tostaky

Hi !
We will be in Spain (Catalonia) and Portugal for one month in july. We wil have an unlocked phone with us. We want to get a sim card mainly for data (we wil have a car and we plan to use the data for GPS) .

We dont need much talk time, we will maybe make 2-3 phone calls in Canada and some in Spain and Portugal (to be in contact with our appartement owners).

We know that we can now use the same plan across Europe (is it really the way it works ? ), so can someone suggest us a godd plan/cell phone carrier that would work in Spain and Portugal without having to change the SIM card ?

thanks a lot !

hetismij2

If you use Google Maps or Here you can download maps before you leave so you don't need data, unless your phone doesn't have GPS.
You can use the same plan across Europe but there may be limitations put on how much data you can use (fair use policy).
Calling Canada on a European SIM will be expensive, as will calling Portugal from Spain if you have a Spanish SIM, or vice versa. Calls within Portugal on a Spanish SIM will cost the same as calls within Spain.

rs899

Take a close look at ThreeUK and now O2. Three roams everywhere and now I think o2 does as well. There is a thread a few pages back that duscusses options . We used a threeUK sim that had 12 gb and cost about $30.

Andrew

I'd focus on buying a SIM for data only. If you buy a SIM that allows roaming in the EU (if it does, then there will be no roaming charges), you can use data (or WiFi) anywhere and make phone calls with a VOIP provider like Google Hangouts or Skype to phones anywhere in the world. Skype calls this "pay-as-you-go." The cost of the calls per minute would vary (different rates for calling different countries - and making a call to someone's cell phone number seems to cost more than calling a landline).

With both Skype and Google, you can buy a block of credit for say $10 USD (or $14 CAD at the moment with Skype) and then use that to make calls at a few cents per minute. I'd guess one block of pay-as-you-go credit would be plenty for one trip for a few calls, and you can carry it over to use on future trips (Skype makes you make a call once in a great while to keep your remaining credit alive, once every six months or something, or you lose it all.)

It could be your SIM will charge you only a small amount per minute to make "international calls" (say from a Spanish SIM to Portuguese numbers) and that may be cheaper than buying Skype credit. The benefit of buying Skype credit is that you can use the rest in the future; you may never use your Spanish SIM again. (I assume you will be in Spain first so would buy the SIM there, not in Portugal.)

I don't know anything about Spanish SIM cards, but here is some info from a Wiki I have found helpful for other countries:

http://prepaid-data-sim-card.wikia.com/wiki/Spain

tostaky

Thnaks for all those answers !

Getting a dat only sim card and buy skype minutes seems a good idea, I will look more for that option.

basingstoke2

If your carrier is ATT, they have a plan that we used in the UK and Iceland, and that was seamless. The cost is $10/per day but you are only charged on the days you are using the phone. It includes unlimited data and unlimited calls during that one day period. No sim cards to be bought and your usual phone number works. I do not believe you are charged when your only use is incoming calls but not too sure about that.

Andrew

I assumed the OP is from Canada so isn't likely to have AT&T service.

tostaky

Andrew is right i'm from Canada (montreal) and we dont have ATT here. Roaming cost and arm and a leg for us ! 10$ by day still expensive since we will be travelling for 26 days and plan to use the cell almost everyday (for maps, phone call, gps, looking for directions, restaurants...)

scrb11

Spanish carriers are running some promotions this summer.

I ordered a Tuenti SIM which will give 12 GB of data to use within 30 days for 15 Euro online.

http://prepaid-data-sim-card.wikia.com/wiki/Spain

I ordered it online about a week before I arrived and had it delivered to my hotel.

Put it in my iPad Air and got LTE data with hotspot or tethering.

Often European hotels will have slow wifi or some other kinds of limitations so if I don't use it all for Google Maps or while away from the hotel, it's a good backup for use in the hotels.

You should be able to roam in other EU countries. The term they use is Roam Like At Home or RLAH.