Exec summary:
DTAC in Thailand great
Ortel in Europe bloody awful (don’t use them!)
Background
We live in an electronic world
Before I departed, I switched my Vodafone plan to pre-paid and topped it up with NZ$20 just
to retain the phone number “in stasis”.
Vodafone under my (Red) plan do offer a NZ$5.00 per day overseas rate
for “all you can eat” data and calls.
Tick for Vodafone – though at >180 days out of the country and not on
business (makes a welcome change) this option wasn’t really suitable.
Most people who know me will say that I have an innate sense
of fairness.
The corollary of this is my Dad’s take on expecting fairness
in life is like expecting the bull not to charge at you because you are a
vegetarian!
So when something is patently unreasonable – it should be
called. Such is the case with European
“borderless” telecommunication and especially the service advertised versus
that offered by ORTEL.
Since my travel in Europe I remain amazed at the relative
ease of traversing countries and their borders.
Were it only so with telecommunications and data plans.
With an exceptionally
easy and effective service that I used in Thailand through DTAC (6 GB for the
month and about 20 minutes of calls for around NZ$30.00, I was pre-programmed
for hoping to find the same pan Europe.
Arriving in Frankfurt as my first port in my European
journey and my first “Western European”
stop-off before Eastern Europe, I visit the local telco shop just outside the
main Frankfurt train station. I enquire
about SIM card for my iphone with a plan that allows pan European access. I am showed the ORTEL package. While in german with no English translation (and my German topped out at 5th
form/year 10) with a little subsequent top-up through working with SAP, there
is a brochure with all of the flags of the EU andsome additional European
countries. The byiine is “Wir Spracht
ein e sprache” (even I can translate this as “we speak one language.”)
Cool…sorted. I get
the package that costs me a combination of Internet 5GB plan for 20.00 Euro and an additional phone
plan for 10.00 Euro for voice – having been told that this works across most of
Europe and is valid for a month.
Long story short –within a day of crossing the border
(Germany to the Czech Republic) I get a server connection failure. Calling the support number I get a
pre-recorded message in German with no English option offered then get cut
off. I get a kind German couple sitting
next to me in a pub in Prague to listen to the message and translate “You don’t
have enough credit to make this call or your settings are wrong” – well that’s useful!
I finally get a WiFI connection and use Skype Out ( a
wonderful service that has helped me out of a few situations where I need to
call people) and get the Help Desk – finally a person to speak with.
He was a sanctimonious git (code for not very helpful). I relayed my issue of getting a PDP
error/comms failure and he asked whether I had taken the SIM card out and
re-inserted it when I arrived in the new
country? No – neither do your instructions
say to I say. “Oh everyone knows to do
that.” Seems bizarre to me – and
something that selecting the relevant network on my iPhone carrier settings
would achieve. I attempt to have this
conversation with the “help” desk guy but he’s not having a bar of it (when it
comes to my phone, nor was it!). I don’t
carry an iPhone sim card slot opener – finally found one and did the requisite
manoeuvre. Still no go. I SKYPE the help desk and get a different
guy. Oh, says he, you need the correct
plan for that. OK, what is the correct
plan and why won’t my 5GB work. “That
only works in Germany We do have a plan
for100MB of data for 5 Euro per week which you have to renew weekly.”
So, Ortel, you speak one language…as long as that language
is German.
Beware trying to find a pan European data plan…I’m sure they
are out there (and I’m still looking)…but ORTEL is not it!
As a postscript-
It has been refreshing that every café or bar (no matter how
small or in what town throughout my travels in Eastern Europe thus far) appear
to have free WiFi. No matter whether
it’s an 11th century building with someone serving you in
traditional costume or armour and chain mail, one of the first things they
offer you is the WiFi password. I don’t
tend to use these facilities for anything to do with internet banking or
booking anything with credit cards however.
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