SIM Only In Spain
July 10th, 2010 - Chris Marshall
Following on from my recent post about mobile broadband options I have been doing a little bit more digging, which basically has involved checking out another great site that I have come across called www.simonly-deals.com, and asking some pretty helpful ladies in El Corte Inglés in El Ejdio when I popped in for a spot of lunch and shopping with Sands recently.
The sim only comparison site SIM Only Contracts say’s it has seen a huge rise in sim only deals in the last 12 months, and it is actually pretty encouraging to see that while still extremely expensive, and over complicated, the providers are at least starting to catch up over here in Spain ….. well some of them are!
I didn’t bother with Movistar as it is my intention to move away from them in September when my iPhone contract runs out, as overall I find them expensive and very inflexible. Who knows maybe at the time they will come up with a deal to keep me …..
For example the data service that I currently get off them costs 15€ a month, for 200Mb. Both Orange and Vodafone offered me unlimited for 15€ a month, on 18 month contracts.
I digress though, I was after a SIM Only data service. Orange offer a Pay As You Go option that costs 20€ for the card and then 3,50€ a day! Their contract costs 15€ a month, for 18 months and is unlimited. I figured that this means that 15€ for 18 months is a cost of 270€. The Pay As You Go costs 20€ for the card, so that leaves 250€ which at 3,50€ a day equates to around 72 days of use, which to me just doesn’t make sense. Even if you only visit your property in Spain several times a year I would still suggest getting a SIM only data service on contract would be the way to go, and lend the SIm card to friends and family when they come over.
Vodafone was by far the most interesting: 15€ a month, unlimited use BUT you could cancel at any time with no penalty ……. I liked the sound of that one. Of course I would need my passport (original not copy) and residencia or NIE number to get one, which is tempting.
Yoigo do a 8€ a month SIM only, with a limit of 500Mb, and a SIM only Pay As You Go that was 1,20€ a day, but they don’t do a mini SIM and I suspect that is an option that I will need sooner rather than later
