CathyM, you seem to be offering me good advice on more than one thread at the moment!

What was the problem you had with activating once you got the sim card please? I have used my Ozzie ipad in France, New Zealand and Canada now on 3g (everywhere with wifi obviously)and it seems the major issue is activating it. In the US and Canada the main issue is that you need an American (or Canadian respectively)card to activate. After much research on iPad forums I was prepared for this and used a Canadian pre-paid visa card and supplied the address/phone etc of the store where I bought the microsim.
I am interested to know if this is the problem in Spain and if so, how did you overcome and/or can you buy the prepaid Visa in Spain?

(With regard to my other post, I now have an extra week!!!! Thinking maybe of Portugal as an add on??)

Have any of you used its English-to-Eurolanguage capabilities?

What was the carrier in Spain that offered unlimited for 35 Euros?

Was that an iPad-specific plan or general prepaid data?

Did the 35 Euros include the SIM, activation as well as the unlimited plan?

I have a Kiwi iPad and used it with micro SIM in both the UK and Italy, in the UK it depends which provider you go with as to whether or not you need bank details etc. I was going to buy Orange Mobile, but in the end went with "3" Mobile in both England and Italy. I just bought them over the counter at a "3" store in Oxford and a "3" store in Florence, no hassles apart from the language barrier in Italy and no hassles at all in England. The Italian micro SIM didn't work until 24 hours after purchase and you then had to unlock it with a PIN code that was located on the credit-card-sized card that you pulled the micro SIM out of. Didn't work this out very quickly and started freaking out! The prices for "3" Mobile were very reasonable and the coverage was decent, ( only places that had no coverage were Venice-Proper and inside railway tunnels ) they both had prepaid data plans ( so much for 1Gigabyte of data in England and 8 Euro for 3 Gigabytes of data in Italy ) which were ultimately very good! I'd try to look for something similar in Spain, pay as you go is very expensive in comparison. I did my research before going and had already decided on "3" Mobile for Italy.

ozgirl -

The issue with activating was actually with the SIM card itself. The woman at El Cortes Ingles was on the phone for nearly 30 minutes and they were having all kinds of issues with the system and trying to get it to work. At one point she asked if I could return on Monday. I guess I looked so disappointed she made one final attempt to call someone that could activate and this person was able to help her.

Once we put the micro sim card in my ipad there were no problems at all.

The 35 euro cost was unlimited access for 30 days which I thought was a pretty good price.

Hello I am new in the forum.
LITTLE RECAP just to know if we are all in the same page:

When buying an Ipad2 3G in an Apple Store in the US, I can in EUROPE (specially in Spain but it should work the same way in other EU countries):

1)use it with wifi without restrictions
2)if the zone does not have wifi (country place or travelling in trains etc..), I can buy a micro-Sim in a phone store (Orange, Vodafone, Movistar, Yoigo etc..) since the Ipad2 is UNLOCKED.
3)the price for the micro-sim are relatively CHEAP but rates for plans are not very clear for me. I guess there are multiple plans "pay as you go" that should be affordable but still if someone can give more details I'd appreciate. Also I am sure you can get a monthly-contract but I prefer plans that do not require this commitment.

Do we all agree?

thank you!!

Hi martinalvaro,

In regards to microSIM purchases I discovered the following:

In the UK: Orange require a UK bank account to purchase one. "3" Mobile sells a 1gig for one week microSIM with no strings attached. Cost: 7-10 Pounds

In Italy: "3" Mobile sells a 3gig for one month microSIM and all that is required is for them to copy your passport, for you to sign a terms and conditions agreement, and for you to unlock it with the PIN provided when you purchase it. Cost: 8 Euro

When buying your iPad in the US, you need to get the one with AT&T 3G....the Verizon version is different, and you can't change out the sim card.

We spent about 49Euro at TIM in Rome our first afternoon there and not only got the 3G sim for the iPad, but also switched out a card in my old unlocked Motorola phone. Worked like magic for nearly the whole month we were in Italy (Rome, Umbria, Cinque Terre, Lake Como).

Bookmarking for later

Bookmarking here too.

martinalvaro- I tried visiting several stores inBbilbao (orange, vodaphone & movistar) and was told it was not possible to purchase a micro simcard or at least one without a contract (see my link from prior post for the ful story). So unless the stores were incorrect it was not possible. The only place I was successful in Spain was the Orange booth inside the El Cortes ingles store at least this was my personal experience in September.

There is a solution that works in Europe (33 countries)
www.europasim.com
You pay 6 € a day in 32 countries and 2 € in Italy. The advantage is that you have only one card and one setup

We were in Italy for a month, then 4 days in Prague. Didn't worry about 3g service in Prague because wifi worked at our hotel

uhoh -- did u have wifi in Italy?

I was in the UK in may and found that there are hundreds of free wifi locations in London . However if you want to access the Internet you will be asked to pay to join an internet plan. I used McDonald wifi and Starbucks for free access to Internet.

I also purchased a data plan from mobile T from their shop. I believe it was good value.

In Switzerland I purchased a data plan from Swisscom for 2gb for 1 month for 40chf. I used 1.8gb. It covered Switzerland and i had excellent coverage on the trains.

Note I found using Skype from my iPad to a land line phone doesn't work can't hear the other person and he can't hear me.

I found the wifi service throughout Italy was spotty, although very good in the hotels we stayed in -- the 3G filled in for us a lot while in Umbria and while driving. While our place in Umbria had wifi, it was not always working. We used the iPad's mapping for GPS and it was terrific. I was able to post photos on the spot to my friends on FB and via email. We topped off our iPad data plan after 3 weeks, although we possibly could have made it through until the end. (Stopped at a TIM store in Lucca. They were able to tell me how much I had left, and I decided to add 10Euro just to be safe.)

I understood you had to have activated the 3G with an in-country (US, in my case) account at AT&T before you could change out the microSIM card for a foreign one. So you're paying for in-country 3G and adding the cost of the foreign micro-SIM.

Is that so?

Hi Mimar, in Australia we have a pre-paid microsim that I just take out whilst OS and then access a local pre-paid microsim (with varying degrees of difficulty!)depending on the country.
We just visited France, Spain and Portugal. In France I purchased a pre-paid card from Orange (I can't remember exactly but think it was 8 euro which included the first 200mb of data - they told me instore that I could then buy more data/time when that ran out but it never did! We did use wireless a lot in our accommodation so maybe we didn't reach the limit, I'm not sure.
In Spain I went to El Cortes Ingles in Barcelona (after much online research here and on other forums) and purchased a pre paid 30 day microsim plan which I think was about 30 euro? (Sorry, writing this at work and don't have all my records on me!) The gentleman in there had only slightly more English than I had Spanish and I tried to convey to him that I was worried about being able to activate it on my ipad (without having a computer with iTunes to connect to) and so he just put it his mobile and activated it! I then put it in my iPad and it worked straight away. The longest delay was that I didn't have my passport on me for ID and I had to go back and collect from our apartment, otherwise all worked well.
We had wireless in all of our accommodation in Portugal and were only there a short time so didn't try in Portugal.
Hope this helps future travellers to these areas.

Anyone have info on purchasing a sim card for iPad in Ireland? Would like to purchase in Dublin before trip to South and West.

Mimar and anyone else with info on this confusing topic: Is that true about having to have AT&T activate the 3G before I can use the iPad on my upcoming trip to Italy?

I thought I could bypass the AT&T charges by buying the foreign SIM card? (I have the new 3G iPad, which I purchased for the purpose of using it in Europe)