He goes to few places without a cell phone. Smartphones have become a Swiss army knife which makes it almost unthinkable to leave without them and totally inconceivable to go on vacation without them, although sometimes it can be a good idea. In Europe, the most important holiday period is summer, despite the heat waves.
But their use depends not only on the person taking them, but also there are external factors, such as the data network we connect to. Each has a tariff linked to an operator, and few people have several lines with several companies, unless they have a work mobile, but in this case, at least in theory, we would not take it on vacation.
In order not to find yourself without being able to use the Internet on your mobile, you must take into account certain things that can influence our mobile not to be without coverage or with poor connection qualitysomewhat more likely in resort areas and around this time than the rest of the year.
Your rate limits
The first thing we must analyze before going on vacation is whether our normal monthly data rate will continue while we are away. It may not matter if we are going on vacation for a few days, but it is if we are going for weeks or a month. We can use WiFi networks, but, as we will see later, this also has its dangers.
many operators they offer free GBs in the summer precisely for this reason, and others allow you to temporarily contract an additional data voucher, and perhaps it will be useful to many users. It is still necessary take into account the type of use that we are going to make of itUsing WhatsApp and taking pictures is not the same as pretending to watch series for two hours every day.
Another option is to modify the normal rate that we have, instead of trying to hire a second one, and go back to the one we had when we got back from vacation. Of course, it is important to verify that we did not have any type of permanence in the rate, applied any discount that we would lose when changing, etc.
hedge, key
In Europe there are dozens of mobile operators, many of which are virtual, that is, they use the networks of the largest. Orange, Vodafone and Movistar are the companies with the largest mobile networks deployed. All three have a very extensive coverage mapbut it is normal that they do not always reach all the points.
Valencian beach this Monday, in the middle of a heat wave.
It is important know if the area where we are going is well covered by our operator and, if not, we can even consider buying a line from another operator to use it during the time we are on vacation, although this does not always compensate. In any case, a prepaid SIM is almost better than a contract, even if it turns out to be a little more expensive.
[Seis formas educativas para que tus hijos usen el móvil para cuando no estén en campamentos de verano]
It is also important to know that coverage can vary a lot even within the same house. The orientation, the placement of the antennas, the materials of construction… everything influences the reception. Thus, it is possible that in an apartment on the beach we have bad reception in one room but good reception in another.
network saturation
In Europe we have one of the most advanced and robust telecommunications networks in the world, capable of absorbing peaks in use in certain geographical areas. Despite this, the summer period is a complex scenario. There are cities with 20,000 inhabitants that have 200,000 from one month to the nextand it’s difficult to balance technically.
That is why it is possible that sometimes, even if we have good coverage, our smartphone does not connect to the network or does it at a ridiculous speed. to solve this we can try to switch from 5G network to 4G network or vice versaeven though this is a time when many users collapse the antennas, we are very afraid that the only thing we can do is wait.
If the situation repeats itself for several days, we can ask our operator to intervene. Sometimes telecommunications companies can move portable antennas on trucks to improve reception in certain areas. It is something that is done on beaches, festivals or sporting events, but it is not always possible.
Beware of public WiFi networks
The temptation of many tourists and vacationers is to use the public WiFi networks of the places where they are to save data or have a better connection speed. It’s normal, but We must be careful with the networks to which our mobile connects, as they may be subject to attacks. In summer, for example, the public networks of airports and hotels are targeted by criminals who know that there are more devices connected to them.
If they must be used, it is best done for simple web browsing or for using encrypted applications, such as WhatsApp. To make online purchases, view our bank account and other sensitive actions, it is best to always use our data connectioneven if it goes a little slower.
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