International Data Roaming Charges

[hotdog]

Is there a place where I can find out exactly what data rates I'll be charged when roaming in Europe? MTN has a nice feature where you can build your itinerary for a trip.

http://www.mtn.co.za/?pid=237582

This gives valuable info like call costs when roaming on each country's networks, but it doesn't give the data charges. It does say whether the network supports 3G, GPRS etc though.

The problem is the countries I'm going to are not english-speaking (France and Germany) and hence the network web pages are gibberish to me.

Any help would be appreciated.

 

[hotdog]

1555 was very helpful in giving me the following link:

GPRS Rates

Some of this data is outdated, but hopefully the rates have either stayed the same or come down in price. I'm not sure if these rates apply to roaming customers. Anyone got some feedback on whether these rates are valid from personal experience?

 

[Dr_Data]

Hi
These dont look like Roaming rates. Seems more like the local rate that a sub would pay if they were a customer on the local network in the country. Similar to the charges that an MTN SA sub would pay in SA for data. I will try and get some info for roaming data charges.

Regards
DD

 

[hotdog]

Thanks DD, I had my suspicions that that would be the case. I look forward to your reply.

Hi
These dont look like Roaming rates. Seems more like the local rate that a sub would pay if they were a customer on the local network in the country. Similar to the charges that an MTN SA sub would pay in SA for data. I will try and get some info for roaming data charges.

Regards
DD

 

[Pitbull]

Is there a place where I can find out exactly what data rates I'll be charged when roaming in Europe? MTN has a nice feature where you can build your itinerary for a trip.

http://www.mtn.co.za/?pid=237582

This gives valuable info like call costs when roaming on each country's networks, but it doesn't give the data charges. It does say whether the network supports 3G, GPRS etc though.

The problem is the countries I'm going to are not english-speaking (France and Germany) and hence the network web pages are gibberish to me.

Any help would be appreciated.

In Europe Wireless data is a luxury.

That being said. They can charge you up to R 150 per MB.

Best is to get a pre-paid sim in the country your going to and use it in pre-paid base.

 

[hotdog]

Pitbull,

Are you sure that they allow GPRS using prepaid SIMs? I don't think're as "advanced" as our local networks are. As I said before, I'd like to know from MTN what I can expect to be charged and if not that then I'd like to hear from users that have used the service overseas before to get a feel for what to do and what not to do.

In Europe Wireless data is a luxury.

That being said. They can charge you up to R 150 per MB.

Best is to get a pre-paid sim in the country your going to and use it in pre-paid base.

 

[Pitbull]

Pitbull,

Are you sure that they allow GPRS using prepaid SIMs? I don't think're as "advanced" as our local networks are. As I said before, I'd like to know from MTN what I can expect to be charged and if not that then I'd like to hear from users that have used the service overseas before to get a feel for what to do and what not to do.

Buget on R 150 a MB

It might be a few rands out give or take depending on the exhange rate.

 

[Dr_Data]

Buget on R 150 a MB

It might be a few rands out give or take depending on the exhange rate.

Hi
Which countries are you going to be visiting?

Regards
DD

 

[Pitbull]

BTW

Just know that in France Infra Red and bluetooth are only allowed indoors.

Don't ask why it just is

 

[hotdog]

France, Germany and UK.

Hi
Which countries are you going to be visiting?

Regards
DD

 

[Dr_Data]

Hi
A Friend of mine visited the UAE recently. This is what you can do. Navigate to the MTN site where you have seen the option that shows the Roaming partners for data. See which networks in the respective countries you mentioned have GPRS. Normally the MTN site also lists the respective site addresses for the networks in those countries. Navigate to the sites and see if they have prepaid GPRS and what are the rates locally for the service. Normally the sites have alot of info, like that cost of a local sim, the price to subscribe to GPRS on prepaid and also the cost for usage. From there go online to a currency converter calculator and work out what you would pay. It can be very useful. All you will need is the local networks APN when changing settings on the handset or data card.

In my friends case it worked out much more economical to go there and purchase a local sim to use for data. I even found the settings on the site and set up the profiles for him before he left. Worked well once he got the local sim.

Hope this helps

Regards
DD

 

[hotdog]

Hi DD,

That's what I tried to do, but got unstuck with the language issue when trying to read the French and German sites. Even the UK sites don't seem to show that you can use GPRS using a prepaid sim. Is there no way that MTN can tell me what I'm going to get charged when I connect to GPRS / 3G on Orange in France for example? Surely they must know this info coz they have to bill me at the end of the day.

Hotdog

 

[Dr_Data]

Hi

I was referring to you making use of a local sim in the explanation above, not roaming with MTN SA.

I will try and get roaming charges for you regarding those countries.

Regards
DD

 

[hotdog]

Roaming fee in France

OK, I'm back from my trip and didn't manage to find a network in France that provided prepaid data usage that made financial sense. In the UK I purchased a T-mobile pre-paid sim card that had a GBP1 daily limit. The rate is something like 7.5p / kB, which equates to about GBP7.5 / MB!!!! Anyway, the special caps your maximum charge at GBP1 / day regardless of your usage. I used this quite effectively. Connected for 5 days using GBP5 = R75!!!

While in France I thought I'd do a quick test connection on GPRS to see what the cost would be. I made a connection to my gmail app on my N70 which, according to the Connection Manager used about 10kB in total. I get back to SA to find the following entry on my bill on MTNActive:

2007-06-02 07:47:55 02:27:00 mymtn MTN 10.34

So it seems that they charged me R10.34 for the 10kB of data I used to check my mail. So this works out to R1000 for 1MB!!!!! The time of the connection 07:47am is correct.

Can someone from MTN please explain the entry above. I'm not sure what the 02:27:00 represents. I was not connected for 2.5 hours - more like 30sec, so it is not clear how this billing was worked out and why the duration shows so much time.

 

[Johnit]

I am a very happy MTN user (voice and data), but data roaming is still one of MTN's weaknesses. In Germany and the Netherlands for certain, other countries very likely, you can contain your roaming data cost to R14 per megabyte if you stick to Vodafone network. I keep a 4U contract for this purpose.
PM me if you need a .de site translated - or the essential info extracted.