Communications- France and Spain

[bromleybysea]

I'm planning an extended cruise to Atlantic France and Spain this summer. I will need to keep in regular contact with the family at home. Being somewhat impecunious, I need a affordable option- I assume that I should be able to access the internet fairly regular for email- what is the best option for mobile phones- I had a Geosim last year for a trip to Greece and was singularly unimpressed, but wondered about one of the other "global" sims that seem to be on offer on every street corner in Croydon these days. Or is it better to get a local PAYG (if available) when I get there?

 

[taz]

I have a Movistar sim for use in Spain, they have the best coverage and services imho. They can be bought in most large supermarkets and have many shops, so no problem when you get there.

 

[KellysEye]

We bought a Sim card for each country, do not use a UK simcard. I don't know if the global services are cheaper, worth checking.

 

[Twister_Ken]

Unless there's a spectacular deal to be had somewhere, get a local PAYG. In France, PAYG credits have an expiry date - they don't chunter on forever as in the UK - so they are use-it-or-lose-it.

 

[DownWest]

Best value PAYG in France is from Le Clerc. Credit lasts longer than others. Uses the SFR network. In Portugal credit lasts indef. Dunno about Spain.

 

[doris]

I have a Voda sim only and with roaming I pay, I think, 75p per call to the UK then its up to 1hour on my normal tarif, which is sod all. Thats a lot of chuntering but only makes sense if you have a small number of callees.

 

[bromleybysea]

Skype

if I enable Skype on my Android Smartphone, and only use it to connect to wifi I should be able to phone UK Skype numbers for free, or have I got that wrong?

 

[jordanbasset]

In Spain we bought a vodophone dongle, 50 euros a month for unlimited download and I use skype for telephone calls, so very cheap calls. Currently about 2 miles off Cap De Gata, between Almerimar and Garrucha and still have a strong signal

 

[westernman]

Most of the data deals in France seem to specifically exclude Skype and other peer to peer services.

 

[bbg]

Depending on what you use it for you might try getting a new phone. I don't know about France / Spain, but not long ago I bought a pay as you go phone in Switzerland for 20 CHF, with 15 CHF of credit. Then top up as needed.
Very basic phone, but it was essentially a free sim card.
Don't know if the card could be switched out to another phone.

 

[maxi77]

Haviung done the same last year in the end we just used our UK phone sim cards till we hit Portugal where we are now. Internet connection was much more of a problem, pay as you go dongles are not cheap in Froggy land, including initial load we were looking at 70-80 euros. In the end we did reasonably well with various wifi connections, which varied in cost and effectiveness. We had a 3 dongle as back up and only had to use it a few times but it was expensive to run.

Sim cards a cheap in Portugal and dongles cost about the same as the UK with access costing about 50 cents an hour