Cosmote sim in Greece driving me mad! Help please?

[brownsox]

Just bought the sim. So far no joy (luckily on wifi here), and the customer service phone number quoted on their leaflet is not in use. And the webpage they tell you to go to will not load "server stopped responding".
In the OTE shop they said they would not do it for us.
The instructions say pan settings: Internet. I typed that in. Then the iPad cellular data screen asks for user name and password. The cosmote English instructions say
Username:
Password:
Leaving them blank and no indication what they should be. I tried my own. No good.
On the sim packaging there are lots of long numbers, none look like uname or pword.
There are PIN1, PUK1, PIN2, PUK2.
When asked for pin we put in pin1. No indication what the others are for.
Putting in the pin did make cellular data active on the settings screen so presumably the sim is known about by the iPad.
Is it possible that someone out there has traversed this minefield recently and knows the answers??
Fingers crossed. Soooo frustrating!

 

[RichardS]

When I was in Greece last August I bought the sim card in Corfu Town but could not get past this password stuff - as you say, the sim was recognised but I tried all the various PIN 1, 2 etc.

After about an hour I took the tablet into the marina office and asked the young lady if she could help me as I didn't know the password. She said "you just have to make one up using 8 numbers! What do you want to use?" I said 88888888 so I'll remember it. She typed it in and Bob's Your Uncle!

Really confusing!

Richard

 

[Carmel2]

Help is at hand-------------------maybe. We went though this yesterday, not on an iPad though but a laptop. The following in the Mobile Wifi profile settings of our Huawei mifi worked for us;
profile name: Cosmote Internet
username: cosmote
APN: internet
(password: don't enter anything)
When asked to enter a pin we entered Pin 1 and it was successful. We haven't had to use any of the other pins/puks.
We spent several hours tearing our hair out before we finally got it to work so good luck and hope this solves it!

 

[brownsox]

Thank you so much Richard and Paul. Really reassuring to know it's not just us, at least!
So far have tried all those with variations and no good but we do now have hope ... And wondering whether the fact that their own server isn't responding might be playing a part. Will have a beer and try again later, or in the morning. Quite amazing that the instructions are still so naff after at least a year, how many people have leapt into the briny in despair I wonder. We met another Brit couple getting DEPKA'd today who'd just bought one too (CorfuTown), they.'re on the anchorage it's blowing F5/6 and they're probably doing this too without the forum's help, as they didn't seem to have heard of it ... Thank you forum, yet again.

 

[duncan99210]

I was going to say we've never had a problem with our Cosmote sim, then remembered we have a Wind one..... I'll go quietly.

 

[DaveRo]

Unless it's changed since last year:
The normal APNs are:
Cosmote: internet
Wind: gint.b-online.gr
(username and password blank in both cases)

In fact I think you can enter anything for username/password since the server knows your id because you're using their network.

 

[RichardS]

I was going to say we've never had a problem with our Cosmote sim, then remembered we have a Wind one..... I'll go quietly.

In fact mine was a Wind sim but I thought it might be a common problem. My tablet picked up all the APN settings automatically and I could see that it recognised the provider as Wind. It was just entering the password that had me completely confused as the screen simply said something which I translated with Google translate and it was "Enter password of eight numbers". Unless there was something odd about the translation it did not say "Create password of eight numbers".

Perhaps "enter" and "create" in Greek are similar?

Richard

 

[TonyMS]

We're successfully using a Cosmote SIM with the same settings as Carmel2. Note that "internet" starts with a small "i".

If you're not a techy person, it pays to buy your Cosmote ûSIM from Germanos, who I've found to be helpful.

BTW, top up online doesn't work. But you can put a euro credit on your account, and draw down when you need it.

TonyMS

 

[duncan99210]

We have a locked mifi brick from Wind and two SIMs: one contract, one PAYG, which we top up if we run out of data on the contract one. Neither SIM has ever given us any problems, simply inserted into the brick and it works. Never connected the thing to the laptop via the USB cable, always used it as a stand alone bit of kit. I've also got a Vodafone SIM in the iPad which also sorted itself out automatically when we used to use it.

 

[vyv_cox]

We had APN problems with a Vodafone SIM on the iPad but a lady in the Vodafone had a note of the settings, which in our case did not load automatically although they do in UK. The kiosks sell codes for all the phones and internet.

 

[brownsox]

Yea! Just using the iPad for something else and a message came up asking me to update Carrier Settings. I said OK, and suddenly cosmote signal appears top left!
Btw no password or uname.
Great rejoicing aboard Jessie.
BUT it didn't go straight to the Cosmote website and when I tried to get to it it again said server not responding - so I believe it's not quite done yet. We have to tell the website we want our money used, I believe.But we are nearly there I'm sure. Thanks guys.

 

[sailaboutvic]

Help is at hand-------------------maybe. We went though this yesterday, not on an iPad though but a laptop. The following in the Mobile Wifi profile settings of our Huawei mifi worked for us;
profile name: Cosmote Internet
username: cosmote
APN: internet
(password: don't enter anything)
When asked to enter a pin we entered Pin 1 and it was successful. We haven't had to use any of the other pins/puks.
We spent several hours tearing our hair out before we finally got it to work so good luck and hope this solves it!

Info here is spot on . We neave had a problem .

 

[brownsox]

Just to complete the saga, for the benefit of anyone else who has the same problem. The reason the Cosmote site wouldn't load was that it can only be accessed from a Cosmote connection, and my iPad was defaulting to wifi even after Cosmote woke up. Once I switched wifi off the site loaded, good English version, perfectly straightforward.
I didn't need a password or username on the iPad. It worked only when Carrier settings were updated ... How you'd do that if a little suggestion box did not appear I'm afraid I have no idea. Google? Anyway now we are motoring. Or sailing hopefully. And thank you yet again, forum.

 

[marina95]

Visiting Settings>General>About should make iOS devices report if a carrier settings update is available. However, my understanding is that this requires an active internet connection, so it may well be that in this situation a "push" message usually sent as a special MMS message from the carrier to your device would contain the carrier settings and be applied.

 

[charles_reed]

We're successfully using a Cosmote SIM with the same settings as Carmel2. Note that "internet" starts with a small "i".

If you're not a techy person, it pays to buy your Cosmote ûSIM from Germanos, who I've found to be helpful.

BTW, top up online doesn't work. But you can put a euro credit on your account, and draw down when you need it.

TonyMS

I'd second using a Germanos shop - extremely helpful, especially the one in Ag Nik in Crete.
I've used Vodafone Gr contract for the last 5 years, no connection problems with either the Huawei USB stick or a Nokia 500 smartphone. Just have to put in the PIN1, no need for passwords either in Win7 or Suse 13.2.
OTE customer service is non-existent and I don't believe their coverage is any better than Vodafone.
As to having a Greek voice SIM, I've found it's no saving on using my UK mobile SIM, needs topping up every month, and the # expires after 6 months of non-contribution.