Preamble: In the Spring of 2017 I made a couple of blogposts designed to help my readers with communication and transportation systems in Greece. So much has changed in the last six months that it neutralizes most of that advice. But here's an update, may it be of some small use. . .
Late in 2017 I returned to Greece to finish up the Ten Senses workshop - a project that got shelved last year as family obligations prevailed. Upon arriving to Athens in November, I discovered that Greek communication systems had been bought and sold and bought again, so new dispensations were in place.
Getting the car was moderately complicated (yes, you will need that International Driving Permit as well as your license and passport - and carry photocopies!), but CarNMotion still serves the larger cities. Their people are funny, kind and efficient - so I continue to recommend them for a quick rental.
Phone/net service was strangely difficult to obtain. Six months earlier I had purchased SIM cards from Cosmote for my iPhone and iPad, but the iPad wouldn't recognize it. I went to Cosmote stores and found pretty close to sheer chaos... workers looked tired and anxious, questions were shrugged off and technical support non-existent. Moreover, Cosmote (and most carriers) had broken their data and minute packages into tiny, specialized slivers so you pay 5€ for social media, 7€ for music, 3 for 'general data' (which can only be sent out as hotspot data), etc. Oh and everything purchased expires in 1 day, 3-days or a week. Nightmare.
Vodafone works well in the cities and small towns, and seems less dysfunctional as a business. The stores have enough personnel and no one appears to hate their job. The data packages are a wee bit less expensive than Cosmote, but marginally. They have an introductory packet of 5GB on a 10€ SIM card, but be aware that they burn up around 60-100 MB per hour - if you are not streaming video or music. Then it shoots up to 200mb per hour.
I make my living as a writer, so keeping a line open to the Net is essential for a number of reasons. This trip had another family emergency pop up as well. My exasperation was bottomless for a good bit of this journey, as Net access was stymied again and again, and my only quasi-reliable communications system was a wifi hotspot (through my iPhone) which burned out the battery.
About two months into this fracas, Vodafone saved the day, sending a tech named none other than Soterio ("Savior") who set up an inexpensive wifi hotspot and sold me an introductory data pack. Total: 50€. I had to buy another 22€ of data for the next three weeks, but it has been well worth it. Be sure and look for the Pre-pay pages.
Funny thing is, you won't find this router or service on their Vodafone Mobile Network website, you have to ask for it in person. But here's a link. I paid about 22€ for the router, 18 to set it up and 10 for the first data packet. I strongly recommend getting some form of wifi independent of your hosts or hotels while in Greece. Cosmote has the biggest network in Greece, but they are dropping the ball, big time.
(PS... if you *do* go to Cosmote, be aware that as of this writing Cosmote will not set up the router for you and they will NOT allow returns/refunds if their hardware doesn't work with your systems. Caveat emptor, on steroids.)
No comments:
Post a Comment