Xcom Global's Euro SIM $13 per day, works in 40 countries

if you only need 50mb a day, I saw this, www.tepwireless.com From $15 a day for 3 days down to $9 a day for 10 days. They used to be fomingo in the UK and now tep.

Cheers

This looks very interesting and your reviews seem to point to it being a good deal.

One area of concern that I have is that the charge for a lost or damaged unit is $800 and paying roughly 25% additional for insurance nets you a $160 deductible.
http://www.xcomglobal.com/coverage/germany.html

That sounds a little steep to me.

The mifi's that I have seen in the states look to be no more than a couple hundred dollar device. Those of yall that have rented them - is there anything fancy about them?

Quick note. Just got back from my ED and using a non-Xcom mifi device was a piece of cake!

As soon as I arrived in Munich I walked into the airport electronics store and asked him for a sim loaded with a 1 week data plan. This cost me 20 Euro (the price of the sim, with 10E credit.) The guy at the store was happy to activate the sim and load up the plan for me using a store cell phone as my phone was in my luggage. I had awesome coverage for the 4 days in southern Germany, with no problems. Once we arrived in France, I stopped in an Orange store and asked for a Mobicard. It was 10 E and came with 5 E credit. I added 10E to it which I used to sign up for the Internet Max plan via the menu. All was good from then onwards and we had data while driving through France. The Orange store initially was a bit funny about us not being French residents and wanting a mobicard, but once we explained that it was just to have mobile coverage while on vacation they were fine with it. They did copy down some data from my passport though when registering the sim.

All in all this was well worth it and much easier than I expected it to be.

Anyone interested in renting my mifi device for their ED?

Originally Posted by AggieKnight

This looks very interesting and your reviews seem to point to it being a good deal.

One area of concern that I have is that the charge for a lost or damaged unit is $800 and paying roughly 25% additional for insurance nets you a $160 deductible.
http://www.xcomglobal.com/coverage/germany.html

That sounds a little steep to me.

The mifi's that I have seen in the states look to be no more than a couple hundred dollar device. Those of yall that have rented them - is there anything fancy about them?

Nothing fancy at all! I simple little plastic box. I just ordered it again for 7 days ($119) and didn't get the insurance this time. Last month my daughter and I carried it everywhere with us and pulled it out to surf the net while waiting on food and beer! My plan is to keep it and my iPhone in my pocket/pack at all times.

It's simple and at $120 for a week, it's easy too! Nothing special other then they over night it to you and you overnight it back. If someone wants to start a rental progarm and ONLY charge for actual days of use (excluding travel days), it could be a better deal.

Using one now. Works well BUT here's a tip. Our battery drained in about 2 hours. Per xcomglobal rep. That we called, take battery out when not using it and when charging it, make sure it is not on, as battery will not charge ifi it's on.

For european visitors german BLAU or SIMYO prepaid sim?

5 EUR (~$ 6.90) for 7 days/50 Meg (whatever is reached first) all over the EU.
Any German speakers pls. It could be what everyone was looking for.

http://www.blau.de/

http://www.simyo.de/tarif/ausland-tarifoptionen.html

Originally Posted by stonemik

Using one now. Works well BUT here's a tip. Our battery drained in about 2 hours. Per xcomglobal rep. That we called, take battery out when not using it and when charging it, make sure it is not on, as battery will not charge ifi it's on.

That's not a good design...

Originally Posted by Technic

That's not a good design...

I agree, but it was simple, and even in places where my iphone was on Edge, it was doing 3g. SIM card was taped over with a white security tape (you could tell if it was removed) so I didn't take it off to see whose it was.

Originally Posted by stonemik

I agree, but it was simple, and even in places where my iphone was on Edge, it was doing 3g. SIM card was taped over with a white security tape (you could tell if it was removed) so I didn't take it off to see whose it was.

So, you used your iPhone and the Mifi? Didn't you get a ton of iPhone charges? Even when you get a voice mail, it's a charge. How did you limit your costs and leave iPhone on? Last month I kept it in "airplane" mode the entire time with wifi turned on and used Facetime over wifi to call wife.

Originally Posted by jhall1957

So, you used your iPhone and the Mifi? Didn't you get a ton of iPhone charges? Even when you get a voice mail, it's a charge. How did you limit your costs and leave iPhone on? Last month I kept it in "airplane" mode the entire time with wifi turned on and used Facetime over wifi to call wife.

That is my plan, but using Skype for calls over the MiFi/WiFi.

Originally Posted by Technic

That is my plan, but using Skype for calls over the MiFi/WiFi.

Thats what I did, worked fairly well. And dealing with a locked iphone made me hate ATT even more I'm really looking forward to the new iphone carrier options coming around in October...

Originally Posted by gbarros

Thats what I did, worked fairly well. And dealing with a locked iphone made me hate ATT even more I'm really looking forward to the new iphone carrier options coming around in October...

Nice...

Originally Posted by gbarros

Thats what I did, worked fairly well. And dealing with a locked iphone made me hate ATT even more I'm really looking forward to the new iphone carrier options coming around in October...

We tried Skype but found the Facetime worked better and froze less. PLus, with Facetime, if my wife doesn't have her phone with her (which she never does) it rings!

Originally Posted by stonemik

Using one now. Works well BUT here's a tip. Our battery drained in about 2 hours. Per xcomglobal rep. That we called, take battery out when not using it and when charging it, make sure it is not on, as battery will not charge ifi it's on.

Wait, what?

I thought someone else talked about using one while it was plugged into the cigarette lighter adapter?

Or is it, that it can be run off your car, but the battery will only charge when it is off?

Thanks for the info.

Originally Posted by jhall1957

So, you used your iPhone and the Mifi? Didn't you get a ton of iPhone charges? Even when you get a voice mail, it's a charge. How did you limit your costs and leave iPhone on? Last month I kept it in "airplane" mode the entire time with wifi turned on and used Facetime over wifi to call wife.

Nope, not really, turned off data, used Skype and the Myfi. I did add the international 50 text messages cause I knew work would send some though

Originally Posted by gbarros

Thats what I did, worked fairly well. And dealing with a locked iphone made me hate ATT even more I'm really looking forward to the new iphone carrier options coming around in October...

What does the locked iPhone matter if you're using Skype or a MIFi?

I wonder about the 10E unlimited data sim card someone mentioned before. Please let me know which carrier has that offer since the cheapest I found is 39.95E for 30 days. I have a jailbroken and unlocked iPhone 4 with MyWii application for tethering. Even 39.95 beats $255 for the MiFi XCom Global.

Originally Posted by gbarros

Quick note. Just got back from my ED and using a non-Xcom mifi device was a piece of cake!

As soon as I arrived in Munich I walked into the airport electronics store and asked him for a sim loaded with a 1 week data plan. This cost me 20 Euro (the price of the sim, with 10E credit.) The guy at the store was happy to activate the sim and load up the plan for me using a store cell phone as my phone was in my luggage. I had awesome coverage for the 4 days in southern Germany, with no problems. Once we arrived in France, I stopped in an Orange store and asked for a Mobicard. It was 10 E and came with 5 E credit. I added 10E to it which I used to sign up for the Internet Max plan via the menu. All was good from then onwards and we had data while driving through France. The Orange store initially was a bit funny about us not being French residents and wanting a mobicard, but once we explained that it was just to have mobile coverage while on vacation they were fine with it. They did copy down some data from my passport though when registering the sim.

All in all this was well worth it and much easier than I expected it to be.

Anyone interested in renting my mifi device for their ED?

found this thread while searching for euro solution

I am not super high tech but if I have an unlocked smartphone, buy one of these unlocked pocket wifis, I can buy sims in each country I visit and run google maps for navigation etc plus have ability to tether my laptop etc for internet?

How much data does google maps use? Also, would this pocket wifi also work in USA?

Originally Posted by trucheli

I wonder about the 10E unlimited data sim card someone mentioned before. Please let me know which carrier has that offer since the cheapest I found is 39.95E for 30 days. I have a jailbroken and unlocked iPhone 4 with MyWii application for tethering. Even 39.95 beats $255 for the MiFi XCom Global.

just curious if you ever tried this and how well it worked. This sounds better than buying the pocket wifi, just one device to keep charged etc.

Originally Posted by EDF30

found this thread while searching for euro solution

I am not super high tech but if I have an unlocked smartphone, buy one of these unlocked pocket wifis, I can buy sims in each country I visit and run google maps for navigation etc plus have ability to tether my laptop etc for internet?

How much data does google maps use? Also, would this pocket wifi also work in USA?

I'd advise you to read up a bit on the WWW before travelling. It can get tricky, but not often.

If you have an unlocked Smartphone then you don't need a separate 'pocket wifi' unless you also have other wifi devices with you which need data. Possibly a second smartphone, kindle, tablet, etc. The local SIM gives the device it is in access to cellular data; and that device could re-broadcast that connection as WiFi if it had permissions. 'Tethering'.

Possible wrinkles in the master-plan are:

• Make sure that your cellphone really is unlocked before you travel. Borrow someone's other-network SIM for a few moments to make sure the cellphone accepts it (finds a network without prompting you for a subsidy unlock code).
• Remember to turn on data roaming on your cellphone preferences/config. I'm embarrassed to admit I once forgot this and spent a few hours cursing as I only got a few kB each boot before it seemed the network threw me off. It was my fault. On Android: Settings | Battery and data manager | Data delivery.
• Take a list of country/provider APN data (google it). It is unlikely but just about possible that the SIM you buy won't have the network data configuration you need so you'll have to go into the cellphone's config pages and manually add the APN info so that the phone recognizes the network and can authenticate to it. It happened to me in the UK with a T-Mobile SIM
• If you are only going to be in a country for a day or so it may be worth roaming into that country on the previous country's SIM. It'll burn through your remaining data credit, but perhaps you don't need that data credit anyway and it will save you buying another SIM until the next country on your itinerary.
• Consider using a map pre-load if it exists. On Android Google Maps you can surf to the desired location, long-touch the screen and select an option to pre-load a large area of map data (not satellite imagery) into system memory or SDHC. Enough to cover a large city each time, and you can keep pre-loading areas. That saves a lot of waiting and data use.
• If you are travelling with someone else with a smartphone consider getting them a voice or voice/data plan according to your budget and use expectations. If you get two (or more) you can often add each other to your 'family numbers' list or suchlike so that calls between your phones are much reduced in price, or free. If your schedule allows it consider loading your PAYG SIM in the month before you expect to use most data because often an EU operator has plans which give free minutes or data in the month following a reload activity. (I top-up my SIMs the month before I travel, but I keep a small collection ready to use and make sure to use each every 6 months to stop them aging out of service).

Frank.

So much good info in this thread, decided to resurrect it again rather than starting a new one.

I was able to get ahold of a Huawei E586 mobile wifi hotspot from a friend, but it is currently locked to a carrier in the UK ("3"). Sounds like I'd have no trouble grabbing a sim for this bad boy even at Munich airport, but does anybody happen to know if they can unlock it there?

You will likely have trouble getting it unlocked at the airport store. I suggest doing it before you leave so that you can confirm it all went well.

Well, it's a bit of a chicken and egg situation, at least from what I understand. It doesn't have a SIM, and I can't unlock it without a SIM, but I was hoping to just buy the prepaid SIM in Germany. Maybe there's a better way to go about it...

I prefer to keep things simple (I have ATT iPhone). ATT International Data Plans have come down in price significantly. On my last few international trips, I didn't even use the minimum data that I purchased. I cannot remember the last hotel I stayed in without wifi; and during the day and night, i am doing stuff, hopefully not needing much data; I keep data off, and every night and morning I have wifi. When i need data when I am out and about I use it, but as I said, ATT data plans have come down in price by a factor of four or five times or more.

RATES: 120MB of data for $30 a month, 300MB for $60 a month, and 800MB for $120. If you exceed your data allotment, AT&T will now charge $30 for every 120MB over your limit.

I am neither a techie nor a technophobe; but I do not want to unlock my phone or jailbreak my phone, or carry mifi that I might lose, or may not work well.

Originally Posted by desertpilot

Well, it's a bit of a chicken and egg situation, at least from what I understand. It doesn't have a SIM, and I can't unlock it without a SIM, but I was hoping to just buy the prepaid SIM in Germany. Maybe there's a better way to go about it...

I was upfront with the lady in Frankfurt - said I need a data only sim card for an iPad - she activated no problems - used address of the hotel I was staying in ... in Munich