Prepaid iPhone Plans In The UK

As I'm still crusading against French mobile carriers outrageous data roaming plans, here comes the latest addition to my list of prepaid iPhone plans to use abroad. Three UK has amazing prepaid plans amongst which the "All In One 15" is a great option. For £15 you get 300 voice minutes to the UK, 3000 texts within the UK and unlimited data valid for 30 days.

Data configuration and APN are automatic which means you won't need to download any custom profile file and/OR manually set the APN. It will just work right out of the box. So if you're traveling to the UK, you know what to do (make sure your iPhone is unlocked beforehand). I have nothing more to add! For more details regarding their other prepaid plans click here.

Prepaid iPhone Plans In Brazil

As I am spending this Holiday season in Brazil, you can only imagine that I did some research in the area of prepaid sim cards with unlimited data. The best thing I came up with was Tim Brasil. They sell prepaid cards for R$ 10 (around US$ 5), and you can buy additional credits in grocery stores by increments of R$ 6. Data connections are charged R$ 0.50 per day for unlimited usage, though speed is capped if you use more than 10 Mb in 24 hours or 300 Mb in 30 days. Voice call prices are kind of hard to understand but basically if you call another Tim number or make a local call to a landline, you will be charged R$ 0.25 per call no matter how long you stay on the line. Calls to other carriers are more expensive and charged by the minute (R$ 1.39 per minute if I got that right).
Using a jailbroken iPhone with MyWi works with the aforementioned plan and there are no APN settings to tweak. Since Tim won't sell microsim cards under that plan, you'd better bring a sim card cutter along if you plan on using an unsimlocked iPhone 4.
You may also want to check the sim card you're buying as some don't allow 3G connectivity. Only Tim owned stores seem to be selling those. Resellers don't (and unfortunately I could not find a Tim owned store where I am located)!
It is a no brainer for me as the 300 Mb that I'm probably gonna use in the next 2 weeks will end up costing me less than R$ 25 (= US$ 12) with some phone calls and text messages included in that price. If you compare this to an estimated charge of € 4000 (€ 13/Mb) by Orange France for the same usage, it looks like the best deal ever!

Please also note that you'll need a CPF number to buy a sim card (so you might ask a Brazilian friend to go to the store with you)!

If you have questions, feel free to leave a comment and I'll be happy to help.

Bouygues Telecom France Prepaid iPad Data Plan: #Fail

The French mobile carrier rumored to have the best customer service offers an iPad specific prepaid data plan. You can get unlimited data for a day for €6 and unlimited data for a month for €29.90. The only problem is that their tutorial on how to create an account after purchasing an iPad specific sim card is erroneous at best. Once you have purchased and installed their micro-sim card in your iPad, Bouygues Telecom instructs you to download their iPad app from the App Store although there is no iPad specific Bouygues Telecom app there. There's an iPhone specific app but it is not functional.

The €9.90 sim card gives you 2 days of unlimited data. After that, you'll have to create an account using Safari (as their iPhone app does not exist): any url entered in Safari when connected to the cellular network will direct you to the carrier specific page in order to create an account. The only problem is that it fails every time you attempt to do so. So, you're basically stuck calling their 1034 line where, apparently, nobody has heard of their iPad specific offers. Great for the best customer service carrier in France!

Open Letter To Steve: Do Something About International Roaming Charges

Dear Steve,

Could you please find a way to make carriers understand that by charging an insane amount of money for data roaming, they are alienating their customers and actually losing money since more and more of us, iPhone-addicted customers, choose to go prepaid when traveling abroad?

I don't wanna see this anymore and I strongly advise any sensible smartphone user to go prepaid when traveling to a foreign country. I strongly encourage readers to post tips and tutorials in the comments as to how to go prepaid in each and every single country.

Best regards,

Fred, your homie from da hood!

Note: A special shout-out to Orange France for their lousy data roaming plans that can only be activated for a maximum of 7 days and for making it impossible to activate it for 2 7-day periods in a row other than by calling at midnight on the 7th day. Add to this that customer service is closed at midnight and that activating such a roaming plan can take up to 48 hours, and you have a recipe for mass protests in the streets of France.