Aldi Talk questions for trip to Germany
 

I was very happy to find out today that I will be able to pay 24c/mb on Aldi talk rather than the £7.50/mb T-mobile UK charge.

I understand I will be able to buy the sim in an Aldi store, register it online with the help of some german to english translation software. Then if I make a call to a UK number (I don't know any german tel numbers or speak german) to finish activating, I should be all set to go and use Internet on my phone, is that correct?

My only problem is how I am going to top it up. I know I can buy the 15E credits in Aldi, but do they require me to speak German on the phone to apply? Or is it automated, in which case, would anyone be able to provide the key combinations and order I'd need to do?

Thanks in advance and glad I've found this great forum!

Sometimes there is a way to SEND the top up # from the phone itself without calling customer care.

Some also have a website to add credit.

Also, usually the top up is "AUTOMATED". In other words, once you learn the dialing sequence with the help of someone who knows German, just enter the right numbers until it asks for the top up #.

For instance T-MO USA - enter your phone number, then I think it is press 1 for refill, and so on.

You will need our German friends to weigh in here, but there should be several ways and hope that this can be easy for you.

Stan

Thank you for your reply Stan. I think I've discovered a solution myself, which is just to ask the staff at the hotel I'm staying at to help me apply the credit, hopefully they won't mind doing this.

Hello,
you need to do one voicecall to activate the card. Otherwise you can not use GPRS.
You can call to UK - they charge international calls by the second so if you hangup after a few words you dont spend too much money.

Topup is like a scratch card. the code should be provided on the topup card.

Chris

talking about GPRS, I had some problems with Aldi and then with Simyo, since I could never use it, always getting an error. The last time I tried it was at Muchen airport last august.

I used my Nokia e65, creating a new connection using these settings:
APN: internet.eplus.de
User: eplus
Pwd: gprs (if I remember well, now I see ****, of course)

With these settings I always got a connection error (I was on 3G). Of course I already used that simcard for voicecalls.
Any idea?

Hm, these are exactly the correct settings. Note that Simyo can not run on 3G - only on GSM. Aldi can also run on 3G.

Chris

Not quite -- Simyo can run on 3G, but you need to order a different SIM to do it (for whatever reason), and it costs €10.

I've the 3G sim, on the paper there's written "ihre sim-karte ist jetzt UMTS-faehig". And I had the same problems with Aldi in the past, on 2 different phones...

Ah yeah, you got a new SIM already. Then it "should" work.
Unfortunately i am far away from the next eplus 3G-coverage so i cant check...

Chris

Anyway I think it's not a 3G problem, since I had the same error also when using it on an old Siemens which has GPRS only... anyway in few days I'll be in Leipzig (surely covered in 3G) and I'll try it again, but I guess I'll have the same problem... I can take a look at my profile on Simyo website to see if I have to activate something, but I didn't see any option in the past...

At my company we now have 164 SIMYO-cards running in GPS tracking devices and all run perfectly with GPRS.

Its really weird that yours does not work.

APN: internet.eplus.de
username: eplus
password: gprs
is all that we set here. Nothing magic about it.

Maybe you can try to set the eplus DNS: 212.23.97.2

Chris

I'll try again from friday, I'll keep you updated ;)

Greetings from sunny Leipzig, unfortunately there´s no way to use my Simyo card with data.... fortunately Wind is not so expensive...

what a pity.
i just were online with my Simyo when we were on the bus at the national flower show (not far from Leipzig). Same settings as i sent to you....

Chris

I tried with my K600i, the settings are correct, I tried both in 2g and 3g, no way, I always get an error at once saying there should be something wrong with the settings... now I'm back in Italy, but I'll be again in Germany in October... I'd like to solve this problem...

yeah we should definetely get it work. Where will you be in october?

I'll be in Freiburg just for a weekend (20-21), I suppose I won't use much data connection, but I come so often to Germany and it would be nice to enjoy the Simyo data tariff...
Then in February I should go to Köln for some days...

I had to get help from the very friendly staff at my hotel for the top-up. After following the instructions on the top-up card, it turns out you have to then press another digit - I'm not sure which, but they sorted it out for me.

Other than that, the card worked great, excellent data speeds and you can't beat the price! I pay $20 CAD for 2 MB here in Canada. That same 2 MB in Germany is less than 0.50 Euro.

Kelly.

Try these settings:

WAP GPRS:
APN: wap.eplus.de
WAP-Gateway: 212.23.97.9
Startseite http://wap.eplus.de
Sicherheit: aus
Benutzername: Eplus
Passwort: wap

Internet GPRS:
APN: internet.eplus.de
Benutzername: eplus
Passwort: internet

As far as I remember, user name and password are optional, but maybe this is not correct and the wrong password might cause the problem.

You can still use any EPlus "Free and Easy" topup card/method with Alditalk. They're sold everywhere. No need to go to Aldi again for that. However, no guarantee that it'll work one week from now. Even an (international) bank transfer to the EPlus account works. UMTS Data is working fine, however as I just recently found out, US UMTS phones only work, if the have the european UMTS frequencies, they're using different frequencies in the US for that, just like they do with GSM.

You can redeem ALDI vouchers by entering *104#vouchercode# and picking up. *100# will display your current balance.

Btw you can purchase "eplus Free & Easy Cash" vouchers, which are said to work for ALDI SIMs, online from https://secure.verivox.de/cards/index.asp?Lang=eng by credit card.

Hello,

to use Aldi, Blau or Simyo with data-services, you have to make minimum one voicecall first, which should cost something. After then, the data service can be used.

To top up, you buy at a kiosk, gasoline, mobilephone shop a "Free & Easy CashKarte".

You scratch the number, call 1155 from your phone (no area code) choose menu 4 and enter the digits of the scratch code.

If the voice says something with "Raute" press the Pound # Key
If the voice says somethin with "Stern" press the Star * Key.

Eins = one
Zwei = two
Drei = three
Vier = four
Fuenf = five
Sechs = Six
Sieben = seven
Acht = eight
Neun = nine
Null = zero

Hope this helps.

I made many voice calls but data never worked anyway... Now I sent the configuration SMS from Simyo's website to my mobile, it seems exactly identical to the manual configuration I already made before, anyway I'll try it in Freiburg in a couple of weeks.

Have you ever checked if the Data is in generall activated at the Simyo Card? If you put in a Nokia Phone and Data is available it shows you a "G" in the Display (Nokia 6630 and more or less all newer Nokia Phones).

If you have Data on your Simyo at general, it could then be only the setting, which seems correct posted here a few times. Also at Simyo its no difference anymore if you use the WAP or GRPS Paramets for the settings in the phone. Priceing is always the same doesnt matter which APN you use.

Maybe you should send a mail in english to the Simyo Service. That cost you nothing and you can solve the problems from Italy before you come back to Germany next time! Normaly you get answer within few days from the email customer care from Simyo!

And have you checked, if GPRS is activated on your phone? Most phones have an option to disable GPRS generally and so save a bit of power.

On both the phones I tried you don't have to activate it and I use it every day with my Wind card, so it's really not a phone problem. One is a Nokia but a 60 Series one with no "G" for data. The other one is a Sony Ericsson, again with no data icon.
I can try to send an e-mail to Simyo, that sounds like a good idea ;)