Tuenti SIM for Data

[Ashed]

I'll be in Spain for about four days in about two weeks and it seems like Tuenti offers the best value for my needs. I'll only be needing a micro-SIM for my Note 2.

I'll be arriving in San Sebastián first before heading towards Barcelona. Is the SIM really for free and I just need to add in €6 of credit to get the 1 GB data? Is activation instant?

[gaztelugatxe]

Originally Posted by Ashed

I'll be in Spain for about four days in about two weeks and it seems like Tuenti offers the best value for my needs. I'll only be needing a micro-SIM for my Note 2.

I'll be arriving in San Sebastián first before heading towards Barcelona. Is the SIM really for free and I just need to add in €6 of credit to get the 1 GB data? Is activation instant?

Hello

from what I've read Tuenti SIMs can only be bought in a very few places such as Telecor shops. Most people order them on the web site and you must pay 10 euros in order to activate the 1 Gb data pack (6euro + 21%Vat= 7,26 euro). The sim itself is free.

Regards

[NFH]

I see that Movistar is now advertising Tuenti tariffs on its web site with equal prominence to its own Movistar-branded tariffs.

I have a question though. The SIM card costs €10 which includes a 1GB 1-month bundle of €6 (€7.26 incl 21% VAT). When does this 1GB 1-month bundle start?

• When you order the SIM card?
• When you first use the SIM card?
• When you decide at a later date?

It's not clear from the web site.

[drama queen]

Originally Posted by NFH

I see that Movistar is now advertising Tuenti tariffs on its web site with equal prominence to its own Movistar-branded tariffs.

I have a question though. The SIM card costs €10 which includes a 1GB 1-month bundle of €6 (€7.26 incl 21% VAT). When does this 1GB 1-month bundle start?

• When you order the SIM card?
• When you first use the SIM card?
• When you decide at a later date?

It's not clear from the web site.

I visited Spain during July and found this thread extremely useful. The Tuenti card was excellent - better than previous options I have tried in Spain. I went to a Movistar shop in Santander, and they sold me the card for €12 with enough credit for 1GB for one month. I'm still not sure how exactly the cost breaks down - because the data tariff only appears to cost €6 for the month, and I assume that the minimum top-up is €10. However, I am happy to pay €12 for 1GB - and I used some of the spare credit for voice calls. If you were in Spain for more than 1 month, I suppose you could rollover the spare credit?

The coverage and speeds were generally excellent because the Movistar network is the best in Spain.

I was able to use Tethering, VOIP, Skype, Viber etc.

The purchase/activation procedure in the shop was pretty exhausting. The sales assistant was fairly competent and had just dealt with a tourist with exactly the same requirements in the queue in front of me. Nevertheless, the whole process still took about 20 minutes, and involved making copies of my passport and signing forms in duplicate! Not quite as bad as France, but still ridiculously complex. Also, I was not given the APN, although I had made a note of it before going to Spain, so I was able to set this up manually.

[1040Berlin]

1.) Find a Movistar store (One of the Spanish networks). The Store locator is not too helpful but gives a rough orientation. All or most Carrefour stores seem to have a Movistar store. But in all their three lacations of Palma de Mallorca the Tuenti SIMs were sold out when I tried.

2.) You need your ID and EUR 12 and an E-mail address. The shop assistant will ask for your Spanish permanent or semipermanent address but you do not need one to buy a Spanish SIM.

3.) Note: Tuenti has three different sizes of SIM cards missing the the new one with the micro SIM to break out from the standard SIM. So be sure to get the size your phone uses. In the Movistar where I bought my SIM the two smaller sizes were sold out.

4.) After the registration process (in the shop) the connection is active immediately. You get confirmation text messages with your phone number, the chosen tariff and a link to register in tuenti.com.

5.) When you chose the 6 Euro (+ VAT) package (1 GByte, voice calls: 3 cent per minute) the remaining credit is 4.74 Euro.

6.) All managing is done by web access except the usual GSM codes to activate and deactivate voicemail inbox. If you use the card for short term holidays do not forget to deactivate "auto renewal". To keep the connection in function you need to load EUR 5 every 6 months. International roaming is activated by default.

7.) Callback calls work.

[NFH]

On their web site, I see that it costs €10 including VAT. It sounds as if it's 20% more in a shop.

I see on the tariffs page that out-of-bundle usage is charged at €0.0363/MB including VAT. For a short stay, I might not want to buy a whole gigabyte as it could be cheaper to pay this higher out-of-bundle rate. When buying on the web site, it forces you to buy the gigabyte bundle. Do I have to buy a whole gigabyte if I buy it in a shop?

Can I order it on the web site for delivery to my hotel? Or would this cause complications with having to produce ID in person at some stage?

[tux]

What speeds did you get with Tuenti?

[NFH]

Originally Posted by tux

What speeds did you get with Tuenti?

It was typically around 6Mbps downstream, around 1-3Mbps upstream. At 300km/h, it was well under 1Mbps, but FaceTime worked well.

[1040Berlin]

In the region northern from Barcelona we tried to get a Tuenti SIM card. Firstly I collected the store references of our residental town and surrounding places from the Tuenti homepage.

At the first four places (all Movistar stores) they did not offer Tuenti (any more?). In the fifth Movistar store all the three kinds of SIM cards (Mini, Micro, Nano) were available. The shop assistent hat good knowledge of English language. But when it came to registration (prepaid tariff) she first found out that Tuenti did not accecpt the 1 Gigabyte + 75 mins tariff for customers not beeing residents of Spain. Later she told us introducing price of the remaining 1 Gigabyte was EUR 25.

I suppose she did a mistake in typing in the customer data and we were classified as a non EU overseas nationality. Unfortunately I have no proof of this theory because we left the store without Tuenti SIM card.

[kimdo]

Will there a Tuenti store at Madrid airport? Thanks