I have a solution for good Mobile Data (300G) whilst in Spain (then any zone 1 country)

[Madmag]

Quick question to those who are using this sim Carpmart. I did purchase a popit sim which gives me 100Gb a month. Have used it for 4-5 days now and find I’ve already used nearly 6Gb and that’s with just one hours TV. Most I think was probably using Google maps etc to navigate. We are not big TV watchers but will be watching some of the Christmas stuff while out in Spain and I have found this card brilliant for that as no VPN needed. Because I will be using YouTube a lot for some study purposes I don’t think the 100gb will be sufficient so will have to run 2 cards. I know this will cost more than one plus a VPN but having used a VPN before I love the simplicity of not needing one. My question is can I use the Teikom sim in my spare phone as a hot spot and keep the popit in the router for TV. I know Teikom is just data and wouldn’t need it for anything else but will using it from a hot spot give me sufficient signal not to buffer all the you tube videos. Sorry if a simple question but didn’t want to mess up. Thanks.

 

[monzer]

Quick question to those who are using this sim Carpmart. I did purchase a popit sim which gives me 100Gb a month. Have used it for 4-5 days now and find I’ve already used nearly 6Gb and that’s with just one hours TV. Most I think was probably using Google maps etc to navigate. We are not big TV watchers but will be watching some of the Christmas stuff while out in Spain and I have found this card brilliant for that as no VPN needed. Because I will be using YouTube a lot for some study purposes I don’t think the 100gb will be sufficient so will have to run 2 cards. I know this will cost more than one plus a VPN but having used a VPN before I love the simplicity of not needing one. My question is can I use the Teikom sim in my spare phone as a hot spot and keep the popit in the router for TV. I know Teikom is just data and wouldn’t need it for anything else but will using it from a hot spot give me sufficient signal not to buffer all the you tube videos. Sorry if a simple question but didn’t want to mess up. Thanks.

Hotspot via your phone shouldnt cause any drop in signal. I find it's sometimes faster than other methods. Only drawback is it drains the battery quickly.

 

[Madmag]

Hotspot via your phone shouldnt cause any drop in signal. I find it's sometimes faster than other methods. Only drawback is it drains the battery quickly.

Thanks. Battery drain not really a problem as can keep it on charge all the time. It’s an old phone with a poor battery in that it doesn’t hold its power as long as it should hence not being used.

 

[ChrisL]

I did purchase a popit sim which gives me 100Gb a month. Have used it for 4-5 days now and find I’ve already used nearly 6Gb and that’s with just one hours TV.

Assuming you're using an Android device, if you go to settings, then connections, then data usage, then either tap on mobile data usage or wifi data usage and it will show you which apps used what amount of data, which is handy to know if you have a finite amount of data.

 

[Madmag]

ChrisL All Apple for me phones, Mac etc etc. They do have a similar set up though , will have a look because I haven’t done yet. once I have both SIM cards activated then data use won’t be an issue. The problem I’ve found I have is that if I use the one popit card for everything then I won’t have enough “UK use” for iPlayer etc. so plan is to use Popit solely for UK TV and other sites for which you need to be in UK for and Tiekom for everything else. My concern was if using my phone as a hot spot with the Tiekom sim in would a) work and b) be OK for you tube etc.

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[wfdTamar]

If you haven’t already found out - some streaming tv services have a quality setting, so you can reduce the quality to suit your tv, or even lower to save data. No point downloading 4K if your tv is only HD. A lot of van sized TV’s are not even 1080 (Full HD), but 720. Even Standard Definition (SD) is not too bad.

I have found navigation uses quite a bit of data and if you have an app that tracks your progress and you can create a blog for others to follow you (like Polarsteps) that also uses some notable data. Another is uploading photos you have taken (if you have iCloud photo backup, or similar turned on).

 

[Madmag]

wfdTamar now that makes a lot of sense. Thanks. I had t realised the navigation used so much and used it a lot over the last 4 days. Also probably have been a bit photo heavy sending pics to friends of travels and also downloading theirs so probably a higher than usual use. I have got cloud on for photos as well. As for TV settings I haven’t looked at that yet as up to now have only watched on iPad using iPlayer but I am going to try and set up a firestick on an Avtex TV over next couple of days. Watch out for more questions

 

[wfdTamar]

If you're sending the same pics to multiple people have a look at Polarsteps. It tracks where you've been and shows it on a map. You can create an entry with photos and text wherever you want. Friends then subscribe to it (with your permission) and can comment. That way they can linger over the ones they prefer rather than having to sit through your boring slide show when you get home.

I think it's wise to use iCloud for photos just in case you lose your phone. Also for essential documents (of course).

 

[Madmag]

Never looked at Polarsteps but will certainly do especially as rain forecast for next 3-4 days. I like having photos on cloud as can then access on any device. Thanks again

 

[Madmag]

I presume data speed is down to local issues. I am finding that the Tiekom card is a lot slower than the Popit one was used in same router and same location. I know the weather plays a part and it’s chucking it down here, Marbella area but speeds on test were 15.8 download and 28.3 on upload. Is this low or normal? Thanks.

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[wfdTamar]

Usually (particularly with landline based internet) download is significantly faster than upload, but it seems not to apply so much to mobile phone (though I just did a test with the 5G on my phone - 230 Down, 4.3 Up). Or rather it's far more susceptible to how much demand there is on the wholesale bandwidth the provider has purchased for their users. That's a way for cheap providers to make it so cheap (I know that applies to landline internet, not sure about mobile).

There's also which network the provider is on and which frequencies. Some budget companies don't use the better ones (5G is typically left out). Also just over a hill you could find it the other way around (Popit bad, Tiekom good). If Tiekom is consistently bad, it might be worth asking them about it. Could be an APN issue. You might try the sim in a mobile phone. See if it's the same. If its better take note of any settings that look different and try them in the MiFi router (taking note of what you change so you can go back).

I have a sim here that has normal data and bonus data and I'm sure once you use up the normal and start using the bonus data it's much less reliable. Because mobile data speed is less consistent, it's hard to be sure (and I don't know how they'd do the two categories of data differently).

 

[bigtwin]

Engineer999