The iPad will be arriving at homes across the globe this Friday as Apple begins its international roll-out. Much has been made of AT&T’s excellent contract-free data plans in the United States, but is the rest of the world going to be so lucky? No. In some cases, you may be better off ignoring the iPad plans altogether and (literally) hacking together your own solution.
AT&T offers cheap chunks of data (250 MB for $15), or a truly unlimited plan for just $30 a month. By contrast, many carriers in other countries are up to the usual telco tricks and offering contract-only plans, or “unlimited” data plans which slow bandwidth to a trickle after just a couple of gigabytes. I got a 64-GB iPad 3G shipped in by esteemed Wired New York Bureau Chief John C Abell, and it arrived last week. Official iPad plans have been detailed here in Spain, but as they are crazy-expensive and also not yet available, I rolled my own.
To do this, you’ll need to acquire a micro SIM that will fit in your iPad, or you can cut a regular mini SIM down to size. There are already several products on sale to help you do this, such as the SIMCut pictured right. This 5-pound kit consists of a pair of foil stickers that adhere to your existing SIM and have a clear window showing you exactly where to cut. Yes, cut! Most of the size difference is made up of plastic which is safe to trim away. The most important part is making sure you cut it so that the metal contacts line up with those inside the iPad.
You don’t need to get fancy. I just lined up the AT&T micro SiIM that came in my iPad with the contacts on a pre-pay Vodafone card, marked the lines with a sharp knife and then took to it with scissors. Thus trimmed, I slid it into the iPad in its little aluminum tray and it was recognized immediately. Next up, making it work:
In the United States, to sign up for data you just follow along inside the settings app, adding credit card details and picking your plan. Maybe, with the official international partners, this will happen elsewhere. For early-adopters and those who choose a different carrier, you’ll need to get a bit more nerdy. Don’t worry, though. It’s easy.
All you need once your card has been activated (the salesperson should do this in-store) is to open up the Cellular Data section in settings and add the APN, the password and the username. These are all standard on a per-country and carrier basis: You don’t have your own password. For example, Vodafone Spain uses these settings:
APN: airtelnet.es
Username: vodafone
Password: vodafone
Using those settings will get anything on the network, from an iPad to a MiFi (I have tried both). Why are the settings in the screenshot different? ITunes did it. A few days ago I was prompted to update my carrier settings while syncing with iTunes. Warily, I accepted and after a restart, the new settings were in place, my internet seemed faster and VodafoneES displayed properly in the menubar (previously it just said “voda…”).
It seems that Apple is rolling out settings ahead of the launch that that may perhaps be automatic. You’ll find an amazing resource that lists pretty much every carrier in the world, along with settings, on Ross Barkman’s GPRS Info Page.
And that’s it. It really was easy. Will I be switching to a proper iPad plan when my pre-paid moth runs out? I doubt it. I have to pay 50 pounds a month for this current data plan that gives me “unlimited” access without a contract. The iPad plan gives less data before you get slowed down and requires a contract. A contract without any subsidy on the hardware. No thanks.
SIMCut sticker kit [SIMCut]
Ross Barkman’s GPRS Info Page [Taniwha]
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