[Rarrainbow]

Hello

Sorry if I am repeating questions but only old threads are coming up when I search and for this, up to date info is required!

So we are about to move and have had loads of help on here so far so thank you very much!

We want to get pay as you go SIM cards for our phones... I know there is Vodafone, TMN and Optimus networks to choose from.

My question obviously is which is better?

The things that are important are:

good coverage as we will be living in the valley's
free minutes - can you get free minutes to landlines and other networks or just same network
Free texts - to same network or any

Ideally we would like to pay monthly for the SIM and get a bunch of free minutes and texts, like we do here in the UK

I know you can top up at ATMs or online if you have a Portuguese bank account or if not you have to go to the mobile shop.

So in Portugal do they not have shops like "car phone warehouse" etc that deal with all three networks? Or do they just have individual shops for each network where you can buy credit from?

Can you not buy credit from supermarkets? Scratch card top up type things?

Any help on this would be awesome, it's practically the last thing we have to do now

 

[silvers]

Again, we ahve tmn moche, its a non fixed term contract that costs €15 a month each. For that we get free calls to any other tmn moche user and free texts to any tmn moche user. The €15 gets added to your account for 30 days to use as you wish.
There is phone house that deals with all networks.
Coverage depends where you live.

 

[canoeman]

As your living in the "valleys" although that's not a lot of help, your coverage and company will depend on your local mast, most of the major suppliers will have "coverage" facilities on their sites, out of the three major ones, all give us phone coverage but only Optimus can give us a good broadband connection, so that's the first thing to check out, then the various plans.

Few carphone wharehouse type operations here, its either independents selling everything or franchise/agents for major suppliers.

 

[Catx]

Check with your neighbours to see who they use. I went with Vodafone originally, having been with them for years in Irleland. Although I am in a sizeable village, close enough to Faro, the coverage is non-existent on our street. Moved to TMN and all is hunky dory, they have an antenna in the village. See what will work where you are, then look at the packages offered by the different suppliers, who have a verified good coverage in your area.