Update: Jesus, what an effing disaster! A month and a half of trying to make it work and no amount of help from O2 HQ helps when it comes to the inherently apathetic O2 Czech Republic. Save your money and ignore the rest of this post entirely. (28.07.2010)
I may be the last to pick up on this and there may be others out there like me who were also not aware but it is possible to buy a SIM card from O2 right now for a mere 250kc which is a pre-paid data-only card, which means it will give you GPS, EDGE and GPRS access but no calling.
This may not seem like much but when you consider both the shoddy service and the haphazard accounting abilities from Czech providers such as O2 or T-Mobile (I have no personal experience with Vodafone) this card looks like a great and inexpensive way to hook your iPhone up to O2’s fast network over the summer for those long hikes or biking trips that you may want to be tracking with something like Everytrail or Trip Journal.
Having just ragged on O2 (H.U.A.) why am I willing to give this a try? Because it is so cheap and O2 has the G3 network in the Czech Republic and I’m willing to lose 250+kc on this experiment. I just want to get on my bike and track my summer rides with my iPhone. There is more information here from O2 (only in Czech), but the lowdown is this: each day has a 500MB data limit; the “price per month” is 1 day for 50kc; 5 days for 200kc; 10 days for 350kc; and 30 days for 900kc .
As a pre-paid card, you pay at any kiosk, store etc that you would normally use to put credits on your phone. The time limit doesn’t activate until you start using the phone, and because it’s a special number you can use it and then put more credits on it again later. All of this is what the guy at O2 Šestka tells me. What do I know?
Pragensismac 