Reduce Data Roam Charges in Spain
Saturday, 10 August 2013 | by Pat's Picks
My AT&T and Verizon international data roaming rates are a lot lower than they used to be. But they’re still high enough that it’s costly to do the things you’re phone is most helpful for when you’re traveling—like online mapping, train schedules and other tourist information.
Here’s my story of how I successfully minimized roaming charges on my summer trip to Spain. I used to travel with an unlocked GSM hotspot, but I simplified on this trip. On arrival in Spain I picked up a “no contract” NanoSim card for my iPad Mini. I bought the card at a Vodafone store for $30 euros, including a 1 gigabyte/1 month data allowance.
There was an astonishing amount of paperwork for what seemed like it could have been a 60-second purchase. I had to show my passport and the clerk must have spent 10 minutes on her computer, but eventually they activated the SIM in store, giving me both a PIN and a local phone number. (You’ll need the PIN every time you power up the iPad and you’ll need the phone number if you ever have a need to refill the SIM on the Vodafone website.)
Not only does this mean your iPad is active with an abundant local data account, but with the iPad’s “Personal Hotspot” feature you can now share your data with your other devices and your kids’ devices. If you haven’t used the hotspot it’s a little fussy to establish the connection. I have used both wifi and Bluetooth to link the devices. If your second device isn’t seeing your hotspot immediately just toggle the hotspot off and then on again to force it to broadcast it’s availability again.
It was remarkably easy to set up and served us well in San Sebastián, Mallorca and Madrid. Usually we got a 3G connect with decent speed. I never saw it step up to LTE or 4G speed but it was fast enough to keep us connected.
Similar strategies work in other countries. Feel free to share your experiences in the comment box.
ADDITIONAL NOTE: In response to one of the comments below, it’s worth noting that iPads are sold “unlocked.” If you’re trying to do this with an iPhone, you may have to check with your carrier before departure to see if it’s locked.
