This just came into effect at the beginning of 2010, and we were thrilled to discover it, after spending the last month confined to 3 Gb for 39 TD. And yes, the EDGE network is actually sufficient to use up this kind of quota! Even on GPRS, which you tend to fall back to when you go inland a bit, it’s still quite usable. We’ve been getting speeds around 11 kBs on EDGE along the coast, which isn’t too shabby.

It’s available on their prepaid SIM package, one you can just pick up for 5 TD at almost any of the thousands of little outlets that show the red-and-while Tunisiana sign.

Activating it is a bit tricky, though, if you don’t speak French or Arabic. First, you have to dial a number (1222) to activate the SIM card. Then, you have to dial another number, the main support line (1111) and follow some prompts to activate the actual Internet service, or ask in the shop where you got the SIM (chances are, they won’t have any idea what you’re talking about). I had no hope following the prompts, but luckily there are some English-speaking operators there who helped me through it. Ask for them with something like “Est-ce que je pourrais parler avec quelqu’un qui parle l’anglais?” (maybe).

Then, you select the mobile plan to use by entering *124# {amount of plan} *, then call. So for me, *124*27#. Check the plan usage with *100*4#, and check your credit with *100#.

As of Jan 2010, the offerings are:

The settings are:

• APN: internet.tunisiana.com
• Username: internet
• Password: internet
• Proxy available, but you don’t need to use it: 10.3.2.99:80

YouTube is blocked, as well as a host of other things like Google Translator (for translating websites — the text version works still). Hooray for Internet censorship!

One thing we noticed is that the Internet falls over fairly regularly. We also discovered, though, that this is due to a dodgy DNS server at Tunisiana. By using, say, Google’s public DNS server (8.8.8.8 and 8.8.4.4), we fixed the problem.

Don’t ask the locals about mobile Internet — our experience is they tend to think they know more that you will, and will tell you to go with Tunisia Telecom, the public telco, which actually offers diddley squat. Tunisiana’s who you want. Their stuff is red and white — Telecom’s brand is blue-ish, so watch out when you’re buying the SIM card pack.

Oh, and if you have issues, call 1111 — don’t bother emailing them. I’ve never had a response from their email/web-based support line.

Other than that, we’ve been quite happy — as much as is possible over EDGE, anyway. Still better than what France is offering!

Local broadband countries

Wind have the most competitive prepaid mobile broadband, by a long shot.

Wind

We are with Wind in Italy, and they have a pretty good offering (although coupled with their We’re-An-Evil-Telco policies, this works out to be less appealing that at first glance). We went into a shop in Rome, just a bit south of the Flaminio metro station (on Via del Corso), and they spoke English there. The guy who served me was very helpful, didn’t throw a tantrum when I admitted I had an iPhone and wanted to use tethering, and even gave me the APN in advance!

Mobile broadband is available on just a standard pre-paid SIM card, which costs €5, from memory, and is just an option that can be activated in store when you buy the SIM, or later for a small activation fee.

There are a number of mobile broadband options, which are metered either by time, or by volume. The time-based plans are much more affordable, and offer truly unlimited data (no cap at all). We’re using the ‘Mega 100 Ore’ plan (100 hours) at €15 per month, which works out to a bit over 3 hours per day.

Once the 100 hours are up, you pay €0.50 per 15 minutes, which is not so good. Our plan is to buy another SIM card with the same plan, so we get double the time, and can just switch SIM cards when we use up the first 100 hours.

The alternative, volume-based plans are a bit more expensive, with the most generous being 4.5Gb for €30/month. Given the rate at which we go through data, this isn’t much use to us.

As far as quality goes, we’ve had the best 3G performance I’ve ever seen – Currently, in Sorrento, I’m getting 100kBps downloads, smooth video conferencing and very nicely streaming Megavideo. Haven’t had any problems with range so far.

Update: Since our re-entry into Italy, we’ve been using the 4.5Gb plan (“Mega 15000″) on one SIM card which I keep in my iPhone, and the 100 hour (“Mega 100 ore”) plan on a secondary SIM card I keep in a USB modem we have. This way, we have untimed internet for casual use, and for heavy downloading (catching up on TV!) we can plug in the USB modem. This has worked very well so far — surprisingly, we’re currently well below our data allowance on the 4.5Gb plan, despite using it for hours and hours from our laptops almost every day, which is great. What’s even cooler for us currently is Wind have a special offer on their volume-based plan that gets us completely unmetered internet between midnight and 8AM.

Update 2: Beware Wind! We’ve had some issues with Wind ‘disappearing’ our credit. Amazingly, this has happened on both of our SIM cards, on the volume-based plan and on the time-based plan. On two separate occasions, we’ve gone to use it, and found the balance at zero, expecting to have 800Mb left on one, and at least 50 hours left on the other. Not speaking Italian it’s been impossible to contact their service centre to have the issues fixed, so I’m hoping an Italian friend will be able to advocate for us. Most frustrating.

Update 3: No luck on recovering our credit, so it’s gone. We’ve given up on the volume-based plan, and stuck with the time-based one (the Mega 100 ore). We have 3 SIM cards, and alternate them through the month, giving us up to about 10 hours per day, if we wanted, which suits us fine. Wind now support PayPal for recharging, too, from mondowind.it: You need an Italian PayPal account, but that’s very easy and free to set up. Then, just send money to it from your main PayPal account to pay.

Update 4: Yeah, they expire your credit after a month, and only offer it in blocks of 15 or 20 euros. Although the time plan costs 15, Wind don’t let you access it if you have zero credit, even though you’ve already paid for it. So, our 3 SIM card policy actually costs us €60 a month, not €45 (3 * €20, not 3 * €15). Plus a bit extra for Wind’s shenanigans, against which we have little defence as we don’t speak the language. Although they still have the best offering here (and we’ll probably miss them dearly when we leave Italy), we are pretty annoyed by their money-grabbing policies.

Notes on other providers from my assistant Louise:

TIM

This appears to be the closest I can get to your data requirements at 1 Gb. Since it is only valid 30 days I don’t know if it is possible to top up mid month. Pricing is a bit confusing but it appears to be 10 euros per card BUT they talk about pre-pay you get 50 mb and then when that used up in a 24 hour period they load up 1 gb.

Vodafone

This is interesting – 39 Euros a month, gives you 10 hours surfing etc. per day, after that charge you 2 Euros per hour. There is note in the T&C that says if you go over 10 Gbs then they will get upset.

Trouble is of course it’s contract but can’t see commitment length, and appreciate you almost certainly don’t want their mini PC.

Local broadband countries

I’m amazed that telcos are allowed to use the word ‘unlimited’ (or rather, illimité), when the quotas behind the scenes are not only present, but so restrictive. Where are the consumer protection organisations in all this?

I hear that a French address may be required to buy a PAYG sim card, at least with Orange, and possibly with other carriers. Not sure how to get around that one — some people (like this person) have bought SIM cards on eBay.fr first.

I think Auchan have the least worst option, although it is quite poor. Anyway, the options, such as they are:

Auchan

Auchan offer a mobile internet service, sans engagement: €20 for the SIM card including 5 hrs use/250 Mb) or €30 for a modem too (2 hrs/250 Mb included), then €30 gets you a month of access with a 2 GB quota.

It is unclear on whether VoIP is allowed: There is a notice saying it is prohibited underneath the hourly recharge options (presumably including the time included with the starter kits), but nothing underneath the monthly options. This may be careless copywriting, or VoIP may actually be allowed with the monthly options.

The monthly options are described as ‘un compte bloqué’ (a locked account), which may mean they’re only available when you buy the locked modem. I’m awaiting clarification from their sales team.

Orange

Orange offer pre-paid mobile broadband, but the available offers are appalling. Orange limit use by time, and the most one can buy is 4 hours for — wait for it — €20. Ouch.

The only other option I could find is to get a ‘Mobicarte‘ SIM card for €15, then equip it with the ‘Internet Max‘ option which for €12/month gets you “unlimited” Internet access which is really a 500 Mb quota (shaped after), with no email included (they presumably do deep packet inspection, identifying IMAP/POP/SMTP traffic and charging it separately), VoIP prohibited, and use on a computer (with a modem) prohibited. Unlimited indeed. While they offer a slightly less horrendous offer to iPhone users, it apparently isn’t available to Mobicarte customers.

SFR

SFR have an ‘SFR La Carte‘ offer, €15 for a SIM card, then customers with an iPhone can recharge with an option which gives ‘unlimited’ Internet access for a certain number of days, e.g. 20 days for €20. The small print says what you actually get is 500 Mb quota (shaped after), no VoIP or modem/computer use.

The only other option with SFR is their Pass Internet 3G+ which, like Orange, offers time-limited ‘passes’, at outrageous prices: €26 for 8 hours, €40 for 15 hours. Wow. This may also require you to buy a modem from them.

Bouygues

Bouygues offer a pre-paid SIM card for €15, then you can select an internet access offer which costs €2 per day for 10 Mb, and €8 for the day if you exceed 10 Mb (lasts until midnight). VoIP and modem use aren’t allowed.

Local broadband countries

3

This is who we settled on, after failing to get along with Meteor. 3 Ireland are a little challenging for passers-through, as they refuse to sell you pre-paid Internet without selling you an insanely expensive USB modem as well (we’re talking 70-something Euros for the entry-level modem).

However, it was a friendly 3 attendant who proposed the solution we are implementing: Go ahead and buy the modem, then you have 14 days in which to return it. It just so happens when we decided to go with 3, we only had about 12 days left in Ireland, so it’s just fine with us — we’ll drop into Wexford on our way out. We bought the really expensive model. This strategy would presumably work longer-term as long as you were able to find a 3 store within the 14 day period, and another different store to buy a new modem for the next 14 day period. Still, screw you, 3. Get a clue.

3 Ireland have a different pre-paid scheme to the UK — it’s more time-oriented, with top-up packages in 1 day (€5 I think, with 500 MB quoto), 1 week (€10, 2 GB quoto), and 1 month (€25, 10 GB quota). In their infinite wisdom, they only offer top-up vouchers in increments of €10, so if you were after the €5 or €25 package, you gotta fork over an extra €5.

Their coverage and service quality isn’t fantastic, but neither is 3 UK, or any other carrier I’ve ever been with, to be honest. It’ll do.

Incidentally, although the attendant in Galway warned me against using anything but their modem on the network, my iPhone works brilliantly with it. I just put the SIM card in there, enabled tethering with Ben M’s brilliant profile generator, and all is well.

Meteor

This was a tricky one — Originally, Meteor’s PAYG plan seemed like a reasonable choice. €1 per day with a 50 MB/day limit was restrictive, but at least they don’t force you to buy a modem you don’t want.

However, firstly, 50 MB gets you nowhere, and secondly, their coverage and quality are absolutely appalling. Where 3 gives perfectly usable 3G, Meteor give you flaky/unusable EDGE or GPRS. Outside major urban centres, you’ll get GPRS which may, if you’re lucky, load a page of Google search results. You won’t be able to load images or even post to Twitter, though, I found. Awful. Steer clear.

Local broadband countries

Searching for a way to stay connected, we discovered the least worst option is to find a mobile broadband account for each country, avoiding insanely expensive roaming charges, while not needing an even more expensive satellite system or having to rely on seriously hard to find free WiFi.

Here is a list of notes on each country we visit, with info on the providers available. This will no doubt go out of date fairly quickly, but it may at least give some idea of what’s out there.

Countries

France

Ireland

Italy

Tunisia

UK

3

This is who we’re with in UK.

3 are a good option as they are starting with the premise you have a phone and you just want the card whereas the others are still trying to presume ‘locked’ phones and cards (Louise says “being highly techie I don’t have to tell you that there are a variety of unlocking/evasive options”).

For PAYG mobile broadband, you buy a USB dongle (works with PC and Mac), for £20, then top up of 3Gb is £15, 1Gb for £10 or 7Gb for £25. Not too shabby.

The dongle listed on the website is a ZTE MF627, but I got a Huawei E156G. It is unlockable, which means one can re-use it in other countries. To unlock, one needs a simlock code that is generated specifically for a single device, identified by the IMEI number. There are services that charge for this service, but there are also kind individuals who will generate these codes for you — see this thread. I suspect one needs to use generic software to retrieve the IMEI number, and to subsequently unlock; Huawei provides (in the loose, do-the-bare-minimum, our-customers-can-go-jump-off-a-cliff sense) ‘Mobile Partner’ which hopefully fulfils this role, a Windows app available here, from DC Unlocker (it works in Parallels or VMware, Mac users).

One hassle with the E156G is that the driver is very buggy and has crashed my Mac four or five times so far, mostly while trying to sleep the laptop. There may be workarounds, I haven’t experimented much yet. Update: I found an article that describes an alternate way to use the Huawei modem, with different drivers. This doesn’t seem to cause any havoc, unlike the software provided by 3.

A side rant — what ever happened to consumer protection!? Surely this ‘locking’ practice should be illegal, and yet it’s the norm! Apparently it isn’t possible, ever, to unlock an iPhone in the UK, even when you’ve paid it all off and you’re out of contract. So, if you ever plan to travel, you essentially have to buy a new phone. Absolute bollocks.

Mobile broadband with 3 seems to be quite flaky, although I haven’t narrowed down the cause. Both on my iPhone and through the dongle, I am frequently disconnected and the network frequently just breaks down requiring a reconnection. On the iPhone, I just receive ‘Could not connect to the Internet’ errors. Their tech support staff don’t know anything, not surprisingly. I don’t know if this is just 3, or it’s a UK telco phenomenon, but one should be aware.

3 was great in order for me to use Internet on my iPhone too — they offer all kinds of ‘free’ goodies with a PAYG account, including 120Mb of data with every top-up. We also get free calls between us, which is perfect.

The alternatives, in my assistant Louise’s words:

T Mobile

There are some pretty bad reviews out there from users about T mobile coverage and technology BUT there are techie reports that say it beats others (personally I always take large number of neg reviews as reality especially if referring to coverage etc). I also dislike the fact they seem to sell only £2 per day daily usage if not contract though supposedly there is a £24 3 Gb option…. Am not liking their website for real info and no obvious free call option, though you can get ‘free SIM’ here personally think it is no different than just going and buying a pay-as-you-go card!

Orange

Their data option is 3 Gb 30 day PAYG which is £14.68 price of dongle which is £29.99 which I believe makes it a total of £32.99 which is £7 cheaper than 3 mobile and their 3Gb top up is just under 3 mob. So let’s see what their calling plan options are….. Ok, no ‘family & friend’ type offer just lots of different SIM card names to confuse one, cheapest call costs would be 10p per min so not free and not much to sell it over 3 mob as you would spend the small amount you’d save on set up and top up on data card…..

O2

A rolling 30 day PAYG data card with higher set up costs at £58.70 and then £14.69 per 3Gb top ups…. for £14.69 1 mth SIM card you can get unlimited O2 to O2 calls…. BUT double the amount of texts if buy online than in a shop but you also have to buy SIM for £9.99

Vodafone

1gb data for £39 set up and then top up would be £15 per 1gb…. hmmm – not really making sense as an option in comparison to Orange or T mobile or 3 mob…. Their SIM only for calls is well positioned at £10 buying 100mins talk & 500 texts (you do know that many of us use texting as quickest and cheapest way to communicate over here?) AND their essential free roaming for THIS summer (ie no commitment to continue past Sept). Still, probably not enough to swing it as also critically it is a 30 day plan (use it or lose it).

Local broadband countries

The main considerations were

• Wifi (open/paid)
• Mobile broadband (3G) from the UK, and roaming
• Getting a local mobile broadband account upon entry to a new country
• Mobile satellite

The conclusions are:

• Wifi: Not accessible enough, particularly if we plan to freecamp often
• Mobile broadband: Vodafone is a viable option at £5/day for up to 15Mb (You pay less for up to 1Mb, then the full £5 up to 15Mb), but 15Mb/day is very limiting – No video chat, no watching TV online, certainly no downloading applications/SDK updates, etc.
• Satellite internet: Only viable option is the Alden Netmaster 90, which over two years (£3200 installation, €600/year = £524/year service fee) works out at about £5.82/day. Quota is limiting (see below), although perhaps not so much as mobile broadband. Will probably require custom software to manage bandwidth/quota.

And finally,

• Getting a mobile broadband account per country: Tricky, as we need to research the best plan each time, but this is the best option. Pre-paid mobile Internet seems to have come far of late, and is a fairly decent option.

Wifi

Have not heard particularly good reports on free WiFi availability. Trevor and Jane, who travel and stay in caravan parks all of the time, tell us they’ve only found open WiFi a small number of times, during their travels.

Others say there’s open WiFi available ‘everywhere’, but standards differ between individuals – for one who needs Internet to be available much of the time, WiFi doesn’t sound like an option that can be relied upon.

As far paid WiFi, the same problem exists – it only works where there’s a base station.

This is a particular issue while ‘freecamping’ which we want to do a fair amount.

3G mobile broadband from UK

Appears not to be a viable option, given any kind of Internet usage above low-volume email checking. Vodafone appear to be the least worst for roaming, although their data plans are very limited.

Vodafone

• Plans – eg. £25/month for 5 gb
• Roaming in Europe: £5/day for up to 15 MB, £2 per MB over, only includes HTTP traffic presumably, not VoIP, IM, etc (charged separately at £5/MB)

Three

• Plans – eg. £15/month for 15 gb
• Roaming – £3 per MB

T-Mobile

• Plans – eg. £30/month for 5 gb
• Roaming – unknown

O2

• Plans – eg. £30/month for 10 gb
• Roaming – £3 per MB

Orange

• Plans – eg. £25/month for 10 gb
• Roaming – £3 per MB

Satellite Internet

Mobile satellite-based Internet access is more expensive than traditional static satellite. Traditionally, one uses a telephone line as the ‘return path’, presumably so that less resources need to be dedicated to you — the satellite doesn’t need to manage uplinks. When you’re on the move though, obviously, a phone line isn’t available. Consequently, two-way satellite is required, where the local satellite dish also provides a direct uplink to the satellite. This works out to cost around three times as much as services such as ADSL.

Equipment

Self-seeking/Auto-deploy – Typically three times price of a manual mount system

Providers

Contacted providers:

• RVSats (Datastorm reseller)
• DirecStar Europe
• EthNet UK (DIRECTWAY/Hughes Net reseller)
• Bentley Walker
• BeyonDSL
• El Molino Systems
• C-ComSat, who are a top-level provider not directly servicing individuals; asked them for a recommendation on dealers

El Molino Systems

Suggested a Tooway KA system – €650 + tax

Quota:

Basic (1.2 gb/month): €35 Bronze (2 gb/month): €49 Silver (3 gb/month): €67 Gold (6 gb/month): €125

Bentley Walker

Also suggested a Tooway system, at €460

Quota services and pricing as above

Other replies

• Servicesat (DirecStar Europe) – Rick could only suggest the DT740 74cm antenna at $8,000 USD, well beyond budget
• RVSats – Shirley just replied “We are certified installers in the U.S.“; presumably not servicing Europe at all
• EthNet UK – Jacquie replied with a G74 spec, but well above budget at £5990 + £500 installation, and noted that they offer no products suitable for mobile use
• Excelerate – Referred by Joe from C-ComSat, no reply yet

Providers who never replied

• BeyonDSL (ASTRA2Connect reseller); Some additional searching revealed some pricing information:
  • Services:
    • 500 mb/month ‘priority’ download, shaped to 64 kbit after 2gb (£20/month with annual payment)
    • 1.4 gb/month ‘priority’, shaped after 5 gb (£40/month with annual payment)
    • 2 gb/month ‘priority’, shaped after 5 gb (£80/month with annual payment)
  • Hardware costs £300
  • No mention of applicability to mobile use – probably not suitable

Other provider info

Alden Netmaster 90 Satellite Internet

Speed ‘on par’ with 1Mb broadband, drops dramatically at busy times (6pm – 9pm weekdays) Provides TV also (can’t be used at same time as Internet)

VoIP seems to work well

Approx. £3200 fitted

Quota: Very vague currently – IPcopter say “Depending on the selected model this limit probably will be up to 40 MByte within 30 minutes. The datarate will be reduced for about one day.” This will be very limiting for someone like me, wanting a large monthly quota around the 20-60gb mark. A 40 MB/half hour limit will mean, for example, a 2.5Gb iPhone SDK will take 31 hours to download, assuming that I can find or write an appropriate piece of software to auto-limit bandwidth to avoid breaching the 40mb/30min limit and be shaped for a day. A single 350mb TV episode will take over 4 hours to download. Better than nothing, but not much for the amount of money.

EUR 730 per year (Is this for Internet as well?) EUR 355 for 100 days out of 2 years EUR 210 for 40 days out of 1 year Additional time can be purchased

Wind is a problem (above 15-20 mph it should not be used); satellite is in geo-stationary orbit above Greece, so does not work reliably in Northern regions.

More information

• IPcopter, the service providers, here and here
• Outdoor Bits
• Adventure Motorhome Hire
• Motorhome Facts – here and here
• Motorhome Fun forum

Mobile broadband per-country

This option involves signing up upon entry to each country for an account, and using that while in-country.

This is the solution for us – read local prepaid mobile broadband for more info.