dingg

looks likely we're going to be getting a rental just till march next year , then looking fro another place

anyway - the place were taking on has no phone installed and no internet installed , now I know some of the rural places have 4g mobile wifi set ups that people use to stream tv ,use for internet etc and this may be the best solution for us due to the short term aspect of the rental.

whats available to me unlimited (data wise) and likely costs to be , what do I need to buy? etc (I'm used to fibre into the home with a few extenders scattered about to improve the wifi network)

we will obviously cart the stuff to the next location in March and use there but the first place is most likely to be foz do arelho (got another possibilty to view tomorrow night)

any help gratefully received thanks in advance

riv

I don't know what else is available. However, following a suggestion on this site some time back I just yesterday obtained the NOS offering of 15 days unlimited for 15 Euros.

I think the pack is called ' KANGURU'.

Whether it really is unlimited only time will tell, but at least it worked straight off in my existing WIFI dongle thing - which is a HUAWEI 3G v ersion. [ Originally bought with a THREE card in the UK .]

The actual card you get is 4G so if you have an appropriate dongle it might give better performance ( am not sure how important is the difference between 3 and 4 G ? Anyone know if it is worth investing 60 Euros in upgrading to a 4G dongle ? )

ANyway, it's working so far for streaming TV , radio and so on. You could do worse than risk 15 Euros on what might prove to be a good , temporary, solution.

Andy43

riv

Well I would suggest you take the Ipad to the store to try it to be sure. Have you used the Ipad as a network hub before ? You may have to buy the gizmo to function as the hub.

zoff

dingg

thanks guys but nos coverage looks poor in foz do arelho

nothing on mobile wifi appears to be unlimited , guess I'm going to have to trail around to meo and vodafone and chat to someone as the deals online are not the clearest to me.

riv

Well the NOS 15 days for 15 Euros does claim to be unlimited. ( I have only used it for a day or so so as yet cannot evaluate the claim ).

Such is the complicated array of deals available now that not even all the staff in the shops appear to know them all.

When I first enquired yesterday the lad at the first computer stated that the NOS deal was NOT unlimited..........It was only after a colleague heard him talking to me that she corrected him and said that is was unlimited.

Are they not able to pinpoint your intended location and detect whether there is or is not a strong signal for whatever network ?

Does you Ipad or a laptop not indicate what networks are available at the house ?

rickuk3

I used the NOS sim earlier this year in my ipad and used it as a network hub connecting my laptop and phone all to it with no problems, I even used the laptop to watch live UK tv with no problems or buffering.
Richard

macliam

My fixed broadband is almost down to dial-up speeds and at an eye-watering price - €40+ If 1 get 1.8mbps, I'm doing well.......
I have no experience of mobile broadband - I understand that it can become unusable in peak periods in the Algarve, but up here in the Alentejo there's likely to be less tourism. Unfortunately, there's less choice and poorer network coverage also....... but, let's face it, anything more than 2mbps and costing less than €40 would be an improvement!
If the NOS offer is genuine, the that suggests €31 maximum for whatever you get ...... so the best part of €10 cheaper to start with! Even a 3G signal should better what I'm getting now...
Of course, it'll be suck it and see, so I'll have to source an unblocked hotspot from somewhere and try each of the operators- any suggestions as to the best to get in terms of features/price?

If I have my UK smartphone roaming on 3 and pick up the NOS signal, is there a good way to check the likely linespeed for mobile internet? Might seem a daft question, but I only ever use the damned thing on wifi as I have fibre in the UK........

stephan71

I think sometimes 3 (at least used to) "traffic shape" when roaming, e.g. make matters worse. So if it good on NOS/3 while roaming, chances are that it will be the same or may even be better with a "real" NOS.

Lelandy

I've mentioned it before here, we use Vodafone Go, using a 30gb 15 day SIM, in a TP Link 4g Mi-fi Fi device. It all works well where we are in the Eastern Algarve. €15 per card or 15 day top up.

I used to buy multiple cards, but recently started topping up at the Multibanco and have found that if I top up before the 15 days is up, I keep any unused data. We're now up to 50g at the start of the fortnight.

Score76

Sounds like a lot of people sharing similar experiences to me in getting hold of reliable, fast internet here in Portugal. There's a lot of variables involved in this one.

From a 3g/4g perspective I found it cheaper and more reliable to utilise a UK sim and have it roaming here. The added advantage is that a UK sim can roam across multiple Portuguese networks to find the best signal/least congestion, whereas a Portuguese sim is stuck with just one network.

What I worked out from trying different combinations is that Vodafone UK only roam with Voda pt, and all other UK networks roam with either Meo or Nos (Optimus). In the summer Meo and Nos get swamped with tourists roaming so you struggle to facetime let alone streaming UK TV over it. Most UK networks require you to make calls within the UK at least once every 60 days or your roaming gets switched off, although I'm told Three are the exception to this.

My added difficulty was that my house sits in one postal code which for fixed internet is all fibre, but there's no cable from the exchange there. The previous owner's cable came from a different exchange. Meo's computer system would accept the fibre order and some time later, after the engineer visited and identified the lack of cabling, they would eventually cancel the order without notice. I had to doctor an EDP bill in the end in order to order service from the other exchange and get ADSL.

Meo do offer 6 month contracts for fixed line, you are better to go into a shop. They are able to help far more than the website which just seems to want to capture your Portuguese mobile number so someone who doesn't speak English can call/harrass you.

macliam

I use (or try to use) internet TV, so cards offering a limit of a few Gb a day are useless to me and roaming with a UK card isn't an option either - otherwise I would have been sorted long ago!!. Vodafone PT used to offer an unlimited mobile data package, but then stopped that for new customers when I enquired in the Spring (which is why the NOS offer is of interest).

The problem is that all the mobile companies companies chop and change offers and/or love to tie you into a 2-year contract (like MEO did with ADSL) - which means they can deliver zip and you still have to pay, or else you need to buy their equipment before you can even check their offering. Obviously MEO have added new cusomers to my DSL switch during my contract without increasing the capacity, hence my situation now. They are so cynical, they actually offered me free calls and TV at a lower price to renew my ADSL contract ........ but with no guarantee of a usable signal!

Given that fibre is a forlorn dream, it means a trip to the Algarve to actually "talk" to anyone and you are stuck with the salesmen, who all but offer you the moon to get that contract signed.

007Steve

Yes, 100% agree about that.
I use Vodafone when out & about daily on the Eastern Algarve - never any problems. I didn't know about the unused data roll-over - I'll look at that.

Lelandy

You just need to set up a My Vodaphone account with the phone number of the SIM card, this also helps keep track of data used.