How important is to stay connected as you travel across borders?

First of all I want to thank for the opportunity of sharing my thoughts and my story on this blog. It is really important nowadays to always stay connected as you travel from a country to another.

Here is a short story of how an international data SIM card saved the day.

At the beginning of this New Year I decided to travel once more across Europe and head to the United Kingdom for a few months. Starting point was Cluj-Napoca, Romania. As this was a bit of a last minute decision the best way of getting to my destination was by driving there. This way I could make my own schedule, grab whatever I needed for my staying and save some money.

In the course of two days everything was ready. On top of all preparations I advertised on a carpool sharing website in order to make my journey more fun and less expensive. From the first day that my advert went online I already found two companions for my journey. Amazing Internet! Having two passengers meant that I had to depart from my route. One stop in Wien (Austria) and another stop in Koln (Germany).

Ready to cross Europe!

The day of departure arrived so we set off. Just before the border crossing I rang up customer service of my mobile network to activate the roaming. Even now the EU banned the roaming charges it is still a bit tricky to use your phone abroad. Most of the network operators require some steps to be followed before allowing the usage of a SIM card in other countries. Also they will only give you limited data allowance for roaming.

Nevertheless I only need a reliable mobile internet connection for the duration of my journey, which was about 28 hours. I needed to be able to run “Waze” and “Maps “on my Smartphone and find the best route, to be alerted in real time about possible problems ahead, to be able to find my way in the two cities that I had to make stops, to find the best places along my route where I could rest, fill up or eat and not least to keep in touch with my family and friends.  So I activated the roaming on my SIM card.

Here comes the trouble.

Just o few kilometers into Hungary my data connection went off. My navigation continued to work for a while but eventually stopped. I continued ahead guiding myself by the road signs and thinking that eventually my phone will get back online. As I skipped Hungarian lessons in school it wasn’t very easy to follow road signs but I continued.

After a while I realized that by this time I was supposed to be on a motorway, which I wasn’t, and continuing like that will delay my journey. I was on a quite tight schedule as I had to make it in time for the ferry crossing and get my passengers to their destinations. Without any luck I tried to reestablish my data connection. Could not afford to waste any time on chasing for another SIM card and then find the right bundle and activate it. I was on a countryside road in Hungary and I needed to find a solution.

Poginet comes into rescue!

As I was sitting in my car parked on the roadside remembered I had somewhere in my wallet a Poginet SIM card which I used during my summer holiday in Cyprus and Turkey. On that SIM if I remembered correctly should’ve been some credit, about 2 or 3 Euros. Inserted the SIM card in my phone, opened the browser and logged in into the self-care portal. You can do that for free at any time without having a bundle plan active or even with zero balance. I found exactly 3.02 Euros in my account. Immediately I topped up 10 Euros and activated the Daily Saver plan for 3.49 Euros valid for 24h and got in control of my journey once again. I didn’t have to worry about my Internet connection anymore as I traveled from a country to another.

After the validity of the bundle expired I switched to pay-as-you go plan for the reaming hours of my journey. That is €0.015/Mb. Now I am still left with 7.78 Euros credit on my Poginet SIM. I am sure it will come handy some day.

Everything went really smooth, I managed to get my passengers to their destinations and to got in time for the ferry crossing. Now I realised once more how important is to stay connected as you travel regardless wherever you are.

Alex C. – Poginet user.