[Anonymous]

[bobstakes]

Hi – does anyone know if there is a Vodafone outlet at Madrid airport, and also whether it is possible to buy local pay-as-you-go USB broadband dongles when travelling in Spain?

A friend told me that since the Madrid bombings you need to have a fixed address in Spain to buy one?

[Bucksnet]

If you have a dongle already, unlocked or Vodafone, simply buy a Vodafone Spain SIM card. Should work fine.

[LuganoPirate]

The Spanish didn’t use to ask for an address, but like many countries that may have changed. However, you won’t be the only tourist needing a SIM card and like in Italy and Switzerland, your hotel address and passport should be enough.

[MontysDouble]

They will copy down your passport/id card number – indeed this is part of the problem, the forms issued only have room for the number of digits on spanish ID card, a german ID card (valid EU travel document) has more digits, hence some people have had problems.

They claim it is to stop terrorism (as mobile phones could be used as detonators) – however this is crackpot, as they are not stopping roaming SIM cards, mr terrorist just uses a sim card from another country, or obtains one (easily) without giving details or giving himself away (or doesn’t care).

A crediible reason would be to try and cut down on the black economy.
But instead of giving that reason, which some might accept, they give a silly reason based on terroist thread, which the restriction does not address at all.

[capetonianm]

One of the reasons you can no longer by an unregistered SIM in Spain is that they were widely used by Nigerian scammers in fake lottery and 419 scams, many of which used + 34 6xxxxxxx numbers as Spain became a centre of such activity for a while, it has now moved elsewhere.

[Author]

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