In previous years, I've always bought a local SIM card as a backup in case I couldn't get onto the wonderful FOSDEM wifi and the SIM has always worked within 5 minutes. I bought one early this morning and it still isn't working yet after about 3 hours. The shop and the customer service line have told me that they have to check all new accounts manually now because of "terrorism" and pressure from French authorities. They told me to wait 24 hours before asking about it again. For anybody only arriving in Brussels today and buying a SIM in the evening, it is not clear if it will really be activated over the weekend or only next week so you may just be wasting time and money. Apparently, you can still buy tobacco products here and consume them immediately and they will eventually kill you but thanks to the irrational fear of Muslims, you can't get immediate access to the Internet in Belgium.
On Fri, 2017-02-03 at 11:33 +0100, Daniel Pocock wrote:
In previous years, I've always bought a local SIM card as a backup in case I couldn't get onto the wonderful FOSDEM wifi and the SIM has always worked within 5 minutes.
I bought one early this morning and it still isn't working yet after about 3 hours. The shop and the customer service line have told me that they have to check all new accounts manually now because of "terrorism" and pressure from French authorities. They told me to wait 24 hours before asking about it again. For anybody only arriving in Brussels today and buying a SIM in the evening, it is not clear if it will really be activated over the weekend or only next week so you may just be wasting time and money.
Apparently, you can still buy tobacco products here and consume them immediately and they will eventually kill you but thanks to the irrational fear of Muslims, you can't get immediate access to the Internet in Belgium.
_______________________________________________
This is nonsensical. In London there's a tight security to prevent accidents and terrorism. And SIM cards work immediately! Not to mention that *manually* nowadays sounds ridiculous. Thanks for the warning Daniel, I'm sure you're saving money and stress to quite a few. Cheers, Sylvia
On Fri, Feb 03, 2017 at 11:33:44AM +0100, Daniel Pocock wrote:
In previous years, I've always bought a local SIM card as a backup in
A Proximus Pay&Go+ SIM card can be kept from year-to-year - to avoid expiring it needs topping up once every 12 months but this can be done online with a non-Belgian credit card if you use paypal. Alasdair
On 03/02/17 14:06, Alasdair G Kergon wrote:
On Fri, Feb 03, 2017 at 11:33:44AM +0100, Daniel Pocock wrote:
In previous years, I've always bought a local SIM card as a backup in A Proximus Pay&Go+ SIM card can be kept from year-to-year - to avoid expiring it needs topping up once every 12 months but this can be done online with a non-Belgian credit card if you use paypal.
Does anybody know if they are going to void old SIM cards that haven't gone through all the ID verification procedures they are bringing in now for new customers?
On Fri, Feb 3, 2017 at 2:13 PM, Daniel Pocock <daniel@pocock.pro> wrote:
On 03/02/17 14:06, Alasdair G Kergon wrote:
On Fri, Feb 03, 2017 at 11:33:44AM +0100, Daniel Pocock wrote:
In previous years, I've always bought a local SIM card as a backup in A Proximus Pay&Go+ SIM card can be kept from year-to-year - to avoid expiring it needs topping up once every 12 months but this can be done online with a non-Belgian credit card if you use paypal.
Does anybody know if they are going to void old SIM cards that haven't gone through all the ID verification procedures they are bringing in now for new customers?
Yes, by end of March or something like that. Gr{oetje,eeting}s, Geert -- Geert Uytterhoeven -- There's lots of Linux beyond ia32 -- geert@linux-m68k.org In personal conversations with technical people, I call myself a hacker. But when I'm talking to journalists I just say "programmer" or something like that. -- Linus Torvalds
On Fri, Feb 03, 2017 at 11:33:44AM +0100, Daniel Pocock wrote:
In previous years, I've always bought a local SIM card as a backup in case I couldn't get onto the wonderful FOSDEM wifi and the SIM has always worked within 5 minutes.
I bought one early this morning and it still isn't working yet after about 3 hours. The shop and the customer service line have told me that they have to check all new accounts manually now because of "terrorism" and pressure from French authorities. They told me to wait 24 hours before asking about it again. For anybody only arriving in Brussels today and buying a SIM in the evening, it is not clear if it will really be activated over the weekend or only next week so you may just be wasting time and money.
I don't know about "pressure from French authorities", but there is indeed a new law in Belgium now which requires that all prepaid SIM cards are registered to a person, so that you can't have anonymous calls anymore. The law has existed for quite a while now, and if you have an old SIM card that isn't registered yet you do still have a few months to fix that before it gets blocked. New cards bought as of january 1st must be registered before they can be used, indeed. Since this part of the law has only been active for just over a month now, it's not completely unsurprising that the mobile companies don't have their procedures fully optimized yet. While I'm sure that will be fixed as time goes on, I understand that doesn't really help visitors...
Apparently, you can still buy tobacco products here and consume them immediately and they will eventually kill you but thanks to the irrational fear of Muslims, you can't get immediate access to the Internet in Belgium.
This is not about an "irrational" fear of "Muslims", it's the rational outcome of an actual event: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2016_Brussels_bombings -- < ron> I mean, the main *practical* problem with C++, is there's like a dozen people in the world who think they really understand all of its rules, and pretty much all of them are just lying to themselves too. -- #debian-devel, OFTC, 2016-02-12
On 03/02/17 21:05, Wouter Verhelst wrote:
Apparently, you can still buy tobacco products here and consume them immediately and they will eventually kill you but thanks to the irrational fear of Muslims, you can't get immediate access to the Internet in Belgium. This is not about an "irrational" fear of "Muslims", it's the rational outcome of an actual event:
My comment wasn't to suggest that terrorism doesn't occur, it is simply to point out that the statistical probability that most of us would ever encounter a terrorist (Muslim or otherwise) is incredibly low and much lower than many other risks that people take for granted. Hence the over-reaction to it is a bit irrational. As the airlines have been pointing out for years, you are more likely to die in your bathtub than flying. Likewise, most people are statistically far more likely to die from car accidents, air pollution, smoking or other things. About 10,000 Americans die every year from non-terrorism incidents involving guns, these days they rarely make the news unless the shooter is a 2 year old who finds mummy's gun in the purse or, of course, a Muslim. Regards, Daniel
On 03/02/17 21:05, Wouter Verhelst wrote:
This is not about an "irrational" fear of "Muslims", it's the rational outcome of an actual event:
No, it is the irrational outcome. There is no process in place to ensure that people using sim cards are actually the ones registered. There is no rational reason to assume that it will have any effect on terrorists. It is security theatre, and extremely dangerous to our freedoms. Stephan
On 4 February 2017 09:09:05 CET, Stephan Eggermont <stephan@stack.nl> wrote:
On 03/02/17 21:05, Wouter Verhelst wrote:
This is not about an "irrational" fear of "Muslims", it's the rational outcome of an actual event:
No, it is the irrational outcome. There is no process in place to ensure that people using sim cards are actually the ones registered.
There is no rational reason to assume that it will have any effect on terrorists. It is security theatre, and extremely dangerous to our freedoms.
It also means the value of stolen ID documents on the black market goes up, increasing the risk to everybody who might be mugged at some point. This has been the most noticeable effect of the otherwise useless "right-to-rent" (a.k.a. mandatory racism by landlords) rules in the UK.
Hi, I'm spending some time in UK but I'm not British, so... what is the "right-to-rent" actually is? Thanks,Sylvia On Sat, 2017-02-04 at 09:21 +0100, Daniel Pocock wrote:
On 4 February 2017 09:09:05 CET, Stephan Eggermont <stephan@stack.nl> wrote:
On 03/02/17 21:05, Wouter Verhelst wrote:
This is not about an "irrational" fear of "Muslims", it's the
rational
outcome of an actual event:
No, it is the irrational outcome. There is no process in place to ensure that people using sim cards are actually the ones registered.
There is no rational reason to assume that it will have any effect on terrorists. It is security theatre, and extremely dangerous to our freedoms.
It also means the value of stolen ID documents on the black market goes up, increasing the risk to everybody who might be mugged at some point. This has been the most noticeable effect of the otherwise useless "right-to-rent" (a.k.a. mandatory racism by landlords) rules in the UK.
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Freedompop is probably a good option if you live in a European country, or can get the SIM card sent to your hotel in advance. They provide free 500 MB data and 200 min free voip calls (including roaming) in all Europe. On Friday, February 3, 2017, Daniel Pocock <daniel@pocock.pro> wrote:
In previous years, I've always bought a local SIM card as a backup in case I couldn't get onto the wonderful FOSDEM wifi and the SIM has always worked within 5 minutes.
I bought one early this morning and it still isn't working yet after about 3 hours. The shop and the customer service line have told me that they have to check all new accounts manually now because of "terrorism" and pressure from French authorities. They told me to wait 24 hours before asking about it again. For anybody only arriving in Brussels today and buying a SIM in the evening, it is not clear if it will really be activated over the weekend or only next week so you may just be wasting time and money.
Apparently, you can still buy tobacco products here and consume them immediately and they will eventually kill you but thanks to the irrational fear of Muslims, you can't get immediate access to the Internet in Belgium.
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-- Pau Garcia i Quiles http://www.elpauer.org
On 03-02-17 11:33, Daniel Pocock wrote:
In previous years, I've always bought a local SIM card as a backup in case I couldn't get onto the wonderful FOSDEM wifi and the SIM has always worked within 5 minutes.
I bought one early this morning and it still isn't working yet after about 3 hours. The shop and the customer service line have told me that they have to check all new accounts manually now because of "terrorism" and pressure from French authorities. They told me to wait 24 hours before asking about it again. For anybody only arriving in Brussels today and buying a SIM in the evening, it is not clear if it will really be activated over the weekend or only next week so you may just be wasting time and money. As roaming within the EU becomes free (to a certain limit), I see competition kicking in and you'll be able to get your European SIM card really easy. Maybe you'll be able to preorder your Spanish or Danish SIM card a week before the event... Next year, things will be different. You'll see. :)
Grtz, Jurgen.
This is turning very interesting as I travel often. My German SIM card is useless outside German borders, no roaming, nothing. I wonder if any of these European SIM cards are available in Germany. It would be very nice to be able to use the same number instead of buying and discarding them. Cheers,Sylvia On Sun, 2017-02-05 at 16:36 +0100, Jurgen Gaeremyn wrote:
On 03-02-17 11:33, Daniel Pocock wrote:
In previous years, I've always bought a local SIM card as a backup in case I couldn't get onto the wonderful FOSDEM wifi and the SIM has always worked within 5 minutes.
I bought one early this morning and it still isn't working yet after about 3 hours. The shop and the customer service line have told me that they have to check all new accounts manually now because of "terrorism" and pressure from French authorities. They told me to wait 24 hours before asking about it again. For anybody only arriving in Brussels today and buying a SIM in the evening, it is not clear if it will really be activated over the weekend or only next week so you may just be wasting time and money.
As roaming within the EU becomes free (to a certain limit), I see competition kicking in and you'll be able to get your European SIM card really easy. Maybe you'll be able to preorder your Spanish or Danish SIM card a week before the event... Next year, things will be different. You'll see. :)
Grtz, Jurgen. _______________________________________________ FOSDEM mailing list FOSDEM@lists.fosdem.org https://lists.fosdem.org/listinfo/fosdem
I’m traveling quite often with my Polish SIM card. For countries I travel often I had separate sim cards, but for last few months it’s no longer necessary. Our mobile operators have very good roaming packages. When I’m leaving Poland I can turn on unlimited data plan(with speed limit) in EU for less than 15EUR(for week or two, don’t remember), it’s enough for doing most work. Regards Piotr On 5 February 2017 at 19:06:12, Sylvia (bhkohane@gmail.com) wrote: This is turning very interesting as I travel often. My German SIM card is useless outside German borders, no roaming, nothing. I wonder if any of these European SIM cards are available in Germany. It would be very nice to be able to use the same number instead of buying and discarding them. Cheers, Sylvia On Sun, 2017-02-05 at 16:36 +0100, Jurgen Gaeremyn wrote: On 03-02-17 11:33, Daniel Pocock wrote: In previous years, I've always bought a local SIM card as a backup in case I couldn't get onto the wonderful FOSDEM wifi and the SIM has always worked within 5 minutes. I bought one early this morning and it still isn't working yet after about 3 hours. The shop and the customer service line have told me that they have to check all new accounts manually now because of "terrorism" and pressure from French authorities. They told me to wait 24 hours before asking about it again. For anybody only arriving in Brussels today and buying a SIM in the evening, it is not clear if it will really be activated over the weekend or only next week so you may just be wasting time and money. As roaming within the EU becomes free (to a certain limit), I see competition kicking in and you'll be able to get your European SIM card really easy. Maybe you'll be able to preorder your Spanish or Danish SIM card a week before the event... Next year, things will be different. You'll see. :) Grtz, Jurgen. _______________________________________________ FOSDEM mailing list FOSDEM@lists.fosdem.org https://lists.fosdem.org/listinfo/fosdem _______________________________________________ FOSDEM mailing list FOSDEM@lists.fosdem.org https://lists.fosdem.org/listinfo/fosdem
participants (9)
-
Alasdair G Kergon -
Daniel Pocock -
Geert Uytterhoeven -
Jurgen Gaeremyn -
Pau Garcia i Quiles -
Piotr Radosz -
Stephan Eggermont -
Sylvia -
Wouter Verhelst