Wifi for Boat

Medskipper

Medskipper

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I purchased a Personal wifi thingy, it's a Huawei.
As our marina wifi is very weak with so many people using it I thought it better to get my own.

however the data cards are quite expensive, I just paid with Vodafone 15e for a 1.2gb. SIM card. Now I don't think this will last any time at all! Ok for emails but streaming tv will probably only last an hour or two!

so has anyone got a better deal in Spain, I'm looking for a larger capacity card at a much better price?
 
jimmy_the_builder said:
It's no good for streaming though, their partner services are a degraded 3G service only. Very handy for email, maps and web browsing, but that's about it.
Click to expand...

Thats good to know, Jimmy - I nearly bought one this year.

There is supposed to be a relaxing of the charges (directed by the EU) - set for next year.
This point of yours means that they will, undoubtedly, throttle in a similar manner.

Our problem in Spain is streaming.
Lots of long term or live aboards here so they are often watching UK TV over the internet.
Under the circumstances, the marina WiFi copes well - even though people here think it is carp.

IMO, you need to think of internet connections in two parts.

Firstly, to do the low bandwidth stuff - email and general browsing etc - in which case a 3/4G access will be fine.
Medskipper, I believe that we have good 4G here in SC.

And then streaming (TV etc) - in which case, a good (probably local broadband rather than 3/4G mobile) fast internet connection is necessary. Particularly, it would need to be a proper "unlimited" data connection. To date, we don't have anything. However, there are WiMax services available here in our part of Spain (indeed, our marina WiFi is carried over WiMax) but they don't seem to be "self install" connections.
If only I could get my own WiMax connection!!!
 
Hurricane said:
Thats good to know, Jimmy - I nearly bought one this year.

There is supposed to be a relaxing of the charges (directed by the EU) - set for next year.
This point of yours means that they will, undoubtedly, throttle in a similar manner.

Our problem in Spain is streaming.
Lots of long term or live aboards here so they are often watching UK TV over the internet.
Under the circumstances, the marina WiFi copes well - even though people here think it is carp.

IMO, you need to think of internet connections in two parts.

Firstly, to do the low bandwidth stuff - email and general browsing etc - in which case a 3/4G access will be fine.
Medskipper, I believe that we have good 4G here in SC.

And then streaming (TV etc) - in which case, a good (probably local broadband rather than 3/4G mobile) fast internet connection is necessary. Particularly, it would need to be a proper "unlimited" data connection. To date, we don't have anything. However, there are WiMax services available here in our part of Spain (indeed, our marina WiFi is carried over WiMax) but they don't seem to be "self install" connections.
If only I could get my own WiMax connection!!!
Click to expand...

I appreciate the OP is about Spain, but in France there is a network (confusingly) named 'Free', which gives 50GB of 4G for €20 per month. It is excellent value - I use it to stream iplayer.
 
Richard10002 said:
https://translate.google.co.uk/translate?hl=en&sl=fr&u=http://mobile.free.fr/&prev=search

Quite amazing for France - they have always seemed to be way behind in offerings and competitiveness. I wonder if they prevent tethering?
Click to expand...

Tethering is fine (I use it in a Huawei mifi) but you need to be on their native network, which is relative young so doesn't have the same penetration as the established networks. If you roam on to one of their partners you are restricted to 3GB on 3G only.
 
I have 3 mobile and it's pretty good for most things and free to use in Europe but it doesn't work very well in Sant Carles (no 4g and often no 3G). Maybe there's no mast nearby? My wife's O2 works better in the marina but still probably not good enough to stream (3G, no 4g). The marina's Wifi is ok and if you can't get that then an Alfa/R36 will boost the range (also handy for cruising).
 
We use Three when in Spain but as said it's only 3G but it suits what we use it for. We used to use hitsmobile but got fed up of having to re register but having looked at their web page today seems you can pay 3 euros a year to keep the number
 
This is something I have been looking into as I have found that (as someone has mentioned) O2 is reasonably good, but is lacking in power. I was looking at getting a Wifi Adapter, does anyone have experience in whether these are worth investing in?

I was looking at the GoFree WIFI-1 Adapter in particular (https://www.marinesuperstore.com/electronics/cables-and-accessories/wifi-1-adaptor-simrad) as its cheaper than some Extenders I have seen, or is it worth spending extra?

Thanks

Jeff
 
My brother uses MY3.
He gets 7gb for £25. Ordered online, and uses their roaming almost all over of Europe, strangely not Germany! However no problem with Spain. So 7gb will allow quite a bit of TV or movie streaming. He uses a VPN through expat tv.
 
We have a Huawei mifi in Mallorca with a 3G SIM from Masmovil which costs €20 per month for 10GB - it's fine for normal emails and web surfing etc but no good for streaming (because that gets through the data too quickly!). We activate it for May to Oct then cancel it until the following May. We've just switched all our UK mobile contracts to Three who have no roaming charges in their 18 partner countries, of which Spain is one (and the US is another!). They do a 20GB data contract for £20pm so next season we'll put that in our Huawei mifi instead of the Masmovil one.
 
I have a 15gb per month data plan with Three but it's painfully slow in Mallorca, I also have a PAYG sim with Movistar, it costs E2.50 for 250mb and works really well compared to Three (same mifi, same Movistar signal) so the Three connection abroad is obviously is throttled in some way. With the family on board we can easily consume E70-100 worth of Movistar data in a week so it works out very expensive, although it doesn't cost anything when we're not using it. I need to find something better for next year.
 
MikeA said:
I have a 15gb per month data plan with Three but it's painfully slow in Mallorca, I also have a PAYG sim with Movistar, it costs E2.50 for 250mb and works really well compared to Three (same mifi, same Movistar signal) so the Three connection abroad is obviously is throttled in some way. With the family on board we can easily consume E70-100 worth of Movistar data in a week so it works out very expensive, although it doesn't cost anything when we're not using it. I need to find something better for next year.
Click to expand...

Ah, that's interesting…, may need to stick with Masmovil deal then!
 
MikeA said:
I have a 15gb per month data plan with Three but it's painfully slow in Mallorca, I also have a PAYG sim with Movistar, it costs E2.50 for 250mb and works really well compared to Three (same mifi, same Movistar signal) so the Three connection abroad is obviously is throttled in some way. With the family on board we can easily consume E70-100 worth of Movistar data in a week so it works out very expensive, although it doesn't cost anything when we're not using it. I need to find something better for next year.
Click to expand...

Post #3 is your friend
 
I find 3 ok. Not perfect but if you ignore streaming the. It works pretty well.

The fastest place was in Antibes when it went like a rocket.

When it was launched in Spain in April it was painful. Now it seems much better.

I buy 12 gb cards for £70 and put turn in a mi fi and it works ok.

Like others I used to buy local sims. Lebara used to sell 2 gb for e10 at the airport and I would buy a handful as topi get them up is so full of rules and codes it drove me mAd !
 
Medskipper said:
I purchased a Personal wifi thingy, it's a Huawei.
As our marina wifi is very weak with so many people using it I thought it better to get my own.

however the data cards are quite expensive, I just paid with Vodafone 15e for a 1.2gb. SIM card. Now I don't think this will last any time at all! Ok for emails but streaming tv will probably only last an hour or two!

so has anyone got a better deal in Spain, I'm looking for a larger capacity card at a much better price?
Click to expand...

We still have a pocket sized portable MIFI hot spot using a "Three" sim and have used it these past three years, but don't bother anymore as we seem to have excellent Vodafone 4G coverage on our phones everywhere we cruise, or at worst 3G, so we use one of the phones to create a "personal" wifi hot spot. Its lightening fast compared to most marina wifi and our business plan includes good roaming capacity for small extra charges (i.e. compared to the insane fleecing that used to go on only a few years ago).
 
itspaul said:
Have a look at 3 there data is usable in Spain as well as most of Europe
Click to expand...

Hot of the PRESS £21 for 20gb! You just need to fly back to the UK every few months to get it to Reset its settings.

Works well It is a rolling contract 30 days!

Get involved. It is pretty fast and we used to in France and it was great.

Otherwise buy a Roaming EE tariff EXTRA package £29.99 per month what is truly a use anywhere phone tariff that would have made a late 90s company paying for roaming calls so delighted they. Today tho you have to buy data and the deal is for 100mb for £2-3 upto 500mb per day. It works really well.

Locally in Spain deals may be available for SIM ONLY DATA ONLY plans.
 
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