Met a guy in Lisbon who taught me about SIM cards the hard way

I was sitting in a coworking space in Lisbon last April and this older nomad saw me struggling with my phone. He walked over and said 'you're paying 10 euros a day for data when you could get a local SIM for 15 euros a month.' Has anyone else had a random encounter like that totally change how you handle travel tech?

3 comments

3 Comments

hayden_nelson8529d agoMost Upvoted

Yeah but did that nomad tell you about the data caps and speed throttling that usually come with those cheap local plans? Everyone raves about the 15 euro SIM but nobody mentions how your connection gets cut to 2G after you hit like 10 gigs of data. I've been burned by that more than once in Portugal and Spain where I thought I was getting a steal but ended up buffering everything after two weeks. So what was the actual plan you got, and have you tested how it holds up after heavy use?

victor_jones9929d ago

Oh man I learned this one the hard way in Italy last year lol. Got a 20 euro plan from a local shop, thought I was a genius until day 8 when I couldn't load google maps without waiting forever. The trick I've found is to check if the plan has a "fair usage policy" that caps your high speed data before you even buy it. In Spain I went with Digi and they had a 30 gig plan that actually throttled to 1MB after not 2G speeds, so I could still do basic stuff. Also some carriers let you top up for like 5 euros to reset the high speed data mid cycle, which is way better than being stuck on dial up speeds for two weeks.

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stellachen29d ago

Oh man, I actually have to disagree a bit on the throttling being that bad. I've used those cheap Portuguese SIMs (like Woo or Uzo) a few times and even after hitting the cap I could still stream music and use maps just fine - it's slow but not totally useless like some people claim. Honestly, the bigger issue for me is remembering to top up before the month ends, because once it cuts off you're stuck buying another SIM.