September 15, 2010 at 17:32Internet in Sudak: personal experience
In the first half of September I left St. Petersburg for Sudak - mainly to relax, but I also had to work a bit right on the netbook, so I needed the Internet. Googling didn’t quite help to understand in advance how this is going. Therefore, since such information is in short supply, he decided, returning to Petersburg, to share his own experience with Habr; I think it can help those who are gathering not only in Sudak, but also to Ukraine as a whole. If in the comments others complement the story with their own experience, it will be generally fine.
Picture for attracting attention - I work in Sudak cafe through his wi-fi, sitting next to my girlfriend:
A visitor has three main options for accessing the Internet: to find a house in which he already has one, to go somewhere where there is a wi-fi network, and buy a local SIM / usb modem. I can’t say anything about the first (except what housing is in a clear minority), but I actively used both others. Those familiar with the Internet situation in Crimea said before the trip that wi-fi, especially free, should not be counted on, but the mobile Internet is surprisingly cheap and fast - in practice, in my particular case, it turned out to be almost the opposite.
Wifi. There are official paid places. For example, the sudak_hotspot network operates on the entire city embankment, but it is relatively expensive - 15 hryvnias per hour, that is 60 rubles (the hryvnia at the moment is almost exactly 4 rubles). In an Internet cafe in the parking lot at the foot of the Genoese fortress, it’s cheaper if you plan to sit for more than an hour: they always take 20 hryvnias and always give them access until the end of the working day (they just change the password common to everyone at the beginning of each day), so theoretically you can sit at least all day for this amount. But I found a more attractive option for myself - in the Arza cafe, everyone who ordered something is informed of the password from their network, and a teapot of tea for four cups costs 20 hryvnias there, so compared to an Internet cafe, you’ll also get tea. “Arzy” is not the only such place; look for the Wi-Fi logo at the entrance to the cafe. At "Eve" on Kiparisova Alley (the street leading from the city center to the sea) the network is generally open - if you need internet for a while and conscience allows, you can connect right on the street without going into it at all. And the locals, because they live more often in separate houses than in apartment buildings, seem to not particularly password their networks, so if you really need to, you can just walk the streets and look for open ones.
Mobile Internet. Since Simka VNA Ukraine can be bought without presenting a passport and without signing anything, they are traded here everywhere from the stalls. But he didn’t approach small open noname trays, fearing the incompetence of their sellers in matters of Internet-oriented tariffs, and turned to Kodak tents (he was satisfied with their sellers; in particular, they did not try to sell their goods, but honestly informed where there are better offers than theirs) and to the Allo pavilion on the Cypress Alley (next to it is the Euroset, but it was closed at that moment). Started by asking which operators in Sudak have 3G coverage; They answered that MTS and Utel, but MTS has a convenient tariff is provided only with a USB modem. Since I have an Android phone on which EasyTether is already installed to distribute the Internet to a laptop, I did not want to spend money on a USB modem, and asked what conditions Utel offers. 10 Ukrainian kopecks (40 Russian) per megabyte seemed quite attractive, and for 50 hryvnias I bought a SIM with the U'Try tariff, which already accounted for 30 hryvnias on the Internet and 10 for any use. After that, two pitfalls surfaced. Firstly, in Crimea, everyone replenishes the balance of the phone by buying and activating access cards (for all the time I met only one payment terminal, and that one was broken), and with Utel the situation is different - you can replenish your account only in the central post office of Sudak. Secondly, although 3G is working in the center of Sudak, he lived near the Genoese fortress, in the west of the city - and, as it turned out, Utel does not have its own coverage at all, and instead of it, under the roaming agreement, 2G-coverage of Kyivstar is used. As far as I understood from the Ukrainian-language instructions, roaming does not increase the cost of services, only Utel’s 2G access without roaming is already 40 kopecks versus 10 3G ones, not to mention that it is much slower. Since I did not want to go from the outskirts to the central post office when the money on Yutelov’s SIM card ran out, I decided to simply change the operator, not counting on 3G anymore. Having described the situation to the seller, I received an answer that it’s worth taking a Beeline SIM card: there you can buy Internet traffic in packages, and if you buy a large one, the price of one megabyte is low. It was not possible to get the package right away (the prices were given in the instructions, but not a word was said about how to order them, robots by reference numbers were ready to give information about everything, except that the SIM menu didn’t help too), but as a result, it was possible to find the number of the required USSD request on the same Internet. I bought a gigabyte package for 80 hryvnias - for some reason, deduction to the Ukrainian Pension Fund is also added to this amount, but even with it the price of a megabyte is below 10 Ukrainian kopecks. I lived with this Internet until the end of the trip - it was impossible to call it fast, but I was able to sit. Some sites on the netbook stubbornly did not want to load - I coped with this by opening them on the communicator. As I understood later, I was greedy, buying a large package because of the favorable megabyte price: I managed to sit at a low speed before departure anyway much less than half, and in St. Petersburg, although Simka successfully connected to the local Beeline, this package cannot be used. I lived with this Internet until the end of the trip - it was impossible to call it fast, but I was able to sit. Some sites on the netbook stubbornly did not want to load - I coped with this by opening them on the communicator. As I understood later, I was greedy, buying a large package because of the favorable megabyte price: I managed to sit at a low speed before departure anyway much less than half, and in St. Petersburg, although Simka successfully connected to the local Beeline, this package cannot be used. I lived with this Internet until the end of the trip - it was impossible to call it fast, but I was able to sit. Some sites on the netbook stubbornly did not want to load - I coped with this by opening them on the communicator. As I understood later, I was greedy, buying a large package because of the favorable megabyte price: I managed to sit at a low speed before departure anyway much less than half, and in St. Petersburg, although Simka successfully connected to the local Beeline, this package cannot be used.
Result: in the two weeks during which every weekday I spent an hour or two on the Internet, I spent about a thousand rubles on it (however, it is not clear how to count the money spent in the cafe on food) and unexpectedly a lot of nerve cells. If I already had the experience gained before the trip, I would have kept within 500 rubles and a minimum of nervous expenses.
Picture for attracting attention - the beloved girl hits the head with a netbook for too long a job:
Picture for attracting attention - I work in Sudak cafe through his wi-fi, sitting next to my girlfriend:
A visitor has three main options for accessing the Internet: to find a house in which he already has one, to go somewhere where there is a wi-fi network, and buy a local SIM / usb modem. I can’t say anything about the first (except what housing is in a clear minority), but I actively used both others. Those familiar with the Internet situation in Crimea said before the trip that wi-fi, especially free, should not be counted on, but the mobile Internet is surprisingly cheap and fast - in practice, in my particular case, it turned out to be almost the opposite.
Wifi. There are official paid places. For example, the sudak_hotspot network operates on the entire city embankment, but it is relatively expensive - 15 hryvnias per hour, that is 60 rubles (the hryvnia at the moment is almost exactly 4 rubles). In an Internet cafe in the parking lot at the foot of the Genoese fortress, it’s cheaper if you plan to sit for more than an hour: they always take 20 hryvnias and always give them access until the end of the working day (they just change the password common to everyone at the beginning of each day), so theoretically you can sit at least all day for this amount. But I found a more attractive option for myself - in the Arza cafe, everyone who ordered something is informed of the password from their network, and a teapot of tea for four cups costs 20 hryvnias there, so compared to an Internet cafe, you’ll also get tea. “Arzy” is not the only such place; look for the Wi-Fi logo at the entrance to the cafe. At "Eve" on Kiparisova Alley (the street leading from the city center to the sea) the network is generally open - if you need internet for a while and conscience allows, you can connect right on the street without going into it at all. And the locals, because they live more often in separate houses than in apartment buildings, seem to not particularly password their networks, so if you really need to, you can just walk the streets and look for open ones.
Mobile Internet. Since Simka VNA Ukraine can be bought without presenting a passport and without signing anything, they are traded here everywhere from the stalls. But he didn’t approach small open noname trays, fearing the incompetence of their sellers in matters of Internet-oriented tariffs, and turned to Kodak tents (he was satisfied with their sellers; in particular, they did not try to sell their goods, but honestly informed where there are better offers than theirs) and to the Allo pavilion on the Cypress Alley (next to it is the Euroset, but it was closed at that moment). Started by asking which operators in Sudak have 3G coverage; They answered that MTS and Utel, but MTS has a convenient tariff is provided only with a USB modem. Since I have an Android phone on which EasyTether is already installed to distribute the Internet to a laptop, I did not want to spend money on a USB modem, and asked what conditions Utel offers. 10 Ukrainian kopecks (40 Russian) per megabyte seemed quite attractive, and for 50 hryvnias I bought a SIM with the U'Try tariff, which already accounted for 30 hryvnias on the Internet and 10 for any use. After that, two pitfalls surfaced. Firstly, in Crimea, everyone replenishes the balance of the phone by buying and activating access cards (for all the time I met only one payment terminal, and that one was broken), and with Utel the situation is different - you can replenish your account only in the central post office of Sudak. Secondly, although 3G is working in the center of Sudak, he lived near the Genoese fortress, in the west of the city - and, as it turned out, Utel does not have its own coverage at all, and instead of it, under the roaming agreement, 2G-coverage of Kyivstar is used. As far as I understood from the Ukrainian-language instructions, roaming does not increase the cost of services, only Utel’s 2G access without roaming is already 40 kopecks versus 10 3G ones, not to mention that it is much slower. Since I did not want to go from the outskirts to the central post office when the money on Yutelov’s SIM card ran out, I decided to simply change the operator, not counting on 3G anymore. Having described the situation to the seller, I received an answer that it’s worth taking a Beeline SIM card: there you can buy Internet traffic in packages, and if you buy a large one, the price of one megabyte is low. It was not possible to get the package right away (the prices were given in the instructions, but not a word was said about how to order them, robots by reference numbers were ready to give information about everything, except that the SIM menu didn’t help too), but as a result, it was possible to find the number of the required USSD request on the same Internet. I bought a gigabyte package for 80 hryvnias - for some reason, deduction to the Ukrainian Pension Fund is also added to this amount, but even with it the price of a megabyte is below 10 Ukrainian kopecks. I lived with this Internet until the end of the trip - it was impossible to call it fast, but I was able to sit. Some sites on the netbook stubbornly did not want to load - I coped with this by opening them on the communicator. As I understood later, I was greedy, buying a large package because of the favorable megabyte price: I managed to sit at a low speed before departure anyway much less than half, and in St. Petersburg, although Simka successfully connected to the local Beeline, this package cannot be used. I lived with this Internet until the end of the trip - it was impossible to call it fast, but I was able to sit. Some sites on the netbook stubbornly did not want to load - I coped with this by opening them on the communicator. As I understood later, I was greedy, buying a large package because of the favorable megabyte price: I managed to sit at a low speed before departure anyway much less than half, and in St. Petersburg, although Simka successfully connected to the local Beeline, this package cannot be used. I lived with this Internet until the end of the trip - it was impossible to call it fast, but I was able to sit. Some sites on the netbook stubbornly did not want to load - I coped with this by opening them on the communicator. As I understood later, I was greedy, buying a large package because of the favorable megabyte price: I managed to sit at a low speed before departure anyway much less than half, and in St. Petersburg, although Simka successfully connected to the local Beeline, this package cannot be used.
Result: in the two weeks during which every weekday I spent an hour or two on the Internet, I spent about a thousand rubles on it (however, it is not clear how to count the money spent in the cafe on food) and unexpectedly a lot of nerve cells. If I already had the experience gained before the trip, I would have kept within 500 rubles and a minimum of nervous expenses.
Picture for attracting attention - the beloved girl hits the head with a netbook for too long a job: