) using Wind Plus non-stop on a tethered laptop. Some experience:

I was told in the Wind Shop where I bought the F2G SIM (€5, inc €1 credit) that I could activate Plus non-stop it by calling 1265 and following voice-prompts. Also that I could change the language into English. The former may be true but the latter didn't work: it said (in Greek) key zero for English - that got a short Greek response (don't know what) but no English.

I activated it by sending an SMS saying PLUS to 19369 (not 369 as an earlier post, though both might work.)

I have discovered that a blank SMS to 1269 gives me a balance.
The SIM packet says that I can recharge by sending a 16digit scratch card number to 1268.

On the subject of language, one US site says that it can be changed by dialling 1276 then 3 then 2 but I can't find that on the Wind site and I haven't tried it. (I can't find a list of such numbers at all on the site - in either Greek or English.)

The HTML mangling is bad using Firefox but I think I've partially fixed it by using this addon:
https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/3207

Set up a rule as follows:
. (single dot for the regular expression - matches everything) old="application/xhtml+xml" new ="text/html"

This allows me to see a lot of sites I couldn't - including this forum and my own Wordpress blog! Whether they will all work I don't know.

I don't suppose that addon will work on the Nokia N810 which has the same mangling problem.

Plus non-stop doesn't work with other protocols (POP, NNTP) so I can't get usenet or use proper email - only webmail - which is a nuisance.

Edited:

1 Please feed back to me any experience of my Firefox fix. I'd like to interest the developer in providing a Firefox 3 version.

2 I intend to get a COSMOTE SIM as a backup in case I can't get a Wind signal in remote islands. Any equivalent cheap data package for that?

[caliston]

What a coincidence! This week I've been working on the HTTP mangling too! I've come up with the following Perl script which acts as an HTTP proxy - should work in any browser on any OS. You'll need Perl installed, as well as the LWP::UserAgent module:
http://search.cpan.org/~gaas/libwww-...P/UserAgent.pm
(was already installed on my Ubuntu machine) and the HTTP::Proxy module:
http://search.cpan.org/~book/HTTP-Pr.../HTTP/Proxy.pm

Here's the script, which is very simple. It only works for HTTP, so don't try using it for HTTPS, FTP or other protocols - set your browser to go to WIND's proxy direct. I haven't done it, but it might be feasible to do a two-pass process to avoid the 1MB restriction by trying the WIND proxy, and if that fails redirect to another proxy (eg one using an SSH tunnel as I detailed above).

#!/usr/bin/perl

use HTTP::Proxy;
use LWP::UserAgent;

# create a filter to change the Content-Type header
{
  package FilterPerl;
  use base qw( HTTP::Proxy::HeaderFilter );
                          
  sub filter {
    my ( $self, $headers, $message) = @_;
    # grab the header, modify it, then write it back into the headers
    $ct=$headers->header('Content-Type');
    $ct =~ s!application/xhtml\+xml!text/html!g;
    $headers->header('Content-Type' => $ct);
  }
}

# create a new object to represent our onward connection - ie through
# WIND's proxy
my $fetcher = LWP::UserAgent->new();
$fetcher->proxy(['http','https','ftp','gopher'], 'http://192.168.200.10:9401/');
$fetcher->no_proxy('localhost');

# create our own proxy on localhost port 3128
my $proxy = HTTP::Proxy->new( port => 3128, agent => $fetcher );
# attach a filter to alter the responses returned by WIND's proxy
$proxy->push_filter( mime => undef, response => FilterPerl->new() );
# start the proxy running
$proxy->start;

Paste it into a file called something.pl and run it. The proxy will then run on localhost port 3128 for as long as the perl script is running.

[DaveRo]

It's been suggested I use privoxy on this thread:
http://www.internettablettalk.com/fo...404#post180404

Have I got perl on the N810? I doubt it - it hasn't even got a decent text editor. But I expect it's available. Thanks for the suggestion.

Some stuff to work on here while I'm anchored in a bay with my feet up, a Mythos beer or two to hand....

[pontusb]

Hi!

And thank You.

Just tried the Firefox addon with Firefox 2 on my Mac and with You suggested rules. It works perfect.

/Pontus

Originally Posted by DaveRo

I'm now in Greece (Corfu) using Wind Plus non-stop on a tethered laptop. Some experience:

The HTML mangling is bad using Firefox but I think I've partially fixed it by using this addon:
https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/3207

Set up a rule as follows:
. (single dot for the regular expression - matches everything) old="application/xhtml+xml" new ="text/html"

This allows me to see a lot of sites I couldn't - including this forum and my own Wordpress blog! Whether they will all work I don't know.

I don't suppose that addon will work on the Nokia N810 which has the same mangling problem.

Plus non-stop doesn't work with other protocols (POP, NNTP) so I can't get usenet or use proper email - only webmail - which is a nuisance.

Edited:

1 Please feed back to me any experience of my Firefox fix. I'd like to interest the developer in providing a Firefox 3 version.

2 I intend to get a COSMOTE SIM as a backup in case I can't get a Wind signal in remote islands. Any equivalent cheap data package for that?

[gmmour]

All the SMS short codes in Greece changed recently due to the National Renumbering that recently included SMS shortcodes. The new activation procedure for wind plus non-stop is sending "PLUS" to 19349.

Customer care is 1260 (0,24 EUR per call) for all questions and 1231 free of charge (only for Wind plus). Ask them how you change the language, or they can change it for you... Unfortunately I don't currently have a wind prepaid so I don't know the procedure. Anywayz, by sending a blank SMS to 1269 you get your balance by SMS free of charge, and by sending the recharge voucher code to 1268 you top-up, so you don't need to change the language prompts...

The Wind F2G SIM pack can be bought at omnipresent kiosks (called periptero, if you've been to Greece you've probably seen them all over the place, most if not all periptera carry prepaid SIM packs from all carriers and all of them carry recharge vouchers) and wind stores around Greece, it costs 5 Euro and gives 1 Euro initial credit and 1 Euro every month for the next 4 months provided you have spent at least 1 Euro in the previous month, i.e. you get the 5 Euro back if you use your phone for 5 months and spend at least 1 Euro every month.

For tethering: The settings for the Access point go to the phone's PC suite, depending on the phone you use. Some Sony Ericsson phones, also create an automatic connection when you plug in the USB to you computer, so you have to enter the access point settings under the USB connection settings in your phone. The proxy settings go to your browser. For Firefox and Opera use the connections tab, for IE and MSN Messenger use the connections settings in the IE Properties window.

For phone use: Either call 1231 free of charge and ask them to send you the WAP settings, or visit the wind.com.gr site and use the online tool to send the settings to your phone or find the manual settings if your phone model is not supported.

For your information, Nokia Maps, works with the wind plus access point, but for A-GPS to work (and get a faster initial satellite detection on your Nokia phone, you have to use Wind Internet as the access point for the A-GPS facility of the phone, which only consumes about 7KB every time your phone tries to find a satellite for the first time, while still using the Wind Plus access point for Nokia Maps, Google maps and map downloads). If you don't set the A-GPS access point to Wind Internet, you practically have no A-GPS and it can take up to 5 minutes for your phone to detect the satellites and calculate your position, whilst with A-GPS it takes only a few seconds.

[ArSa]

Hi guys,
I feel so lucky that i found this thread... been trying to research greece prepaid gprs, with not much luck.

I see that most people here are OK with wind plus non-stop service. Well, unfortunately that won't work for me - i need a bunch of ports and relatively reliable connection (will need it for work emergencies). I do intend to pay for it, but the question is what to buy...

On Wind, it seems that the only good option is:
http://www.wind.com.gr/pages.fds?pageID=1443&langID=2
i.e. ADSM Non-stop. I don't even have 3G phone, i just need some reasonably priced service (i will be there for two weeks)

What is the rate for normal Wind per-mb gprs connection? I can't find it in any price lists. I bet it's too much, i just want to compare.

What about other guys? I read on vodaphone pre-paid terms that they don't even give you gprs. Fine. What about Cosmote? They have specificaly data plans on their pre-paid page, i guess this one:
http://www.cosmote.gr/cosmote/cosmot...rviceCategory=
but nothing mentioned in the price list...

I will need probably around 200Mb of data for the entire 14 days i will be there, and don't need 3G (although i am sure my 2.5G phone will work on 3G data plans like ADSM, at least that's the theory) , so i am kinda lost... 200Mb is too much for normal Wind pre-paid service (which is about 1.4 euros per Mb, from this thread, right?)

[DaveRo]

Originally Posted by ArSa

I see that most people here are OK with wind plus non-stop service...

An irony of the HTML mangling caused by PLUS non-stop is that I cannot read this forum at all with my Nokia N810 (which is what I'm using day-to-day because I don't usually have enough power for the laptop on the boat) so I've only just seen this post. I have to use the laptop with Firefox and the Force Content Type addon.

The effect of the WIND proxy with the Nokia is very variable - sites that work one day don't the next, and sometimes I'm fed WAP-style content, sometimes not. It works with simple websites but not with many blogs and forums.

So I too would like a reasonable prepaid internet solution - something like the Italian WIND offers. I would be happy to pay 20 to 30 Euro a month while I'm here in Greece.

Cosmote do have internet offers - and I have a Cosmokarte SIM - but they're difficult to understand and seem expensive.

If anybody knows of anything please post it here.

[dyofanto]

I have read all previous post. I have read some time ago that mobile Internet on Greece is not allowed for pay-by-use (prepaid) SIM cards. But know, I understand from previous post that it is possible with Wind and Cosmote?
Can I buy a SIM card from WInd or Cosmote, put it on my unlocked Treo and be browsing and fetching email in minutes? Must I do any other tramit or call to customer care to activate it?