Ok the big four networks in germany, t-mobile, vodafone, 02, e-plus i know that i can pick up the sim cards from places like phone house etc, but what about the mvno's like debitel or blau where do i get there sim cards from, anyone help?

SIMYO is only available on the internet
REWEmobile is REWE stores
Pennymobile in Pennymarkt stores
Smobile in Schlecker stores
Alditalk (Medion) in Aldi groceries

Those are the ones I know about.

Stan

snaimon listed it correct.

The others: Blau, Blauworld, Simply, debitel can be ordered online only.

AND require German address (and bank account?) for registration, true? No German address, no sale, true?

Well, for some you can enter a foreign adress as the card owner. But they all require a german delivery adress.
If you order Simyo you dont need a german bank account but can also use VISA/Mastercard.

Chris

ok cool ta for that guys, btw what are the chances of me needing a german address, details etc for buying the others over the counter at the relevent shops or phonehouse etc...

i mean how likely are they going ot be to ask for german details/ any details or are they going to ask for payment and thats it?

You will probably need to give a German address, but you can use that of a friend or hotel. I don't believe they are rigorous about checking. You may have to show your passport.

When I bought the SIMYO card, I gave the hotel address where my wife was staying. It was delivered there. I was in the US at the time.

In early Aug I visited the only Viktor Vox dealer in Duesseldorf and obtained copies of the forms to transfer ownership of the 2 SIMs I have. I had purchased these cards on Ebay from a VV reseller perhaps 3 years ago. I registered them to my US addresss - well, that is how I filled in the registration forms I sent back to the reseller. I have no idea how this German reseller registered them with the main company. Anyway, the fellow in D-dorf TOLD ME the VV dealers are only to accept registrations with German addresses.

I was recently June/July interested in purchasing a Vodafone DE card and saw one on Ebay US. The US seller confessed that she bought the card in Germany and she did not speak a word of German and the seller in Germany, a firm, did not speak a word of English. She did not know what, if any, registration info was given. Upon that I decided to refrain from purchasing that item.

PERSONALLY, I don't think you will have a problem purchasing SIMs at phonehouse or wherever.

I can tell you however, that if you are planning on reselling these, a wise buyer will probably refrain from purchasing a card that is registered -- just as I did with the Vodafone card. I wanted to change the tarif class and I had no idea how that would go over when I called and told them my desires. With my VV cards when I call customer care, they want to know my name and sometimes they ask other personal info to verify I am the rightfully registered person.

If this is for personal use, try Alditalk (Aldis are found almost everywhere) or the Pennymobile. Available in stores.

BTW, with German prepaid cards, it's going to be hard to beat 9-ecents per minute to landlines on my D1 cards.

Stan

ok guys, this email sent while i am in berlin, ok i have 1, 02, 1, tmobile, 1, eplus, one vodafone sim card but i have yet to see a aldi store or a penny markt store to buy one from them, oh and tchibo as well..ahh well a few days to go, still got a psp for almost 100 pounds so cant complain!

Aldi and Penny are EVERYWHERE, although they usually avoid the most touristy areas. If you really can't find one, go to the Arkaden shopping center at Potsdamer Platz, there's an Aldi in the basement. Or Ring-Center at Frankfurter Allee. Or Gesundbrunnen Center at Gesundbrunnen. To name but three locations next to railway stations.

ok ta for that, coincidently am at the easynet place right near that shopping centre in potsdamer platz....wow who would have thought that....

In other news, Tchibo's prepaid tariff has gone down to 19 cents per minute.

I'll be traveling to Germany in about 2 weeks and I'd like to pick up an Aldi prepaid SIM since they seem to be cheap and allow data access. Do I absolutely need a German ID to register it or will my American passport be satisfactory?

ALDI Talk is less restrictive than the traditional prepaid SIMs. You only have to pay for the SIM (at least this was the case when I got one for my dad) at the checkout lane at any ALDI store and you can easily register the SIM online.

If I recall correctly you can use a German hotel address. If not, try using a friend's address if they have one here in Germany.

https://www.medionmobile.de/merit/registernew.do

No German operator or MVNO requires a German ID (ie, does not allow foreigners to sign up). Your passport will be fine. As the above mentions, buying and registering Aldi Talk isn't a big deal, and you can hop over to an internet cafe to activate the SIM once you've got it.

Be warned that data prices are quite high on Aldi Talk, as they are on all other German providers. For example, I recently looked at the E-Plus WAP front page and then read through the top news stories on bbc.co.uk/mobile and it cost just under 3 euros. I don't even want to think what it would cost to download real e-mails with attachments using your computer.

More Germans coming!

http://www.teltarif.de/arch/2006/kw40/s23353.html

regional for Schleswig-Holstein

interesting is the offer calling FROM 88 countries to Germany (and others?) landlines for 39 cents, sms 25 cents, inbound 9 cents.

Interesting ...

Try the Google translation [I wanna get a Just talc SIM]
http://translate.google.com/translate?sour...2fs23353%2ehtml

The forthcoming one Sunsim sounds very similar to the other global ones, but they make a point of saying something against the cost of calling British and Liechtenstein numbers, so seeming to hint it will be German ...

Did we forget to put Ortel Mobile in this thread?

Foreign calls from 9 cents a minute

http://www.ortelmobile.de/index.php?lng_id=EN


discussed on another thread, introduced by Chris dg7feq
http://www.prepaidgsm.net/forum/index.php?...pic=1508&st=25&

Many details not yet clear or available, but it would indeed SEEM since they mention it as a German MVNO that the number would be a German # rather than something exotic.

More info on the new MVNO Sunsim by Vistream in German E- network with German #.

http://www.teltarif.de/arch/2006/kw40/s23375.html

Same old same old....

among others.....

Inbound to Brasil, Hongkong und Singapor 59 Cent per minute
China, Ukraine und Belorus 79 Cent
Kanada, Mexiko und Russia 1,39 Euro
Argentina, India, USA 1,99 Euro

60/60 debiting method

www.sunsim.de

Like any of these, think about using a separate callback system? I wonder if it sends caller ID, unlike the IoM ones ...

When I checked the site, the rate table only gave SAMPLES and you could not select to and from.

Not sure how callback is going to be much use at 59 cents per minute or more.

AFAIK, these are not being sold just yet.

Stan

now the cards are sold and there is the complete price list:
www.sunsim.de/Preisliste_SUNSIM.pdf

Chris

Although Sunsim has no countries with free incoming roaming, the list of places with ?0.09 incoming seems longer than the free lists on other SIMs, so there could be quite a few places where this is cheaper to use.

Debitel Light giving up
 

Some news about German "MVNO"s (they are in fact providers and don't have any network structure):

Debitel Light has given up. The costs for customer acquisition were far too high (since unlike some of their competitors they were selling lots of SIM cards in i.e. electronic stores as well) and quite a lot of these new customers never used their SIM cards. Therefore the mother company Debitel has decided to sell Debitel Light to competitor Blau.

All Debitel Light customers will be transfered to the Blau platform, the tariffs are already the same and starting ~February '07 calls between the two groups will be charged at the reduced rate of 0,06€/min too.

The Debitel Light homepage is still online, however when trying to order a new SIM you'll be redirected to Blau.

Re: Debitel Light giving up
 

Right.
The only MVNO now is Vistream with the sunsim, che-mobil, telesim... as brands has own network infrastructure (but uses the eplus base stations)

Chris

BTW: Sunsim lowered the prices for calls and SMS inside germany to 25ct. But still more expensive than the others.

Mobi: Not as many cheap destinations as Blauworld
 

Now that Vodafone Germany's international SIM, mobi, has had a month or two to straighten out its website, it appears that it does not offer any cheap calls to the US, Canada, Australia, New Zealand, or the pre-2005 EU countries (except for Greece, which I guess counts as a "guestworker country"). Of other rich countries that Blauworld can call cheaply, Japan is included but South Korea is not. It looks a little like the original Blauworld pricelist. However, I don't see any good reason why anyone would take mobi instead of Blauworld; Vodafone Passport would be one, but it's largely of interest for people travelling to the countries that are not included.

http://www.mobi-online.info/tarife.html#01

sunsim reduces tarif to landlines to 8 cents
 

http://www.onlinekosten.de/news/arti...t_Spitzenplatz

Bottom line is subject. Now 8 cents / minute to landline phones from sunsim.

Rate changes in good ol' Germany are hard to keep up with these days. The site has done a good job with that, I think.

Thanks, webmasters!

Stan

This page is very useful...

http://www.onlinekosten.de/mobilfunk...ter/auflistung

Yes, indeed. New tariffs nearly every day.

The other good thing about Sunsim:
They simplified the roaming list. Now only 3 zones and many countries are in Zone 1.
See http://www.sunsim.de/preisliste_SUNSIM.pdf page 3.

Chris

And, there is now another new offer:

Name: Youni
Activation Fee/Credit included: 9,95€/5,00€
Network: E-Plus

Debiting: 60/1
Standard calls/texts: 0,16€
On-tariff calls/texts: 0,06€
International calls: 1,84€
International texts: 0,20€

The new brand is dedicated to university students, however anybody may buy such a card. The above charges don't look to special (they are excactly the same as Simyo and Blau), however there is one noteworthy part: the city option.

You may chose one German area code where you only pay 0,06€/min. instead of the usual 0,16€. Of course the idea is for students to chose their campus city, however you might as well chose one where your calling card operater offers a local number. :-)
According to a report by Teltarif there is a special offer until end of June where all calls to German landlines will be charged at 0,06€/min.

The charges for data calls are the old E-Plus charges though, therefore much more expensive than the 0,24€/MB that Simyo, Blau and Aldi are charging now.

Making money or not?
 

Do you think they are making money at 6 cents / min to landlines 24-7? I bet they are! Used to be the cheapest was 9 cents and then weekends only.

Stan

Until recently there was an O2 Loop tariff where you could landlines for 0,07€/min. on weekends.
And already since 2003 there is an E-Plus tariff (contract though) where you can make calls to landlines for just 0,03€/min. around the clock.
So yes, I'm quite sure they are still making money.

to my opinion this tariff is quite useless if they dont make the starting offer of 6ct/min to all landlines permanent.

Most students i know (and including me when i still was a student) use a Genion tariff which gives you a landline number in your homezone as well. And the new Genion S without a monthly fee and 3ct to landlines and 19ct to mobiles is quite a good deal (not to mention the cheaper international rates from within the homezone).

Chris

They will for sure. The interconnect fee to landlines is less than 1ct/min at peak times. You get flatrates for about 10 Euro/month to all landlines on some contracts... (Tchibo [o2] , Base [eplus], 1&1, arcor [both on vodafone])

Chris

I noticed the data rate on Sunsim, and wondered if it also applies when roaming. Given the way the tariffs are listed separately, home and roaming, probably not.


So it need not be the local code you're actually in?

Hmmmm ...... then I think maybe Düsseldorf 0211

I'm starting to like the idea of using it with a Voipcheap account, which introduced callthrough numbers a couple of weeks ago. Then about 45 countries are 1 cent a minute on top of the 6c, and quite a few cheap mobile destinations.

edit - nb - this needs to be a German VC account, as one can only use the callthrough number for the account's registered country, but it's easy enough to set one up

Right. Vistream (where Sunsim belongs to) is not capable of data roaming. So the rate is only valid inside germany.

The Idea you have about the VB calltrough is smart. Alternatively you can use a blauworld.de card which already gives you quite good international rates without dialtrough.

Chris

Yep - Blauworld's rates are good for landlines, and without messing about with callthrough, but for foreign mobiles ...

UK mobile would be 29c/min, 15c connect with BW

it's 8c/min + vat with VC, plus the Sunsim 8c or Youni 6c rate

I can't see anything about connection fees for Sunsim or Youni

You're right. When there is a high demand on calling mobiles then callthrough via VC is a good option of course. BTW: Voipbuster gives callthrough-numbers as well. Maybe there are interesting rates there as well.

Chris

Voipbuster has had the callthrough for some time, and Freecall, Voipcheap, Voipdiscount and Voipstunt introduced it about 2 weeks ago for 8 countries

I think Voipcheap has the best mobile tariffs, unless they were to introduce a number for JustVoip as well.

I got Sunsim, and I notice that the number is one digit longer than usual - 0157020xxxxx vs my Vodafone 0173822xxxx

I'm wondering if this is why there is some difficulty reaching it from some providers, who may have a dialplan that does not allow for this

Do other e-plus and their mnvo SIMs have these longer numbers, or is this something gradually being introduced across all German networks?

This shouldn't matter too much for me if I only dial out via the Voipcheap callthrough access number, but I wonder what will happen if I attempt Voipcheap sms callback