Poland

sleepy · **Poland -** 30-08-2007, 13:26

I am going to Poland next Sunday for a week and I am interested in buying a local SIM card especially to connect to Internet (through a PDA and PC).
I have checked all the tables on the site and the country seems promising, which is quite unusual.

Now, the reason I am posting is that I am arriving on Sunday with all the shops closed and the following days I will be very busy and perhaps will not have much (or not at all) tome to get the SIM...

Questions are:

1) Are there shops at Warsaw airport where I can get one on Sunday afternoon? Alternatives?

2) Are there hidden problems? Prices for data transfer of most companies seem comparable (though with some differences), therefore I expect I can get the first I can get my hands on. Fact is, I am back now from Argentina, where I tried to do the same (and there I could spend all the time necessary to investigate), but for cheap data rates either you get a postpaid (impossible for foreigners) or you pay the usual huge amount of money with prepaid (voice calls where rather cheap and easy, anyway).

I fear this type of problems...

Had I got more time probably all would be very easy, but much of the difficulty may come from the day of arrival and lack of time (very common in such situations and another help phone operators get against our strive for reasonable rates when abroad...)

I thank you so much for your help!

Sleepy

Effendi · 30-08-2007, 14:26

I think you can easily get a prepaid card also on Sunday at any open kiosk throughout Warszawa, probably at the airport too. I landed there some months ago but I didn't need a prepaid card; surely there's a newstand at the arrivals terminal, I think they should have at least Heyah or Sami Swoi, which is sold also at post office (there should be one at the airport for sure). It's very easy to get a prepaid card in Poland, really... and Sami Swoi seems easier for GPRS activation compared to Heyah.

Przemolog · 30-08-2007, 17:21

Quote:

Originally Posted by Effendi

It's very easy to get a prepaid card in Poland, really... and Sami Swoi seems easier for GPRS activation compared to Heyah.

Each Polish SIM has easy GPRS activation or it is already active - I have no idea why Heyah is such an exception

. Sami Swoi is not a good choice - the data rates are the highest on the market. Of course, the best solution for GPRS is a "data SIM" iPlus simdata or Orange Free na Kartę (0.03 PLN/100 kB) but they are not so easy to buy and have very high rates for voice calls. Whereas each Orange Go/POP SIM may be turned into an Orange Free na Kartę SIM, all the tariff change requests are not processed immediately but once a day (about 8:00 AM). Quick and easy compromise is Simplus (0.20 PLN/100 kB) or, for large data tranfers Tak Tak (0.72 PLN/ 500 kB).

Motel75 · 30-08-2007, 23:37

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

Przemolog · 31-08-2007, 09:12

Quote:

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

Quote:

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 · 31-08-2007, 11:27

Quote:

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 · 31-08-2007, 22:56

Quote:

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 · 11-09-2007, 12:40

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 · 13-09-2007, 08:42

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