Has anyone tried a spanish sim in a UK vodafone data card?

[paulonvt]

Has anyone tried a spanish Vodafone pay as you go(tarjeta de datos prepago) 3gsim in a UK Vodafone data card? ( In Spain )
The rates advertised look far lower than Vodafone UK
25MB 20 euro
200MB 40 euro
1GB 60 euro
Paul

 

[freedom44]

I tried to buy a sim card for my UK Vodaphone 3 g card at the vodaphone shop in Faro airport and was told that they would not supply one unless i took out a conract which required me to have a billing address in Portugal. It may be differnt in Spain.

I gave up and just use the UK one whilst abroad. As long as one sets a sensible filter to stop the download of attachments ( eg photos of newborn neices at £12 a crack) I found the cost of downloading emails and grib files very reasonable in Spain, Portugal and the Azores. Mine is on contract at £25 per month which is acceptable as I can justify using it in the UK. I do not think vodaphone pay as you go UK 3g cards work abroad, or they did not when I looked into them.

 

[Grehan]

Can't reply exactly to your question, but . .
a) we contracted with Vodafone Spain for GPRS services (we did need to provide a Spanish address and bank account) and the SIM fitted fine into our UK Mobile Connect PSMIA computer device, and worked.
b) we bitterly regretted doing so - Vodafone are not to be trusted when it comes to contract billing and siphoning money out of one's account, which is why
c) Pay As You Go seems like a good - safe - idea. We found the coverage and technical performance of our GPRS thingy to be good. I presume 3G ought to be as good - better?

 

[Richard10002]

I'm reasonably sure that it is fairly straightforward to unlock a Vodafone Data card and, if you unlock it, any sim will work.

I have an Option Globetrotter Fusion card, (I think the Vodafone is an Option Card), which has accepted all my UK Sims, (O2, T Mobile & Orange), and an Italian WIND Sim.

 

[charles_reed]

UK G3 Vodafone cards

work fine where there is G3 coverage, such as Malta and some of the larger Italian cities.

The trouble is that 3G coverage is very partial, in Croatia only 8 cells round Zagreb.

 

[scoty]

yes I bought a spanish SIM card, no contract, put it in my Uk mobile, five years later and still no problems, don·t go on a contract........

 

[robind]

3G`s service is crap too, with no access ( for comments) to senior personel and only asian call centres that don`t really understand your problems or are able to provide any cure! also their cover isn`t good in the UK let alone the rest of the world? Most days I have to walk down my garden to get even a passable signal. Oh! they have changed their ariel "service supplier" a couple of months ago to Orange? which was the very reason I didn`t have an orange phone in the first place, as "I had to go down my Garden" etc etc. /forums/images/graemlins/blush.gif(( Just my opinion of course but they provide/d me with a really crap service!

 

[Grehan]

Getting answers, or problems corrected, etc with Vodafone is completely impossible. Completely impossible to get to talk to anyone either intelligent or with any degree of authority or capable of getting anything done. We spent hours on the phone talking to half-witted people, constantly having to repeat the (complicated) problem, for them then to say that it would be corrected, which it never was, and/or that the last person we spoke to had given us incorrect information. Lies, lies, lies. Endlessly.
It's no better going into a Vodafone shop. They don't know anything either, and have to ring up a call centre just like the poor punters. Obviously, with an important and complicated problem, that means them hanging on the phone for hours, too. Just like the punters. With an ever growing queue of customers in the shop waiting for someone to deal with their problem . . .
This is the worst company we have ever encountered (we spent decades successfully running our own business, dealing with suppliers and customers of all sizes from one man bands to giant multinationals), with a 'customer (non)culture ' that means that Spanish Vodafone was exactly as bad as Vodafone UK.
We finally managed to dump them two years ago (that wasn't easy either - they continued to try to withdraw money from our account even after our contract had supposedly been cancelled - and they threatened to destroy our credit rating). Still upset about them? You bet!

 

[Steve Clayton]

I, and others, have told you our experiences with Vodafone. Seems they haven't changed!
http://www.ybw.com/forums/showflat.php?Cat=0&Number=796425&page=0&fpart=1&vc=1

http://www.ybw.com/forums/showflat.php/Cat/0/Number/1149350/an/0/page/4

http://www.ybw.com/forums/showflat.php/Cat/0/Number/930241/an/0/page/0

 

[Richard10002]

[ QUOTE ]
3G`s service is crap too

[/ QUOTE ]

I think you mean "3" ?

 

[pandroid]

You've gone on about your experience with Vodafone now for some length over a number of posts. I guess you feel strongly about it, but to redress the balance I should say that in my experience Voda are no worse than any of the others. Admittedly you do have to try pretty hard to get sense out of them, but the people DO exist, you just have to get through the waves of incompetents who answer the phone. And obviously dont use the shops, they know less than anybody and will give you a worse deal.

We use Vodafone (both Voda UK and Voda SE) without any hassle (once its set up). Voda are (almost) the only company who offer Data on a PAYG basis in the UK and Scandanavia (I know others do in southern europe).

We have contracts with both Voda and Orange and they both have their weaknesses. The O2 customer service is worse than both IMHO. As an example, when last asked the simple question whether O2 provide a PAYG data service in the UK, the answer was 'it might work'(!)

Its true that using mobile data 'abroad' is a minefield for which many people are ill-prepared, and the language difficulty adds to the problems. The charge plans are deliberately opaque and sometimes almost impossible to obtain (such as those in Finland) but this will no doubt improve as the EU gets to grips with it. (I agree that things like Voda Passport or ICS are rubbish unless you fit their specific call pattern, but local SIMs and things like 0044.co.uk are much better for voice at a fraction of the rate) Most data services are sold as 'business' or premium, which is why they expect to do it on contract and internal knowledge is poor. To most telco's 'data' means WAP (which of course it doesnt). To add to this, their 'value added software' is usually pants and should be discarded. However the situation is miles better than six years ago when we first started using it.

If you want to moan about not getting money back from someone, just try Sky...
Ivan
www.kissen.co.uk
P.S. I have no connection with any Telco, including Voda.
P.P.S. The home page link in your profile doesnt work any more.
P.P.P.S I was going to have a rant about people not answering the question originally posed by the thread and going on about other stuff instead, but then....

 

[shogun]

We found that the cost of downloads, (vodafone connect) was 'off the wall'. additionally the roaming charges on our IRL Vodafone, from other networks were equally off putting. In the end, after two seasons, we got a local Spanish PAYGo fone. I got everyone to txt a request for a call, and then rang back on the Spanish number. Much Much cheaper and very much under control. Cut the bill from about € 400 a month to around € 80 (NB € 400 is because I am doing business on the fone)

 

[Grehan]

I'm not exactly sure if a post that expands even further than my own on the shortcomings of Vodafone - and winds in the other mobile operators to boot - exactly "redresses the balance" . . .
Yes, I do 'comment', when appropriate, when the subject of Vodafone and their contracts crops up. They caused us so much anguish, sleepless nights sometimes, over so many weeks and months - and I'd like to save other people from similar pain. Some of these problems are just 'normal' irritations when one is on land in the UK. When one is abroad, on a boat, on a tight budget terrified about what they're taking from one's bank account, and it's not even easy to get in touch with the b*st*rds, but one still tries over and over again, it's much much worse. That's why I'm touchy about them.
You say the others are just as bad. No defence, in my book.

PS My first post did indeed keep to the subject (mainly). Viz: PAYG is a good idea. We found the technical aspects of the (GPRS) service to be fine. Didn't experience UK-Spanish SIM problems.

OK, enough! /forums/images/graemlins/crazy.gif

 

[Steve Clayton]

[ QUOTE ]
...They caused us so much anguish, sleepless nights sometimes, over so many weeks and months..

[/ QUOTE ]
Out experience with Vodafone UK was similar. They put the debt collectors on us (so no doubt this affected our credit rating.) I told them and Vfone support Manageress that I welcomed the opportunity to explain things in court and could they set a date when the UK CEO was available as I would be calling him to explain the anomolies (£K's) on our bills. Vfone then settled on what I told them I owed them.

 

[Salty]

[ QUOTE ]
Has anyone tried a spanish Vodafone pay as you go(tarjeta de datos prepago) 3gsim in a UK Vodafone data card? ( In Spain )
The rates advertised look far lower than Vodafone UK
25MB 20 euro
200MB 40 euro
1GB 60 euro
Paul

[/ QUOTE ]

Not Spanish, but I used a Vodafone Portugal pay-as-you-go SIM in my (UK) Vodafone data-card and it was cheap (compared to the UK roaming cost) and worked fine. I bought it in the UK from a Portuguese retailer on E-Bay and he kindly sent his own instructions on setting it up, albeit in idiosyncratic English! Would happily do the same again and can't imagine that Vodafone Spain would be materially different.

 

[Richard10002]

[ QUOTE ]
...but I used a Vodafone Portugal pay-as-you-go SIM in my (UK) Vodafone data-card and it was cheap (compared to the UK roaming cost) and worked fine.

[/ QUOTE ]

I bought a Vodafone PAYG Sim at Faro airport, (actually, it was free). Do you know exactly how much you pay for data within Portugal? Is there a web site which tells you?

Cheers,

Richard

 

[Salty]

It was at Easter, and cost E2.40/Mb compared to about £14/Mb with UK prepay roaming! So very cheap in a relative sense, but you do have to keep a close eye on usage to make sure you don't use up all your credit pretty quickly. For example I disabled all the automatic updates for M/soft, virus and adware scanners etc to make sure they weren't running in the background and using up credit.

 

[Richard10002]

[ QUOTE ]
It was at Easter, and cost E2.40/Mb compared to about £14/Mb with UK prepay roaming!

[/ QUOTE ]

Wow to both. e.mail, or big emergencies only!

I wonder if any of the Portuguese networks are getting close to a daily rate for unlimited internet on PAYG?

 

[paulonvt]

Update
I changed to a spanish sim card and the cost of going on line is 30 euro cents an hour, 40 euro in advance buys around 130 hours. though I cant get a 3G signal, GPRS is OK

 

[Grehan]

They're charging data by the hour? Very interesting. Which operator?

Thanks for the update