Greece HSPA (prepaid and postpaid offers)

[kuba.g]

Thanks a lot Evan! I wish we would have this quality of information for every country!

[goldeneyed]

Great job Evan, very useful.

[timmfive]

Wow! Thanks Evan! Your compilation and work is probably the best work on the entire PrepaidGSM.net forums!

A couple of things regarding my Q-card payg plan:

1) I went to the Wind store today and got my menus changed to english.
He called 1227 and spoke to Q customer support (and presumably asked them to change it to english.) Then he dialled 1224. Dialling 1224 gives you an option to change the menus to english So now when I dial 1223 to add credit, or 1225 to check credit I can understand what is going on. Kinda handy. (Although the texts I receive from Q are still in Greek).

2) The €1 for 100MB that I wrote about last year (the one that seemed to offer unlimited data!) is reported to have ended several weeks ago. Around March 1st, my speeds suddenly went from 1M down/up to 50k down/up. Very noticable! The data kept working and I wasn't getting charged for any data. Tolerable for gmail, Facebook, weather apps, etc... but pretty much unusable to check any webpages. Impossible to stream a YouTube video. And forget about tethering... lucky if after 5 minutes Gmail would come up in HTML mode...
So I bought some credit and texted "500MB" (no quotes) to 1210 today. (seems to also work the same as sending "500" to 1210), but 50k up/down issue (using speedtest.net) still the same. :-/

The Wind/Q store was closed by the time I realized this, but next time I'm in town, I will talk to him and see if I can get more information about this. Will update if anything changes, or if/when I figure out a solution.

Thanks again for the compilation update!

[labralabra]

Can one have a micro-sim (for iPad) in the prepaid 3G data plans with operators providing prepaid 3G data connections in Greece?

[DeBilbao]

Just arrived from Greece and I must say that the Cosmote 3G service is perfect, with great coverage in all of the areas visited (Athens, Delphi, Arachova, Lefkada, Metsovo, Meteora).

Bought a Cosmote Internet On The Go On Request SIM for 20 €. You must activate the service via the web page http://ciotgonrequest.cosmote.gr:80/...Label=HomePage where you can choose different topping options.

You can buy the SIM card alone for 20 € or in a bundle with a USB 3G modem for 50 €. I decided to go for the first option because my iPhone 4 can act as a 3G modem and a Wi-Fi Hotspot.

The SIM card is only for data, it doesn't include any voice service and you can't make any kind of voice calls, event to greek numbers. It's intended to be used installed on USB 3G modems, tablets like the iPad, but you can use it perfectly with your iPhone. You can any other old mobile phone to put your SIM card into it and use it for voice service.

The SIM card can be purchased in a MicroSIM edition, fitting perfectly on Apple iDevices. I have used it both on my iPhone 4 and my 1st generation 3G iPad and run flawlessly.

With the purchase you get 20 € of credit that you can spend buying different combinations of data and duration. I found the 10 days / 3GB combo the best solution; it gets 15 € off your credit and you get 5 € so if you run out of data you can top it with the extra 5 € and you'll get 1 GB more.

So it can actually be used for 10 days with up to 4 GB of data transmission, more than enough for most users. I barely used 800 MB in 7 days of use.

[wisniak]

Well, I returned from a wonderful 12 day trip to Greece.

As I wrote in a previous post, I tried purchasing a Cosmote SIM card at the airport, but the store was closed and apparently the only other available store was inside Departures.

So we began our trip in Leivadia, where I found a Vodafone store w/o available SIM cards. So I hiked up the hill to the Wind center, where the purchasing process took about 15 minutes and the sales girls sold me (what she said was) a 7 day card for 15 Euros and 3GB, which was activated immediately (unlike my previous experiences in Italy and France).

Also, unlike France and Italy, I had nothing to change in the iPhone (3GS) setup - it worked immediately.

In order to prevent further hassle, I immediately purchased a 7-day refill card for 10 Euros, which would have sufficed to cover the remainder of our trip. Can't remember the GB, but it was over 1GB, which again was more than enough.

Bottom line, the original SIM card held throughout the 12 day trip, w/o requiring the top-up (so now I have a top up card for sale).

We stayed in the Delphi area, Pelion, Zagoria, Lefkada, Athens.
In most places there was more than adequate GPRS/EDGE coverage, very poor 3G coverage (except in Athens). But again, for my needs it sufficed.

Every time I rebooted my iPhone (not related to the SIM card) - I was required to reenter the PIN code, Evan covered this issue in a prior post above. In any case this was a technical thing, did not affect the Wind card usage in any way.

Thank you again Evan for all your invaluable help.

[dognaldo]

Originally Posted by wisniak

Well, I returned from a wonderful 12 day trip to Greece.
......

Hi,

About Germano store closed, at what time you arrived at the airport?

Is the store open on weekends?

Did you ever use VoIP with this Vodafone data sim ?

[ ] ´s

[wisniak]

Originally Posted by dognaldo

Hi,

About Germano store closed, at what time you arrived at the airport?

Is the store open on weekends?

Did you ever use VoIP with this Vodafone data sim ?

[ ] ´s

No, just for browsing.
Always had GPRS, most of the time didn't have 3G.
But contrary to my bad experiences in France and Italy, this time the SIM was active immediately and was connected to the right package from the start.
However, the Wind salesperson told me the card would be good for 7 days only, and so I purchased a 7 day refill card for an additional 10 Eur, turned out she was wrong and the original card was good for the full trip.
Minor inconvenience.

[Nicholas]

Hi all,

I'm glad I came across this forum.

All help would be appreciated, in answering my question.

I will be travelling to Greece and going to places like Symi, Corfu, Athens. Which carrier would have the best voice and data plans and coverage for border areas like Symi? I have an iPhone 3gs that I use to tether to my tablet, which I would like to do whilst travelling through Greece.

I have been looking through the various providers websites, but I end up confusing myself. That's why I'm glad I found you guys!

Thanks again.

[Evan]

Originally Posted by labralabra

Can one have a micro-sim (for iPad) in the prepaid 3G data plans with operators providing prepaid 3G data connections in Greece?

You can get a microSIM with Cosmote and Vodafone data plans, since both are offering the iPhone/iPad on their networks. I’m not sure if Wind provides microSIMs at the moment but I guess they will in the near future, since they will also start officially offering the iPhone on their network.

Originally Posted by wisniak

We stayed in the Delphi area, Pelion, Zagoria, Lefkada, Athens. In most places there was more than adequate GPRS/EDGE coverage, very poor 3G coverage (except in Athens). But again, for my needs it sufficed.

Thank you again Evan for all your invaluable help.

You are welcome wisniak. Generally Cosmote and Vodafone have better/faster 3G and better coverage especially on the areas you've visited.

Originally Posted by dognaldo

Hi, About Germano store closed, at what time you arrived at the airport?

Is the store open on weekends?

Did you ever use VoIP with this Vodafone data sim ?

[ ] ´s

Most Germanos stores are open from 9am to 9pm but I don't know about the one at the airport. You can give them a call at +302103534956. But even if it's closed when you arrive you will find many stores in Athens, just have a look on my previous posts and the store locator links.

Also, Germanos doesn't offer Vodafone SIMs, only Cosmote. Regarding VoIP Vodafone forbids it and actively blocks it. Cosmote and Wind don't have a clear policy about VoIP, and I could use Wind data plans for very good VoIP connections at least until last summer when I was last visited Greece.

Originally Posted by Nicholas

Hi all,

I'm glad I came across this forum.

All help would be appreciated, in answering my question.

I will be travelling to Greece and going to places like Symi, Corfu, Athens. Which carrier would have the best voice and data plans and coverage for border areas like Symi? I have an iPhone 3gs that I use to tether to my tablet, which I would like to do whilst travelling through Greece.

I have been looking through the various providers websites, but I end up confusing myself. That's why I'm glad I found you guys!

Thanks again.

Hi Nicholas and welcome to the forum. I wrote a fairly recent overview about the prepaid data plans in Greece. You can start from here:
http://www.prepaidgsm.net/forum/gree...html#post36105

or click on the links on my signature.

Some things have changed since March but they are minor (mainly offers etc). I will update this weekend with all the latest offers/changes.

Have a look on the posts and let me know if you have any additional question.