Best Way To Get Coverage In France & Spain? (1 Viewer)

[Yorick]

Soon I'll be heading to France and Spain for 7 weeks and will need phone and internet coverage.

Currently I am on EE, who are expensive abroad, but don't mind going SIM only for a bit with other providers.

What's the best/cheapest way to do it ?

Cheers


Oh and the Spain bit needs to cover Lanzarote

 

[Chockswahay]

'Three'....... but you need a sim 4 weeks before ya go

 

[laneside]

I just hope your 3 sim works ours is pay as you go which we used in England for months before we set off and never once have I been able to connect to the internet from Calais and we are now down near Salamanca in Spain with still no joy. All it does is connects and dis connects to various providers often with all the bars showing but no connection, it may be me but do check before you set off relying upon it

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[Chockswahay]

Err, my bad...sorry. No '3' in Spain on the feel at home (France was good for us tho last month)

 

[Billy23]

I thought 3 said that from the 1st October home would cover Spain as well. I used a 3 PAYG MiFi in France (August this year) and it worked fine.

 

[SomeoneElse]

'Three'....... but you need a sim 4 weeks before ya go

So are you saying that if I get a one month SIM from 3 I can't use it in France?

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[DJA]

Hi

We have just returned from France and have had Internet and phone connection for most of our trip using "3" sims.

Firstly can I say that at the moment whilst the "Feel at Home" arrangement "3" offer works in France it is not available in Spain at the moment. We did hear that Spain may be added to the list in October we have heard that it may be later. I have not had a definite answer from "3" but it will be dependant on what they cna arrange with their CoPartners in Spain.

Prior to going I had upgraded my "3" dongle that I had had for years to a MiFi, which from "3" is unlocked when supplied, with more data. During our trip the Mifi worked at about 60% of our stopovers but, to be fair, remembering that France is 3 times the size of the Uk and very much more rural the places that the MiFi would not get a signal were the more remote places. For example the village Collonge La Rouge is a beautiful place but it is quite isolated and the payback for any Mobile broadband provider to get service to the area would be limited. As the MiFi is unlocked we could put in a Spanish Sim if required unless "3" have now added Spain. It should be remembered that "3" allow you to use the sims abroad only on the basis it is for you to use on holiday or business so prolonged use may result in "3" putting a block on.

We also took an unlocked phone and bought a "3" 3 2 1 sim for £10 which provides the facility to ring the UK landlines and mobiles for 3p text for 2p and internet access for 1p per Mb and lasts until they are used up. We were able to get a connection all the time and whenever we could not get Internet with the MiFi we could on the phone. The only question I have to resolve now is if I seek to add more calls etc is this also on the basis of it being available until used up or is there a time limit.

Regarding Lanesides problem I wonder if International useage has not been turned on and it might be an idea to look at the Myaccount to see if it can be turned on.

Regarding the need to have the Sim for 4 weeks before it will work in France etc I think this is in the case of a new Monthly account. I believe if you buy a Sim only I may well work immediately.

Hope this helps.

Doug

 

[Chockswahay]

Can't stop, clearing out the garage! however I think DJA has got it right

 

[abforfun]

Think this is all to technical for me

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[wingman]

Hi Yorick,
I'm on 3 mobile, the missus (was) on EE. After our recent tours around France/Switzerland/Italy, she was throughly fed up with EE. They wanted her to pay daily add-ons (which she didn't pay) and consequently got no coverage for three weeks. She had to rely on my phone or hooking up to my 3 MiFi.

Three's 'feel at home' is a great and at no cost too! As the other poster said, Europe is a big place so you expect poor coverage in places no matter who the provider is.

As soon as she got home, she dumped EE, didn't renew her contract with and is now really happy with her 3 sim only deal.

 

[Yorick]

Thanks all so far

A mate reckons you can buy a dongle in Spain. Anyone tried this way ?

 

[DanielFord]

Thanks all so far

A mate reckons you can buy a dongle in Spain. Anyone tried this way ?

Yup, well not a dongle, bought a PAYG sim card and popped it into my MiFi, sadly I cannot remember who the provider was, but it cost €20 and was preloaded with 2gb. Did the same in Germany and Belgium. I just look for a dodgy looking mobile phone shop in the town I happen to stop in, and they will nearly always sell a data sim card to you without the hassle of registering etc.

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[Yorick]

Yup, well not a dongle, bought a PAYG sim card and popped it into my MiFi, sadly I cannot remember who the provider was, but it cost €20 and was preloaded with 2gb. Did the same in Germany and Belgium. I just look for a dodgy looking mobile phone shop in the town I happen to stop in, and they will nearly always sell a data sim card to you without the hassle of registering etc.

So can this be used with a laptop ?

 

[DanielFord]

Yup, you need a personal (unlocked) MiFi unit, I have one of these, purchased from flea bay:
http://www.tp-link.com/en/products/details/?categoryid=218&model=M5350
Then pop in the sim, and it works just like a WiFi hotspot.

 

[Xabia]

Soon I'll be heading to France and Spain for 7 weeks and will need phone and internet coverage.

Currently I am on EE, who are expensive abroad, but don't mind going SIM only for a bit with other providers.

What's the best/cheapest way to do it ?

Cheers


Oh and the Spain bit needs to cover Lanzarote

I would recommend you to contact http://www.motorhomewifi.com/home/. Bought a Huawei mi-fi from them last year and the signal strength in both France and Spain was excellent.

Mike

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[DavidG58]

Hi Yorick we are in the middle of a trip like you are planning, came away armed with a mifi device, preloaded with advice from motorhome wifi who we bought it from, trouble is I can't now recall if it was 3 or EE

Whichever, it is works pretty well in France, but has been useless in Spain, but we were warned this might be the case, I will confirm which we have when I can find out how to

We also brought ipads with options to tether, however when we got to Spain it would not work, but another sim with 10Gb data in 30 days for 30 euros, worked well but we did not specify a tethering option, so limited use on single ipad

Best success we have had has been an iBoost bought from motorhome wifi, picks up weak reception free wifi while on site, saves paying for expensive on site wifi


edit - just read above post, not sure what we did wrong with same hardware

 

[Yorick]

Thanks all. This looks good

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[Robert Clark]

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