2 weeks in Switzerland - best option for GPRS and voice usage?
 

Hi everyone,

I'm about to go to Switzerland for a couple of weeks and would like to get a prepaid SIM for my Treo 650 to use for infrequent voice calls and for GPRS/EDGE data. After reading around here a bit it sounds like the best option is to get an orangeclick.ch SIM when I arrive, since it has a CHF 5/mo. option to drop the data rate to 2.50/MB, and a CHF 2/mo. option to drop calls to the USA to CHF 0.29/minute.

Are there any other options I should consider? (Thanks to all those who've posted about Switzerland prepaid SIMs before...)

I was really surprised to see how expensive GPRS data is in Europe!

GPRS data is cheap in the UK - so it isn't expensive everywhere in Europe. :)

My Swiss SIM is with Swisscom, although to be honest that was primarily out of expediency. Swisscom and Sunrise seem to have the best coverage.

Any Swiss provider accompanied with a callback service would be a good option for calls to the US. The orangeclick.ch option might be good if you will have heavy calling to make up for the monthly fee.

As for data, I didn't use much due to the cost. 2.50 CHF a megabyte isn't horrific but it still isn't exactly inexpensive. :)

I guess Switzerland is just expensive -- hopefully I'm not missing some obviously better option!

The worst part is I don't think I have any sense of how much data I typically use. I'll have to see if my US T-Mobile bill tells me how much data I use...

I've been using a ton of data here in the UK - hotel Internet, if it's available at all, is about 10 pounds a day - ridiculous. T-Mobile prepaid has been a lifesaver.

If you find out anything re: Switzerland, please keep the thread updated.

Incidentally you'll need to present a passport to get a Swiss SIM, so don't be surprised. Germany seems to require one too. I got my Austrian SIM, however, without giving any identification at all, and it's that way in the UK too. Very inconsistent.

Thanks for the heads up on the passport -- fortunately this was mentioned clearly on the orangeclick.ch web site. I guess I can see why they do this -- on crime shows here in the US, prepaid cell phones are always the way the bad guys make anonymous calls! :)

Oh yeah, and the hotel I'm staying in for part of the time has wireless Internet, but no mention of the cost on their web site. One hopes that means it is free but I fear otherwise.

If anyone with an orangeclick.ch SIM is reading -- can I add and remove the "International Option" and "Mobile Internet" options via the customer web interface, or do I have to add these when I get the SIM at an Orange store? And can I just get them for one month at a time? I won't need them when I'm not in .ch...

This is an old question that I lost... well, you can remove it when you prefer and usually you have a charge only for the day that you used (so if you paid 3 CHF for a month and use the option only for 15 days Oclick will refund 1.5 CHF on your balance)...


...any way today I'm a lucky customer: just logged in and... I get this promotion Try Mobile Internet (free for a month) :beer:

Most of the Swiss prepaid offers will charge you minimum CHF 5.00 per MB which is around USD 4.50.

In my opinion there are two options for you:

A) If you have heavy data use:
Orangeclick with the data and international option. You can reduce the cost for receiving emails almost to zero when you go to the mobile orange portal and activate your own email-address which will be "yourmobilenumber@orangemail.ch". Sending and receiving email from this server is included into the data-option and should always be free of charge.

B) more phonecalls / less emails
If you tend to call a lot within Switzerland and check your email not that often, go for a ALDI prepaid offer which charge only 0.18 CHF to fixed net within switzerland. Data will cost you CHF 5.00 per MB.

Avoid SWISSCOM prepaid. They charge you CHF 14.00 per MB of data (no options available) and calls within Switzerland will cost about 0.80 CHF per minute to cross networks (same price per hour to SWISSCOM and fixed net)

Third option for you could be the LEBARA mobile SIM (works on sunrise network). Very cheap international calls (without monthly option) and CHF 10.00 per MB of data.

http://www.lebara-mobile.ch/
http://www.orangeclick.ch
https://www.salut-mobile.ch
http://www.swisscom-mobile.ch

Enjoy your stay in Switzerland. If you want to visit me, go here: www.swissdreamshotels.com and choose Walzenhausen.

:o
I can't activate any email @orangemail.ch using my O-Click number :( How did you do that!?

Thanks. Yes, I actually got an orangeclick.ch SIM when I went to Switzerland in September and October and I did this. They automatically pro-rate the add-on services for you when you remove them. (If I remember right, they remove the full monthly amount from your balance when you add the feature, but then refund the fraction of the amount if you remove it partway through a month.)

Overall the whole experience was very nice. The fellow at the Orange store at the Zürich airport even let me request the last four digits of the phone number so I could have them match my US number. Now I have a Swiss number I can use every time I visit -- I just have to "recharge" the account at least once a year.

I'm curious too...

Back when I was using my orangeclick.ch SIM I was also trying to find if there is an e-mail address that sends an SMS to my phone, but I couldn't find one. I thought this was pretty much a "standard" feature these days -- is it considered an add-on in Europe?

ideas
 

Can't speak for orangeclick.ch.

When I had prepaid German T-MO cards > 3 years ago, it was an add-on that the user had to initiate AND, if I recall properly, I believe there was a USAGE charge to receive email unlike a free inbound SMS.

I am fairly certain such cards as UNITED MOBILE, HOP, TRAVELSIM do not have email-addressable cards. As far as I know, and our German friends will have to confirm, the prepaid knock-offs DON'T have that feature -- or, if they do, it is well-hidden in the documentation. Not even sure the other majors (O2, Voda, E+) allow it on prepaid.

My conclusion: I doubt the orangeclick.ch has that feature. And who would want it if there is a COST vs free inbound SMS?

Stan

Orange CH has it (check www.orangemail.ch or https://www.orange.ch/footer/login )

Anyway the feature has this limit: "The registration is for Orange customers only. Please contact our Customer Care free on 0800 700 700. If you already have an 'orangeclick.ch' account, please connect to orangeclick.ch to manage your account online."

?
 

So what is the pattern for the email address of the orangeclick.ch phone?

I did not see it; of course I do not have an account myself so I was looking around the http page only.

OP knows in US one can send an email/SMS to a Verizon phone from any email account using this pattern:

AAANNNNNNN@vtext.com

T-Mobile US using: AAANNNNNNN@tmomail.net

AAA = 3 digit US area code
NNNNNNN = 7 digit mobile phone #.

Other US carriers have similar setups.

OClick doesn't have any email address... :(

Dear all,

all i know is, that I do have a orangeclick account and email with 078XXXXXXX@orangemail.ch did work until recently (I moved out to M Budget Mobile because of the better tariffs).

Open the mobile portal and look for something called email, organiser or anything else. I have asked in a orange shop before and they also said that the data-addon does cover all the data transfer to orangemail.ch - it must be included. This is also stated in the text that goes along with the data-addon.

It is thrue that you can't manage the account via website, it works only if you open the account on the mobile portal and you can only check emails from the mobile or with any email program on a computer - but not within the orange homepage. The orange homepage does not recognise orangeclick numbers as orange numbers and will always return with an error!

Thumbs up that it may work for you also...

BK

Thanks bourbon! I did it this morning and now i just have tons of spam :wall: :P

It's a pity that i can't manage the account ... so it's not so useful

Hi Andrea,

I am very sorry for that. I just used it to forward selected emails from my main inbox to the mobile phone when away from the office. If you have a PDA it might be more comfortable on the big screen to set up every thing. If you digg a little deeper in the settings you may find many nice features for a prepaid card like the sync folder where you can copy files from your computer into and then access it via orange mobile portal etc. Also an Address-Book is included...

Very nice is that feature if you use your orange click SIM with one of the phone of their SPV series. You may get one of the old SPV on www.ricardo.ch - they all carry an application to completely backup your windows mobile phone/PDA to an orangeserver. And again - this is all covered with the monthly data-option.

The only reason for me to leave orangeclick were, that I now own a samsung i600 with integrated WiFi to access internet/email and M Budget Mobile hast best network coverage and very fair pricing (for Switzerland and to whole europe).

BK

[OrangeClick.ch] How to get a email @orangemail.ch
 

Eureka! :D

Thanks to bourbonkiller ( http://www.prepaidgsm.net/forum/show...5&postcount=17 ) I found the way to get and USE an email @orangemail.ch by POP3/Imap.

Well, if you are a customer OrangeClick.ch you can get an address @orangemail.ch only registering yourself on the Orange Mobile Portal (you have to use the wap service, APN click). In the mainpage click on "Mail" link and get your @orangemail.ch email address.

Then visit the main page of Mail Service, you will find "Setting options". Inside that part you have to look for the change password (when you register the account you DO NOT have one! So you can't check that email outside the Mobile Portal), digit your password and wait for the confirmation SMS.

Then you can use that address via POP3/IMAP :beer: You can't use the webmail service (so strange) but using the POP3/Imap service (POP3 = pop.orangemail.ch , IMAP = imap.orangemail.ch) you can check the email outside the portal :beer:

Important! For login via POP3/IMAP you have to use your OClick number and NOT the alias email (ex.: you activated the address provaprova@orangemail.ch on your OClick number 0781111111, you have to use the login 0781111111@orangemail.ch and NOT provaprova@orangemail.ch )

I'm in CH for 3 weeks and Orangeclick at 2.5F/MB seemed like the best deal for a data connection. I was unable to configure my phone (unlocked HTC Kaiser with Windows Mobile 6) using the manual instructions at https://www.orangeclick.ch/orange/es...apGeneralPopup so I want the shop where I bought my card and then the central shop at Hardturmstrasse 161, Zurich. They took my phone to the back and someone introduced himself as from the technical department and explained that it is a known issue that HTC WinMo devices don't work with orangeclick.

If anyone knows a work around I'd love to hear. Otherwise let this be a warning to anyone else who finds this thread. I can't find much else online about configuring orangeclick GPRS.

I'm in Switzerland for 3 weeks and at 2.5F/MB orangeclick seemed like the best deal for data. Voice and SMS worked perfectly. However I was unable to configure data on my unlocked HTC Kaiser running Windows Mobile 6 using the manual instructions on their website. I took my phone to the shop where I bought the SIM and then to the big Orange office at Hardturmstrasse 161, Zurich. There the folks in front took it to someone from the "technical department" who tried to configure it and then told me there is a known issue with HTC WinMo devices. He said orangeclick data works fine with more common devices.

If you have managed to get data working on a WinMo device please offer advice. I get the error "Connecting" ... "Connecting" ... "Cannot connect. Cannot connect for an unknown reason. To check your ..." in a series of bubbles. If I use the MMS settings the data connection seems to connect but IE doesn't get past "Locating...". I tried MMS + proxy 192.168.10.2:8080, but that didn't work either.

Good luck!

I have an OrangeClick SIM card with the free month of Internet (although I think what they really mean is that they are waiving the 5 CHF / month fee to get the reduce 2.50 CHF / MB tariff.)

I have tried to register an @orangeclick.ch e-mail address to take advantage of the free sending/receiving to this address. Unfortunately, I haven't been able to get it work using the instructions in this thread. I e-mailed Orange, and they replied that this feature was only available for regular Orange SIMs and not OrangeClick - however, it seems that other people in this thread have managed to get it to work?

When I try to log in at wap.orange.ch it won't work. I tried creating an account at www.orange.ch and it won't let me since I have an orangeclick SIM and number.

Anyone who got this to work have suggestions as to what I am doing wrong?

Thanks!

Awesome indeed!!!

Does anyone know how long it takes for the SIM card to be delivered after the order through the web site? I'll arrive in Switzerland in a few days from now... if they take some days to deliver I'd like to order it in advance, but if it's next day delivery I'll order it when I get there!

Answering my own question:

"Within the next 3 working days, you will receive your order"

For the records since no one is replying to my messages here... hope at least this helps someone.

The "Try mobile internet free for one month" is free only for the first 2MB of data. After that it's charged at CHF 0.0025 / KB (not sure of the smallest unit of charge).

From the 5 APNs that are set up when you first insert your SIM card, only "Click WAP GPRS" worked for me, but the JPG images are greately reduced rendering impracticable to see any details. I was instructed to change the Access Point Name of the "Orange Internet" APN from "internet" to "click" and now this APN also works and shows full size images.

In practice the only difference between the Click WAP GPRS APN and the modified Orange Internet APN is the user name: "wap" for the former, none for the latter.

Yes, it's true. You have "unlimited" access only for Orange WAP Portal (where french and italian languages have less services than in the past... it's almost only for german users :( )


The only working APN for OClick customers is click. If you want to use the HSDPA service TV you have to put that APN in Real Player too (they have TicinoNews for free).