wifi dongle in greece

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blueglass

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just bought a UK wifi dongle for £20 from O2 for which you can buy 1 day 7 day or 30 day top ups very reasonably witout an annual contract. Does anybody know if such a deal exists with any Greek cellphone companies or anywhere I could look online (in UK now but will be in greece 6 months of the summer) I know about the annual contract ones in greece for 30 euros a month from my iphone thread, but this is not good value if only there half the year. - grateful for any pointers
 
blueglass said:
just bought a UK wifi dongle for £20 from O2 for which you can buy 1 day 7 day or 30 day top ups very reasonably witout an annual contract. Does anybody know if such a deal exists with any Greek cellphone companies or anywhere I could look online (in UK now but will be in greece 6 months of the summer) I know about the annual contract ones in greece for 30 euros a month from my iphone thread, but this is not good value if only there half the year. - grateful for any pointers
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We are on a contract with Vodaphone gr. and use their sim in our own unlocked dongle.The Vodaphone shop in Corfu informed us that we could cancel the contract after 2 months. I can not back this up one way or another as we have not tried to cancel.

You will need a Greek address which we got a letter from Gouvia marina, but I believe Gouvia have since become uncooperative on this unless you are a annual berth holder.

Also anybody having a Greek PAYG will have to register the number and show their passports with their service provider. If not the phone will switched off and the number cannot be re issued.

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We've found for the past couple of years the roaming charges were getting out of hand, so last year obtained an 'unlocked' dongle in Italy (easily obtained) and have then bought the local top-up type SIM cards in each country. So far we've used this in Croatia, Montenegro, Italy and Malta without problems, we've also been told that it works in Greece and Turkey.
 
Also anybody having a Greek PAYG will have to register the number and show their passports with their service provider. If not the phone will switched off and the number cannot be re issued.
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You have until July to do this, at the moment, top ups are available at the shops or kiosks. However, they will Not sell you a SIM card unless you register it. I have heard that they will issue you the same number if registered after July, but cannot confirm this.
 
The non-roaming deals in Greece are very expensive but are available. You can check the prices on the carriers websites, www.cosmote.gr and www.wind.gr (I think), and vodafone is probably www.vodafone.gr.

As someone said, the dongle must be unlocked and you can also use an unlocked 3G mobile phone as a dongle.

As for Turkey unlocked phones need to be registered with the SIM number and it is a bit annoying because your SIM will only work with one specific phone. We have several phones of different quality and must keep track of which one works for which card in Turkey.
 
Re Vodafone Greece

blueglass said:
just bought a UK wifi dongle for £20 from O2 for which you can buy 1 day 7 day or 30 day top ups very reasonably witout an annual contract. Does anybody know if such a deal exists with any Greek cellphone companies or anywhere I could look online (in UK now but will be in greece 6 months of the summer) I know about the annual contract ones in greece for 30 euros a month from my iphone thread, but this is not good value if only there half the year. - grateful for any pointers
Click to expand...

You have assumed wrongly.

You have two options when not in Greece, with a €30+VAT data contract.
1. You can end it - if you own your USB stick - after 2 months on 1 month's notice.
2. You can revert to a different tariff of €3.30+VAT month for 100Mb.

I've tried both, and on the whole it's better to avoid the tussles with Vodafone Greece Credit Control, and keep the same contract in reduced form.

Incidentally you may find your USB stick is NU in Greece as the Vodafone USB stick has a complicated and involved protocol, on the stick in a mini-USB. When I bought a data-SIM in Kerkyra and tried to mount it in an EDGE compliant Nokia (which I'd previously been using in France, UK and Italy for data) I was unsuccessful.

PS to refer to the radio USB stick as a dongle is, strictly speaking, incorrect - a dongle WAS/is a piece of hardware which goes into the serial or parallel port of a computer to authorise use of a particular piece of software - high-end CAD and early versions of Max-Sea used it.
Thank goodness it has passed into oblivion - it was a continual source of irritation and calls for support amongst computer hoi polloi.
 
cynthia said:
Any ideas about the best dongle to buy - I appreciate that it must be unlocked?
Thanks
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We got a Huawei trough Ebay and we've had no problems with it. These always seem to be popular with other forumites and took the recomendation from previous links.

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Gone "Native" have you charles?

charles_reed said:
You have assumed wrongly.

You have two options when not in Greece, with a €30+VAT data contract.
1. You can end it - if you own your USB stick - after 2 months on 1 month's notice.
2. You can revert to a different tariff of €3.30+VAT month for 100Mb.

I've tried both, and on the whole it's better to avoid the tussles with Vodafone Greece Credit Control, and keep the same contract in reduced form.

Incidentally you may find your USB stick is NU in Greece as the Vodafone USB stick has a complicated and involved protocol, on the stick in a mini-USB. When I bought a data-SIM in Kerkyra and tried to mount it in an EDGE compliant Nokia (which I'd previously been using in France, UK and Italy for data) I was unsuccessful.

PS to refer to the radio USB stick as a dongle is, strictly speaking, incorrect - a dongle WAS/is a piece of hardware which goes into the serial or parallel port of a computer to authorise use of a particular piece of software - high-end CAD and early versions of Max-Sea used it.
Thank goodness it has passed into oblivion - it was a continual source of irritation and calls for support amongst computer hoi polloi.
Click to expand...

"Kerkyra" eh? Why then not Hellas instead of "Greece"

Chas
 
charles_reed said:
You have assumed wrongly.

You have two options when not in Greece, with a €30+VAT data contract.
1. You can end it - if you own your USB stick - after 2 months on 1 month's notice.
2. You can revert to a different tariff of €3.30+VAT month for 100Mb.

I've tried both, and on the whole it's better to avoid the tussles with Vodafone Greece Credit Control, and keep the same contract in reduced form.

Incidentally you may find your USB stick is NU in Greece as the Vodafone USB stick has a complicated and involved protocol, on the stick in a mini-USB. When I bought a data-SIM in Kerkyra and tried to mount it in an EDGE compliant Nokia (which I'd previously been using in France, UK and Italy for data) I was unsuccessful.

PS to refer to the radio USB stick as a dongle is, strictly speaking, incorrect - a dongle WAS/is a piece of hardware which goes into the serial or parallel port of a computer to authorise use of a particular piece of software - high-end CAD and early versions of Max-Sea used it.
Thank goodness it has passed into oblivion - it was a continual source of irritation and calls for support amongst computer hoi polloi.
Click to expand...

Option 2 sounds very appealing. 3.30 euros per 100Mb sounds amazingly cheap compared to o2's charge of 3 euros per Mb when roaming on an iphone! That's if I remenber their tarrif correctly - could that be right - I know roaming charges are much higher but nearly 100 times more expensive!!
 
Be cautious

I bought a Cosmote dongle in Preveza in May 2009, with the agreement that after 6 months the 29.5 euro monthly would on request reduce to 3.5 euros for reduced usage.
I went to cosmote offices and completed the forms to reduce the tariff in October 2009. The salesman who sold me the contract said that they did not do that deal anymore.
I pointed out that the contract I took out did do that deal, that is why I bought it.
He said that he would do what he could for me.
To date ,still in UK, and after several phone calls promising action am taking it on the chin watching £31.07 go from my account each month.
 
blueglass said:
Option 2 sounds very appealing. 3.30 euros per 100Mb sounds amazingly cheap compared to o2's charge of 3 euros per Mb when roaming on an iphone! That's if I remenber their tarrif correctly - could that be right - I know roaming charges are much higher but nearly 100 times more expensive!!
Click to expand...

I think you will find it is €3.30 for the first 100mb then a rather expensive charge per mb after that. From memory either €0.80 per kb or €0.80 per mb.
 
njthake said:
I bought a Cosmote dongle in Preveza in May 2009, with the agreement that after 6 months the 29.5 euro monthly would on request reduce to 3.5 euros for reduced usage.
I went to cosmote offices and completed the forms to reduce the tariff in October 2009. The salesman who sold me the contract said that they did not do that deal anymore.
I pointed out that the contract I took out did do that deal, that is why I bought it.
He said that he would do what he could for me.
To date ,still in UK, and after several phone calls promising action am taking it on the chin watching £31.07 go from my account each month.
Click to expand...
Forewarned is forearmed - thanks for the heads up on that one. I'm rapidly going off the idea and sticking to my usual inernet cafe/marina wifi routine. One day soon they will make this stuff easy and affordable. There's a big market out there for somebody who gets it right.
 
blueglass said:
Forewarned is forearmed - thanks for the heads up on that one. I'm rapidly going off the idea and sticking to my usual inernet cafe/marina wifi routine. One day soon they will make this stuff easy and affordable. There's a big market out there for somebody who gets it right.
Click to expand...

Unless you NEED 24/7, at-nav-station internet access I'd say that using internet cafés is, in Greece, a far more practical idea.
However if you tot up the Total Cost of Acquisition it is still quite expensive - time, coffees, OB fuel, mooring fees add up and €30 soon disappears in 30 days.

With regard to the Huawei cellular modem, IMHO, compared to the Nokia modem-phones it's a dog.

High battery consumption, low sensitivity and hanging software make it a cross which one has to bear with Vodafone Greece as their protocol is complicated and the Huawei USB modem has it all on a little integral micro-SD card.
 
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