Vodafone, good plan for overseas vanners....
not sure if this should be in chat, or would benefit more those who are looking for a good roaming phone deal for their continental travels....
ive had a sim only deal for a while with Vodafone and theyve been very good (i am a loyal and long serving customer....) and i managed to get an unlimited mins, umlimited texts and 4gb of data for £11.90.
i know some resellers can even beat this but have more complex/expensive/restrictive european usage...
i 'negotiated' a 'permanent' extra 2 gb of data, as my plan only came with 2gb and we both tether ipads to the phone when away in the van.
up until now, i have used their Data Traveller daily charge when using the phone overseas, a single charge on any day you use the minutes, texts or data in your plan.
so, one call or ten, makes no difference, but costs can still rack up if used regularly.
so, ive been looking hard at all suppliers to get a decent deal where roaming is included and tethering (at home and aborad) is allowed.
after much chating and debate in shops, i have come to the conclusion that Vodafone offer the best deal (for me) with their latest Red sim only...
i have now signed up for unlimited mins, unlimited texts, 5gb of UK data and an extra 2gb to be used abroad, all from the plan with no extra charges.
this is being currently sold at £15 per month and will be cheaper for us as we have two longish european trips planned for the first half of the coming year.
i did try other suppliers but restrictions on tethering abroad or lower levels of roaming data or just plain cost, put them out of the frame.
if anyone is looking for a good value, no strings plan for simple use abroad, have a look at the Red deal from Vodafone, might be suitable for some.
good luck.
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yes, Peedee, this would be a deal breaker for us....
im not sure Three are very upfront about non-tethering abroad, you may only find this out with a nasty error message on ones first attempt.....
they sell on being the first of the big companies to have a portable plan over most of europe....feel at home....but the tethering rules needed to be pryed out of them.....
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We have a 3 MiFi which we can attach any of our devices to in this country. Can you use this abroad on the same data tariff as this country? Because if you can that would probably work out cheapest for us. As I think our O2 bolt on is £2.50 a day and I have no idea if that permits tethering.
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Steve, i didnt want another device (mifi) which does exactly the same as my iphone does when being used as a router...
do you have to buy the device and then run a sperate contract (or PAYG) sim....?
if so, why pay twice if you have data to spare on your phone?
O2 do allow tethering here and abroad on most of their plans, but for the same data levels they were more expensive.
i do carry seperate PAYG sims for 'emergency' use in the UK, my ipad has an O2 sim in it and OH has an EE one in hers, im sure both of these would be expensive abroad.
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Steve, i didnt want another device (mifi) which does exactly the same as my iphone does when being used as a router...
do you have to buy the device and then run a sperate contract (or PAYG) sim....?
if so, why pay twice if you have data to spare on your phone?
O2 do allow tethering here and abroad on most of their plans, but for the same data levels they were more expensive.
i do carry seperate PAYG sims for 'emergency' use in the UK, my ipad has an O2 sim in it and OH has an EE one in hers, im sure both of these would be expensive abroad.
We bought the MiFi before we had the smart phones and it is on Pay and go. It is about £15 for 3 gig. So if it can be used abroad it would work out cheaper than the O2 bolt on. Although good to know this includes tethering. In this country we now only use
the 3 MiFi if our phones can't get 3/4G. The second phone is on a deal with BT using EE and I think works out expensive abroad.0 -
We have a 3 MiFi which we can attach any of our devices to in this country. Can you use this abroad on the same data tariff as this country? Because if you can that would probably work out cheapest for us. As I think our O2 bolt on is £2.50 a day and I have
no idea if that permits tethering.Yep! We used ours when visiting France and it is the same as if you are using it in the UK. Same applied for the phones and no extra charges.
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I have been with Virgin for years although recently I have been on a set contract which is fine for use in the UK. When abroad calls to and from the UK are charged at the standard EU rate but for data I use their Travel Passes, 250MB for £5. Its handy for
filling in the gaps between wifi availability. If just using data on your phone 250MB lasts for a long time but when using the phone as a wifi point it lasts 2/3 days depending on use.David
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We have a 3 MiFi which we can attach any of our devices to in this country. Can you use this abroad on the same data tariff as this country? Because if you can that would probably work out cheapest for us. As I think our O2 bolt on is £2.50 a day and I have
no idea if that permits tethering.Yep! We used ours when visiting France and it is the same as if you are using it in the UK. Same applied for the phones and no extra charges.
Same price to use in any of the "feel at home" countries, which seems to include most of Europe now.
We have a router we put a PAYG 3 data sim in, we can both use it at the same time then, and PAYG phone sims too. Not heavy users, so our annual spend is only about £60 for all three devices.
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I really don't know why Three don't allow 'tethering' (or 'personal hotspot') to be used on their phones abroad. Their data sims (as used in a mifi) can be used abroad and is, technically, a tethering device. Seems illogical.
Maybe they'll change it some day......but it will only be for new customers, no doubt.
Incidently, we found that the Three mifi got a far stronger signal while in France, than either of our phones (also both on Three).
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Another 3 fan here. We have found that many sites abroad have free wi-fi, so we did not really miss the tethering. However, we do use our phones quite a lot for general Internet searches, Google maps (+sat nav), CT and the like, without worrying too much
about the laptop.David
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I had no idea you could tether an iPad to a phone..... genius! We've just tried ours and it works! This will resolve a lot of wifi issues on our forthcoming trip to Spain. Many thanks to the OP for enlightening us!
no worries Dinny, just be aware of the various restictions of each network...
Vodafone allows tethering on any number of devices, home or abroad, with a home data limit and an abroad data limit.
with the plan i highlighted, the home limit is 5gb, the abroad limit is 2gb. the mins/texts are unlimited in all markets.
3 is great for mins/texts and tethering at home, but NO tethering abroad. i guess the reason might be that customers will likely use more data on easy to read tethered tablets rather than 'struggling' on their smaller phones....?
O2 allows everything, mins/texts/data at home or abroad, they were just too dear compared to the vodafone deal.
EE seemed ok, too, but again not as much data for your money.
good luck.
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I'm also a 3 PAYG fan and found it really cheap for calls and data on phone, one word of warning though after three months in Spain this year 3 turned me off without telling. Yes i know you should read the small print (but who does) but not to contact me
before hand with a warning is a bit off, have now brought a Movistar PAYG to use in Spain which is very cheap even when i call from the UK to Spain.0 -
Yes. '3' will disable the sim 2 months after it was first switched on in a 'feel-at-home' country IF IT HAS NOT SINCE BEEN USED in UK (or another country that is NOT 'feel-at-home'). It doesn't even matter whether you've actually used the sim for calls/data, or if you subsequently switch the device off! The sim will work again when you return to UK, but roaming will remain barred for 12 months. They seem to have tightened up on invoking the 2 month limit recently.
This doesn't matter too much for a data only sim, because you can just take several with you (and use the remaining data on return if not time-expired). However it is a real pain on a phone if you want your usual number to remain active for incoming calls. '3's explanation is that 'feel-at-home' is only intended for holidays and business trips. They obviously don't recognise that some of us are fortunate enough to be able to take rather longer holidays
There has been a very long and detailed discussion about this on the boating forums and I can post a link if anyone really wants to wade through.
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DD did mention something about a time limit, she is with 3 as well. We are away 2 days short of the 2 months this year, is it 2 or is it 3 months, where exactly is all this written down?
In previous years we have used the data sims, but had bought several 1 month ones, so this had not affected us. We only moved our phones to 3 last year, so have not done more than 2 months abroad since then.
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DD did mention something about a time limit, she is with 3 as well. We are away 2 days short of the 2 months this year, is it 2 or is it 3 months, where exactly is all this written down?
In previous years we have used the data sims, but had bought several 1 month ones, so this had not affected us. We only moved our phones to 3 last year, so have not done more than 2 months abroad since then.
OH is with 3 but on a contract, so far we haven't had a problem losing data, in fact he gets a message to say when he is nearing it. Does the 2 or 3 months only apply to a Pay as you go sim?
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Don't forget that all (EU) roaming charges go from 15 June next year.
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Seems like this thread should be sent to the telecoms regulator in the vain hope that he can persuade the providers to
a) speak simple English and b) be more open and honest.I have given up on UK providers and when I go abroad I tend to buy a local PAYG sim to use, particularly when tethering.
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Recent reports of actual implementation suggest that the time limit in '3' 'feel-at-home' is now 2 months for both PAYG and contract. Finding accurate information is near impossible because different parts of '3's website have varying information, confused
even further by random mentions of 'add-ons'. It is also possible that some people are still on old plans with differing t&c.'3' shops certainly have no idea of the intricacies; and neither it seems can the help-line be trusted to be accurate.
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What? need more information......
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What? need more information......
Even that leads to strange anomolies: I have a couple of phones on old PAYG tariffs which charge 25p/min in UK. They are actually cheaper to use roaming!
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Have ordered a 3 preloaded data sim for our next trip, the 12 month 12GB one, from mymemory.com. £22.
Seems a good deal, will cover us to use when on CLs and CC sites, so save the cost of the CC wifi too, and of course to use abroad. We are away 2 days under the 2 months,so should be fine, if we can get a signal!!
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