Germany - Ortel Mobile vs Fonic
 

Hello to everybody...

I'm new in this forum but an old member of the "windworld.org" ones...

By the way, I'm moving to germany pretty soon, i had a look at the offers (I have already an ortel mobile de sim card) to find an operator cheap to call Italy from Germany as well as not so expensive in the in-country calls and so on...

from the web site of Fonic
FONIC Handytarif im Überblick - Günstig mobil telefonieren!

it seems cheaper that the ortel
Ortel Mobile - Connecting the world

but I dont find any start-call costs...did I miss something?
maybe some german friend can help me?

thanks a lot!
Carlo

There's no call setup fee with Fonic. You just pay 9 ct/min to Italian landlines and 29 ct/min to Cellulari.

Am I understanding the Fonic website correctly that they charge 29 cent per minute to US and Canada mobile phones? If so, that is either a mistake, or a very high rate (Ortel has no surcharge for US & Canada mobiles.)

The language in question is as follows:

Gespräche in Mobilfunknetze von Europa,
den USA und Kanada* 29 Cent / Min.

That's a persisting error on Fonic's website. North American mobile networks cost 9 ct/min as landlines do.

thanks inquisitor...

so to sum up:

i would pay the calls to italy the same that with ortel...only the smss a bit more (19 instead 15cents)

but the calls and the texts within germany 9 cents instead 15 right?

Question for the technology geeks (which I most certainly am not):

Is there a way for the equipment or whatever to differentiate between an American (or Canadian) landline number or a mobile number? For example here in New York, both my landline and my mobile numbers have the same exact area codes and I believe if I wanted I could port one to the other....

Yes, that's correct.

There's also a third option: solomo pro

With solomo pro you also pay € 0,09/min or € 0,29/min to Italy, but they bill in seconds after the first minute, whereas Ortel and Fonic always bill whole minutes. So if your call exceeds 60 seconds solomo pro is always cheaper than the others, as they bill more exactly.

Domestic calls cost € 0,08/min to landlines and € 0,10/min to mobiles. Here again the more exact billing makes solomo pro cheaper than Fonic.

SMS - no matter if national or international - are charged with € 0,14.

The only disadvantage of solomo pro is that you can order it only online and you can pay and recharge it only by credit card or German bank account.

If you order solomo pro through the link above, you'll receive an extra credit of € 5. So for the initial price of € 14,95 you'll get € 15 of credit.

Solomo pro has also very cheap roaming rates. Incoming calls in most European countries including Italy cost only € 0,10/min and they've also decent outgoing rates while roaming.

Further solomo pro includes a VoIP-account, through which you can answer calls free of charge if you're outside Germany.

They use the eplus network, so you'll experience the same coverage as with Ortel.

Please notice, that those cheap international rates do only apply for solomo pro but not for their other tariff ("0/8/5").

Well, generally there must be some master routing database, where one can look up, to which network a phone number belongs. That's necessary in order to send calls and SMS to the correct network. So theoretically you can look up, if a North American number is assigned to a cellular network operator or not. However I suppose O2 has an interconnection with some international carrier, to which they hand over calls to the US and who then forwards it to the corresponding American carrier. It just wouldn't pay off for O2 to interconnect directly with all American operators. That American carrier will surley charge a flat tariff for any landline number to O2, no matter if assigned to a cellular or wired network, because that's the American way. Sure, that American carrier could signalize the type of network to O2, but I believe that's too complicated to implement just in order to allow a German MVNO to rip it's customers off.

thank you have been really clear...it also seems good the suggestion of solomo pro...but I think that eventually I'll take the fonic one, and i'll be able to recharge it from the supermarket...let's see...

just out of curiosity, if i buy a solomo pro sim card, is it possible to do a number portability between virtual operators later on?

All German providers (no matter if "real" MNO or MVNO) are forced by law to export numbers upon request. As number portability is subject of a very old EU-directive (97/33/EC) it should have been implemented to national law in all EU-countries meanwhile.

However German mobile providers are not obliged to import numbers. So you can always export an existing number, but not all operators will import such.

Fonic e.g. still doesn't support number importability, but solomo definitely does.

But be warned, that all operators will charge an amount of € 25-30 for the export, which needs to be topped up in advance. Thereafter you'll also need to send a letter of cancellation to the exporting operator ("Verzichtserklärung") before you instruct your new operator to import the number.

You should also know, that some operators do only import numbers if you tell them to do so while ordering their SIM (e.g. simyo), whereas others will import numbers even afterwards (e.g. solomo). So solomo subscribers can decide anytime to replace their existing number by importing another one, while simyo customers need to order a completely new SIM if they want to import a number. They can not replace their old number by an imported one.

Lastly I should mention, that when porting numbers the importing operator will send a request to the exporting operator with firstname, lastname and date of birth of the customer. If this information is not absolutely identical with the data of the exporting operator, they will refuse the request. So you need to provide absolutely the same details to the importing operator as the ones the exporting operator has from you. If you have abbreviated your name or if you have provided a second firstname, you'll need to do this with the new operator, too.
Again solomo are the best choice at this point, because they allow entering separate information for the number-import-request than the information provided upon ordering. So solomo customers can theoretically even import somebody else's number, since they can manually provide the data for the request.

I hope my explanations are kind of understandable.

finally I bought a finic sim card, everything seems working fine unless someone call me from italy and my mobile is switched off... I mean I disable the mailbox with the code ##002#, and it worked properly, but anyway when they call and the voice answer that I'm reachable and that I'll be informed with a sms about the call they have been charged...as far as you know is it normal?

Yes, unfortunately that's normal. When callers reach that announcment of absence, which triggers that SMS-notification, they are already charged as they would reach you. That "service" is called "Anrufinfo per SMS" and it's a rip-off. T-Mobile and eplus have the same thing, but they won't charge neither you nor the caller for this. So O2 are real hustlers. They are even bigger hustlers when it comes to deactivation of this feature, which you can't perform from your handset, but you'll need to ask customer care by phone or email to disable it.

you're really a guru inquisitor, I dont know how can I thank you...!!! it's really a rip-off this "let's call service" of o2-fonic....unfortunately you can recharge solomo-pro only via internet otherwise I would buy their sim...
by the way now i try to send an email to the costumer service...

thank you again!