alanw

SPAIN: You must show your passport to purchase a SIM card in Spain.
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Updated 19 Nov with another option

Carrefour Móvil has a great deal

SIM: 10€ in any Carrefour supermarket (including Carrefour Express), includes 5€ of credit. You want the data SIM, not the voice SIM. They sell them in the checkout line.

DATA TARIFFS:
1€/day unlimited data, billed per-day. If you only connect during one day (0h-2359h) you only pay 1€. Thus that SIM will keep you going for five days without a recharge. You get full HSPA data up to 100MB/day, then it drops to 128Mb/s.

1GB Pack - 19€, good for a 30-day period, unlimited data. Once you pass 1GB, speed is reduced to 128Mb/s. You can either re-up for another 1GB or switch to the 1€/day after that.

APN Settings:
apn: CARREFOURINTERNET
user: <blank>
password: <blank>

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Vodafone:

http://vodafone.es

SIM: 18€ in any Vodafone shop, includes 18€ of credit. There is a Vodafone shop every couple of blocks in the cities, and every small town has at least one.

DATA TARIFFS:
0,50€/day unlimited data - no P2P, no VOIP, consistent high volume gets you booted to their GPRS network at lower speed

3€/week unlimited data - same as above

IPAD SIM:
15€ includes 15€ of credit. VOIP works.

IPAD TARIFFS:
15€/month - 200MB, then speed drops to GPRS
32€/month - 2GB, then speed drops to GPRS

All Vodafone SIMs can be recharged in ATMs that have the "4b" logo.

APN SETTINGS:
APN: ac.vodafone.es
Username: vodafone
Password: vodafone

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Another option is Happy Móvil:

http://www.happymovil.es

SIM: 10€, available in any Phone House shop, also most other independent mobile shops.

DATA TARIFF:
0,09€/MB - EDGE speeds, billed in MB increments.

All Happy Móvil SIMs can be recharged in "la Caixa" ATMs. This may be an interesting option because they have extremely cheap international calls - around 0,06€/minute to much of the world - and calls between Happy Móvil numbers are always free.

APN SETTINGS:
APN: internet

NetBrowser07

1. In Spain for 5 days... seems like Vodafone is the best option at 3€ a week. Are there any additional charges to buy the SIM?

2. We will be carrying an Unlocked Nokia Lumia 900. This phone uses a Micro-SIM. Does that change anything?

freecia

There's also the Tuenti MVNO on Movistar's network. You can find the sims at Telecor shops (some are at post offices) and a few shops in madrid. According to this post, in-store sims are 12 EUR with 5 EUR credit as of July 2012. Data is 1GB for 6 EUR.

If you buy it online, 10EUR seems to get you the sim and the 1GB package free for 1 month.

Allows tether via smartphone hotspot but not via USB dongle.

More info:
http://prepaidwithdata.wikia.com/wiki/Spain
http://www.tuenti.com/movil/puntos-de-venta

Checking Vodafone.es, it seems the weekly data only prepaid package is now 3.5 EUR/week and only the first 20 MB is up to 7.2 Mbps.

cheltzel

I was looking at the tuenti site and like the prepaid package. Unfortunately, I speak enough Spanish to get myself into trouble

Can you purchase a SIM from them and have it mailed to your US address? We are going to Spain this summer and it would be handy to have SIMs ready to go when we land.

gfunkdave

I seem to recall Yoigo being the best deal in Spain when I was there a few years ago.

BigFlyer

Many countries in Europe have MVNO's with fairly decent prices directed at the local immigrant community. Because the immigrants come from many countries, they frequently have websites in English as well as the local language. They also have customer service in English and also usually voice prompts in English.

In addition to being able to deal with them in English, they frequently have very cheap international rates - sometimes cheaper than their own domestic rates, and usually much cheaper than the non-MVNO carriers.

Lebara and Lyca Mobile are two of these companies, and they are both in Spain (lebara.es and lycamobile.es)

When looking at their prices, you need to take into account any bonus they may be offering on topups. For example, last time I looked at Lebara Spain they were offering a 100% topup bonus - so a 10 EUR payment would add 20 EUR to your account. With a 100% topup bonus, your effective rate for calls is actually half what is shown on the website.

Also, they tend to offer free SIM cards - you can order online and it will be sent to your hotel. I believe you still have to then show up somewhere with ID for activation.

One thing to watch for when comparing Spanish mobile rates is that practically every carrier has a per call connection charge. So, you may see a rate of 1 cent a minute, but there may also be a 29 cent connection charge. This is all usually disclosed on the website.

cheltzel

Answering my own question ... I went through the purchase menus enough to see that you need a local address for delivery.

BigFlyer

While is is very common for SIMs to be mailed for free within the country, I've never seen any provider mail out of country.

If it is important enough to you to have your SIM before arrival, there are many Spanish SIMS for sale on ebay. It appears from a quick look that many of the sellers claim they can pre-activate the SIM for you with your passport number, which might tip the balance towards the ebay option.

cheltzel

It isn't terribly important. But I like to be able to avoid AT&T's roaming charges whenever possible.

We will arrive at MAD, go to the Atocha station and catch a train (on a Sunday evening). I expect getting a SIM card will be next to impossible until the next day.

I didn't think of the eBay option ... thanks!

pjensid

My experience today in Madrid getting a nano sim for my iPhone 5:

1. At the airport touts selling Lebara, but no carrier shops.

2. Vodafone shop in Velazquez said "impossible for iPhone".

3. Movistar shop in Velazquez also said impossible even more vehemently.

4. At a small phone repair shop he reluctantly sold me a mini sim & cut it to nano size. It's an Orange "tarjeta Ballena" for 15E which has 1GB & 1,000 SMS to Spanish numbers & calls @ 1c/min with call setup fee 15c. Internet worked fine for 1 minute & then stopped. It turned out that there needs to be 5E credit on the sim & as soon as the sim is activated the balance was reduced to 0 as the month's fee was taken off. Adding 5E fixed this & it's now fine.

In the past 4 months I've got sims at Cairo, Istanbul, Nice, HK, Singapore, Moscow, Shanghai & Kathmandu and Madrid has been the most difficult.

cheltzel

We ended up getting our sims in Barcelona. The best place we found was the phone section o a large El Corte Ingles store. Very knowledgeable staff and great service.

Got a Vodafone sim with .5 GB of data and local calls/SMS for 10E

BigFlyer

Spain has fairly strict rules on registering the SIM with a passport or UD card.

In my experience these (usually Pakistani run) phone shops can give you a SIM and they have some way of getting it to work temporarily without the proper passport/ID registration with the carrier. But, at some point it will stop working without proper registration. It might not matter because you might be out of Spain by then. You might want to see if one of the Orange carrier stores will register it for you.

BTW, why did you not buy one of the Lebara SIMs? The Lebara rates in Spain are fairly decent, as I recall. And the customer service can talk to you in English, if language is an issue.

pjensid

The phone shop registered the SIM with my passport.

I've never used Lebara & if I return to Spain I might give it a try.

Roger

I (still) use a laptop when I'm in a foreign location for more than a few days. I often use an unlocked dongle/USB stick with a local data SIM.

I'll be in a fairly remote location on vacation on Fuerteventura soon. The hotel has limited chargeable wifi. I'd like to buy a data-inclusive SIM. I could trawl the limited retail opportunities in Corralejo or Puerto del Rosario to try and find an appropriate SIM but don't really want to leave it till then.

Can an FTer recommend a data SIM that I could buy in advance so that I get mobile broadband from the getgo?

Many thanks.

[I tried searching the various SIM threads but didn't find a solution.]

freecia

I used Vodafone Spain while in Tenerife. Picked it up from a local Vodafone store, required a passport, and it took 30+ minutes to setup the mobile data correctly. Additionally, my phone package with mobile data didn't allow tethering.

Try messaging a seller on eBay to make sure the sim will work in a unlocked dongle
http://www.ebay.com/sch/i.html?_odkw...&_sacat=146492
This seller offers pre-registered sims if you don't want to share your passport information.
http://www.ebay.com/itm/VODAFONE-SPA...item4859c877f1