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Need tips for best data options for France and Spain

ddublu

ddublu

macrumors 65816
Original poster
Jun 26, 2011
1,373
75
Traveling to Marseilles and driving to Barcelona the end of Feb....will be in Barcelona for 5 days and then taking train to Madrid for flight home. I have a 5S and curious what best option is for data plans - either setting up with Verizon first or buying local SIM when landing in France (or getting prior)....what is best route? FYI - I am a heavy data user but can throttle it back a bit as needed. Still, would like a gb or 2 for the trip. Thanks.
 
Any suggestions here? Thinking prepaid sim may be best option for data.
 
Hopefully someone with some experience with French/Spanish pre-paid SIMs can give you some advice.

I work in Hong Kong two weeks every year and pre-paid SIMs were hands-down less expensive than Verizon's international data rates were. I ended up finding a US$30 pre-paid SIM that gave me two weeks of unlimited data. US$30 with Verizon would get like 100mb of international data (at the time I was researching this).

I didn't have much luck finding a pre-paid SIM before I arrived in HK the first time. Seemed like almost all of the sites that came up when I googled before the trip seemed scammy. When I got in HK, it seemed like every carrier there offered pre-paid SIMs, so it was a matter of figuring out who had the best bang for the buck. In your case, you'll have also factor in using it from the two countries.

Have a great trip! :)
 
Also, just confirming...the 5S is unlocked for using a pre-paid SIM in another country according to Verizon. It's just not unlocked for a domestic carrier switch in the US. That correct?
 
ddublu said:
Also, just confirming...the 5S is unlocked for using a pre-paid SIM in another country according to Verizon. It's just not unlocked for a domestic carrier switch in the US. That correct?
Click to expand...
A Verizon 5S is unlocked (on the GSM side of things) everywhere, domestically and internationally.
 
C DM said:
A Verizon 5S is unlocked (on the GSM side of things) everywhere, domestically and internationally.
Click to expand...

I'm with Verizon. I just picked up a 1GB pre-paid SIM from Telestial.com. Will I be able to simply pop out the verizon sim and pop in the Telestial sim once in France?
 
Yes, that's what I did in Hong Kong with my Verizon iPhone 4s, 5 (and 5s later this year).

You may have to dial a certain number to "activate" the data part of the pre-paid SIM, so keep the instructions that come with it handy.
 
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