Broad Band

[WEK]

I visit CV each year (January-May) in past have used wifi for internet since you had to purchase yearly contract from providers. It now appears both Sapo and Vodafone are offering no contract portable broadband connection for 1 Euro per day (minimum 10 days). Speed and size are limited but adequate for my usage but not sure if there are extra charges ? Does anybody have any experience with this system .

[snowbirds]

The following only applies if you own a property in Portugal and therefore have a Fiscal Card and can show a utility bill, etc as proof of home ownership - if not ignore the rest!

We are also in Carvoeiro for about 5 months every year. For the past three years we have used Vodafone wireless service and pay a monthly fee of Euro 22.49 including tax. This allows us 2GB of usage and if we go over we are charged extra. We receive an invoice in Portugal and pay it at a Multi Banco ATM using a Portuguese bank card, although you can pay it at any Vodafone store. We are not on a contract and so can cancel the service at any time, which we do before we leave Portugal.

Our final bill is forwarded on to us in Canada by our resort; we pay it late (by cheque) adding a couple of Euros to cover interest and we also send a cover letter explaining the delay in payment. We have never had a problem with this and it is less expensive than the euro a day program you are on, however perhaps you are allowed more than 2GM of usage monthly? We also may find out when we arrive back in Carvoeiro on Monday that the service we have been using is no longer available!

[WEK]

Thanks, and very interesting, didn't know this was available and I do meet all the reqirements. 2MB is good, the service I descibed is only 1MB One question, do yo need a phone line to use this service.
PS I am also a Toronto snowbird.

[snowbirds]

Hello fellow Torontonian - isn't it great to escape the snow! We have a Vodafone Mobile Phone but you do not need a land line. Can't remember if the mobile is a pre-requisite. We are going early this year and in fact leave for Faro tomorrow. Once we get set up this week we will post another message and let you know if the same service is still available.

[Hoser]

Wek and Snowbirds, check out KangGURU topic in the General Carvoeiro listing. It appears we are talking about the same item in both of these subjects. Maybe we can combine all our research under one subject.

Looking forward to Snowbirds' update.

[WEK]

Thanks just read Kanguru in general Carvoeiro section and believe we are all talking same thing. Last year I saw the ad for Kanguru and since I use Optimus phone I checked with them but at that time the Optimus/Kanguru service not available in CV. I then checked with Sapo and they tried to sell me a one year plan so at that point I gave up looking and used wifi at 5 euros/hour. Anyway, it now seems that the USB pay as you go is available from a number of suppliers with an initial charge of around 60-80 Euros to buy the USB stick then pay as you go for 1 euro/day. For somebody like myself visiting for 4 months this would seem ideal solution. One drawaback for both wifi and this USB system is I don't believe you use skype phone on it. Now waiting for snowbird to confirm above still correct.

[snowbirds]

We finally have our internet up and running. Unfortunately Vodafone is no longer offering the service we have used for the past two years which was Euros 22.49 per month, including IVA. So we are now on the 1 Euro per day plan (Euro 10 for 300 MB) or Euro 35 for 1GB a month, which is not what we wanted, but that seems to be all that is available for a pay as you go plan. The Vodafone shop in Lagoa really only seems to offer bill payment services and so we ended up back at Algarve Shopping in Guia.
It took a while since the software we had for our PCMCA card for the past two years is now outdated, but they did load on the updated version for us. If anyone knows of a better deal then please let us know.

[WEK]

Thanks Snowbird. Only thing I can add is 1KB per month is probably more than enough for emails but if you ever needed more probably SAPO deal is better since they offer same plan as others but in addition you get an equal amount of wifi time so if you had to do some heavy duty surfing you could use a wifi location.

[EMM]

Unable to get a PT connection without them erecting a pole on our plot we decided to buy a VODAPHONE dongle on a monthy standing charge.

We could get both 2g or 3g signals depending on the level of activity, very slow at peak times.
However it was only good enough for basic e mail, any substantial down loads or streaming would take too long.

As we needed good It connections for business we finally chose the CABO cable product.
We needed a trench dug to take the cables from the nearest pole to our villa but once done the CABO team did a great job and we now have a much much better service.

We also get CABO TV ( 45 channels ) and a land line.

We have afew months left on the VODAPHONE contract but once this has ended convert it to pay as you go for use when travelling in Portugal.

[maccasa]

Hi all you CVO visitors looking for broadband - we are just building our villa so this is going to be of great interest to us shortly.

However we were there in Oct and there was a large billboard ad on the road side going into CVO (from Lagoa) which said - phone, broadband/TV for €29.99 /mth

Didnt take too much notice but that seemd a good deal?

Anyone got details on it?

[EMM]

If you have a cable connection ( new villa should have this as part of the building spec ) CABO will connect you FOC.
If you need a post then you will need to get PT to do this for you.