Germany | Tchibo underbidding competitors: data-flat for €20 + 500MB-pack for € 10
 

teltarif reports Tchibo, a MVNO on the O2 network with more than 1000 shops throughout Germany, will launch prepaid data tariffs from December.
For € 20 per month they will offer the cheapest data flatrate available in Germany, including HSDPA- and EDGE-usage. If traffic exceeds 10GB per month, bandwidth will be limited to 64 KBit/s.
Besides this flatrate they will also offer a data pack of 500 MB for € 10/month. That's more expensive than simyo, but with Tchibo you will get real mobile broadband instead of the modem-speeds on the eplus-network, which simyo uses. Excedding traffic will be billed with € 0,24/MB. No word on billing-increments yet.
Tchibo will also sell a UMTS-modem (presumably a netlocked Huawei E160) bundled with their SIM card.

Even cheaper than the post-paid O2 Active Data Rate, of € 25/month @ http://www.o2online.de/nw/active/lap...rif/index.html

Yes, in general prepaid tariffs - no matter if data or voice - are cheaper in Germany than postpaid ones. The only reason why postpaid still makes sense is, that you get subsidized hardware and some online retailers even pay out a part of their borkarage. I, for instance, do have an o2 active data tariff including flatrate a a discounted rate of € 20/month, for which I was additionally given a Huawei E169 USB-modem for free and € 300 in cash when signing the 2-years-contract.

back to topic: It's still unclear if Tchibo's data tariff will be available for all SIM cards or if it will be limited to the one sold with their USB-modem.

Will one be able to turn it on and off on a month to month basis?

I get to Germany about 3 times a year -- for less than a month but €20 is less than I usually end up paying for internet access.

I guess the other question is it by calendar month (e.g. Jan 1 thru Jan 31) or if you activated it on Jan 15 it would be good until Feb 15 (depending on whether 30 or 31 days in a "month")

I guess I could go read the website, but I'm lazy and reading contracts in German is generally beyond my skill level :) -- I'm more at the "noch ein Bier" level :)

I'm sure they'll bill by (30) days, not by calendar month and you'll also be able to activate and deactivate the flatrate whenever you want. But except for the rare information in Tchibo's press release there are still no details available - Tchibo don't even mention the new data tariffs on their website yet. I will give you an update, as soon as details come up.

An update on Tchibo:

They told me that you could not purchase then SIM alone, but only the €49.95 package with modem and SIM.

My brother bought one and had no problem using it on his PC.

I was also able to use the modem in my Mac with no problem (concerns about Mac was why I didn't buy one -- its hard to get technical questions answered by the person pouring you a coffee :) )

I was able to put the Tchibo SIM in my Sierra Wireless modek (875U I think) with no problem.

We tried putting my Vodafone CallYa SIM in the Tchibo modem and it almost worked -- we didn't have all the settings set right but it didn't reject the SIM and we appeared to register on the Vodafone network. Could the modem be unlocked? Seems unlikely but who knows. I don't have much experience with 3G modems -- when I put a "foreign" SIM in a locked phone it has always immediately rejected it.

Info is now available on the Tchibo website.

Tchibo USB Stick with Prepaid SIM Card

What's unclear is whether the "first month free" promotion still applies. It says it expired January 31, 2009, but they haven't removed it yet - so maybe it's still available.

MadBrewer - can you give us any info on the brand/model of the USB stick you received?

Sorry!
 

Sorry, already sold out.

I am traveling and don't have it with me, but I am pretty sure it was Huwawei -- it looked just like the picture on the web page you posted.

The stick in the bundle was a Huawei E160 without any lock, but it is completely sold out and Tchibo is not planning to restock in the short term. However you can use the data options with any Tchibo prepaid SIM, which is currently sold for only € 1.
Btw I've just updated the prepaid wireless internet wiki: Germany - Tchibo - Prepaid Wireless Internet Access

Blau surfstick
 

In addition to its 20€ a month prepaid unlimited data offer, Blau is now offering a USB data stick for 99€ + 5.90% shipping which includes a Blau SIM card and 20€ credit. A bit expensive compared with the other USB data stick offers, but worth mentioning. The stick is SIM unlocked and supports HSDPA, even though UMTS is the highest speed you'll get on Blau (E-Plus). No mention of whether it supports 3G bands other than 2100.

blau.de Surfstick with Flatrate Data

According to Henning Gajek's blog entry the Blau stick is a XSStick®W12 from 4G Systems, which supports UMTS2100 only.

€ 99 is a real rip-off if you consider that brandnew Huawei E180 dongles (feature HSDPA 7.2 MBit/s, HSUPA 5.76 MBit/s, UMTS900/2100, microSD-reader, voice telephony) are sold in the Vodafone version for € 60 at eBay.de (called "Vodafone K3715", unlocked and easily unbrandable by a simple firmware update from Huawei).

Beyond that you should be aware, that blau uses the eplus network, which is total crap, as it neither supports HSDPA nor EDGE and further is overloaded in many many places. Especially during peak hours you often cannot even establish a data connection on the eplus network and if it occassionally succeeds you have modem speeds and I'm not talking about those "fast" 56KBit/s-modems. Also eplus has configured a restrictive overload protection on a lot of NodeB's which causes subscribers to be handed over to GSM as soon as a connection (no matter if voice or data) has been established. So there's really no use of a UMTS-device on the eplus network.

By the way, Henning Gajek wrote that he tried to post the above linked blog entry through the Blau stick, as he was writing the article while unboxing it, but he resigend and switched to his ADSL-connection, since data rates were terrible.

So folks better keep your hands off eplus and all the MVNO's that use their network, as you will get way better service for the same price from Tchibo, respectively O2.

Hello,

I mentioned in my Blog contribution, that it could be possible, that Blau customers would take the USB-Stick and change the SIM-card to another network, which is not so congested as E-Plus Germany is at this time.

UNLOCK phones, datacards, sticks, modems....
If there are any problems with unlocking, refer to Semaf Electronics - www.entsperren.org / Startseite in Vienna, they unlock nearly everything for 10-20 €.

Unlocking is completely legal in Austria. Just go, wait, pay and be happy!

Unlocked Huawei 160 sticks you will find in Hofer shops (=austrian ALDI) in Austria for now €60.-
I used it with an A1 prepaid SIM 1GB/€15.-/1 year, refill €20.-/1GB/1 year.

Now I use Huawei E220 from swisscom, comes with CHF 10.- balance and SIM for CHF 99.- (=ca. €68.-), no lock.

During a promotional offer valid until May 12th, Tchibo offer their SIM card including 50 free minutes for the first month plus 10 free SMS monthly for the first year for absolutely free including free shipping. Unfortunately they ship only within Germany.
To order go to Tchibo - Jede Woche eine neue Welt put the SIM into your shopping cart ("in den Warenkorb legen"), check out ("Warenkorb / Kasse") and enter "NEWSIM" as discount code (input field below "Geschenkkarte / Gutschein einlösen") and redeem it ("einlösen").

According to this wiki page, VPN is apparently blocked on Tchibo. Anyone have more information on whether this is accurate? Does O2 block VPN as well (since it's their network)? My father will be visiting Germany and needs data access with VPN ability.

Also, has E-Plus now upgraded to HSDPA from UMTS?

They do trials but not in broad coverage with HSDPA yet.

I dont know about VPN, we have o2 cards at work - if i can manage i can try to connect to our VPN over o2 tomorrow.

Chris

eplus runs a HSDPA-trial on few NodeBs in Düsseldorf an Leipzig, but even there HSDPA is only available to "friendly users" involved in their trial.

Having just testet CiscoVPN with my O2 postpaid SIM, I can confirm VPN works for O2 postpaid customers. However as Tchibo use another APN you can't conclude VPN is working with them.

Today Tchibo announced the introduction of a dayflat for € 2.95 (billed by calendar days and throttled after 1 GB). That's € 0.45 more expensive than Fonic, who also use the O2 network, but all in all Tchibo now offers the most attractive combination of data tariffs in a single SIM.
Details are already available at Germany - Tchibo - Prepaid Wireless Internet Access

Can you switch between different tariff options at will? e.g. if I want to do one month at data flat rate, the next at the 500MB bundle and in the last I only want to do 2 days at the daily rate? Is that all possible with the same SIM? Will that just cost me 20+10+3+3?

Yes, you can switch between options at will. But note that the monthly flatrate and the 500MB-pack are recurring subscriptions so you will first have to cancel the current option also by SMS in order to switch to another data option. That's all described in detail in the wiki page linked above.

Thanks. Just one more quick question. Does Tchibo block VoIP traffic?

No, they don't block VoIP. VoIP runs fine as far as you use a STUN-server, because on the O2 network subscribers get private IP addresses and all traffic needs to pass a NAT-Gateway, so your IP is not reachable from the internet.

That is great. So betamax will work fine via its Stun.

Thanks Inquisitor!

Just a small update on Tchibo:

They have recently converted their 500MB-datapack (€ 10/month) to a monthly flatrate with throttling to 64 KBit/s after exceeding 500MB.

So now there are four data options available to Tchibo customers:

• volume-based billing (activated by default) of € 0,24/MB (billed in 100KB-increments)
• "Internet-Tages-Flatrate" a dayflat for € 2.95/calendar day, throttled to 64 KBit/s after exceeding 1000MB/day
• "Internet Flatrate L" a monthly flatrate for € 9.95/30 days, throttled to 64 KBit/s after exceeding 500MB
• "Internet Flatrate XL" a monthly flatrate for € 19.95/30 days, throttled to 64 KBit/s after exceeding 5000MB (cheapest available in Germany as of June 2010)

Further Tchibo currently sell their Huawei E160 USB-modem with a Tchibo SIM-card and a free one-month-subscription of the "Internet Pack L" for just € 19.95. The modem is netlocked, but that's not an issue these days. ;-)

For details visit Germany - Tchibo - Prepaid Wireless Internet Access

Just a small correction: The current Tchibo offer for 20 EUR is with a Huawei E1550 stick, but this could also be case only in some of their shops.

Thanks. Actually the old E160 sold by Tchibo was better, as it has a connector for an external antenna and it also supports American 3G bands (at least 850 and 1900 MHz) while the E1550 is only capable of the European 2100 MHz-band. Anyway € 20 is a great deal if you consider only the free month is worth € 10, so practically the modem costs € 10.