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Recent SIM Experience

Posted by (Eastern Iowa, USA) on

Thought I would post my recent experience for anyone looking....

We were in the Netherlands and Belgium for a week recently. I have an unlocked phone that I take and have had SIM cards already in London and in Germany (with some roaming in Czech Republic)

Compared to the other countries, the Netherlands was a breeze, just popped into a Vodaphone store (I prefer to go to a dedicated carrier store where they will make sure it works before I leave, rather than a random Kiosk) laid down 10 euro, no real registration, and in a couple minutes walked out with a Gig of data. Due to changes in EU law, I also used the same SIM in Belgium with no elevated roaming fees.

Coverage was good, but did find some spots where coverage went from 4G to "G" to "E".

I do hear that Germany has greatly complicated registration since I was there a year ago, but this trip was a breeze. The next try will be Madrid in February. I did consider that with easy roaming within the EU, I might find a SIM to load, but keep active and top up when I plan to travel, but have not investigated the ins and outs.

Posted by
5687 posts

The Dutch Vodafone SIM is great - I bought mine on eBay without even going to the Netherlands and worked great elsewhere in Europe in May. What I liked about it: I could add credit (top-up) from their website, VOIP services like Google Hangouts and Skype aren't blocked, and neither is VPN.

Your Vodafone SIM should stay valid for a year, from the last time you added credit. So you can use it in Spain in February. Just sign up for an account on the Dutch Vodafone website. You'll need to put that SIM back into a phone so it can receive text messages (receiving texts is free, so this will work even if you have no credit left on the SIM), and when you try to create the My Vodafone account, it will text you a conformation code or link, and you'll use that to complete creation of your account.

Once you've created the My Vodafone account, you can add credit ("top up") with a US credit card. Just be sure not to buy a bundle (you'll probably get a "You" bundle, must be what you had before) until you are ready to leave for your next trip, as it's good for only 30 days! But you can add the credit long before that - it's valid for a year.

One thing: to roam, you need to remove the 1GB "warning" on roaming data. This is a weird thing Vodafone added supposedly to "protect" you against unwanted roaming charges. I got this warning when I was about to hit 1GB (I had bought the 3GB bundle) and thought I was about to get cut off - but I just had to remove the warning/limit on roaming data. It was free. I think the way to remove it is to text "DATALIMIET UIT" to 5000 (but wait til you are back in Europe to text, maybe not free to send a text otherwise! Receiving is free wherever you are. In the US, Vodafone roamed to T-Mobile for me and could receive texts for free that way.).

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