Buying a German SIM card from Canada
 

Greetings:

I have been looking at various German SIM cards and browsing and searching the very informative threads here at prepaidgsm.net.

Things certainly seem to have changed since I last bought a pair of Ortel SIM cards by mail in 2007. It's too bad these have long expired and cannot be reactivated. The E-Plus network must have improved in the intervening years. Then I experienced more lost calls than I would have expected.

One problem I am facing involves choosing a vendor. It seems that Fonic, Solomon Pro and Ortelmobile are two that members here seem to recommend. The other problem involves online ordering, shipping and registering the two SIM cards I require.

Which vendor:
I will be spending about 4 weeks in Germany, about a week in the Netherlands and several days each in France, Switzerland and Austria. I will be making and receiving calls/SMS primarily from/to Canada and Germany and perhaps a few from France.

The per minute rates (0.08€ - 0.15€ plus a call-setup fee in some cases) and SMS rates (0.13€ - 0.25€) all seem decent enough. It's the roaming that may be a little more variable. Ortelmobile has a decent Netherlands to Germany rate but I have been unable to find its roaming rates. It almost looks like I just add the origin country to Germany to destination country rates together but I don't believe that it could be that simple. Ortelmobile has not answered any of my inquiries.

I am continuing to check the various companies' rates starting with your very informative prepaidgsm.net operators list (but, Edeka, for example, doesn't seem to be there). Am I correct in inferring that the D1 and D2 networks are the most widespread/reliable followed closely by E-Plus and that O2 is not quite as good?

Buying, registering and activating the SIM cards.
I have several problems and choices in buying these two SIM cards.

My problems:

1. I have only a one hour stop-over in München before arriving in Amsterdam. That doesn't give me enough time to find a store in the München airport to buy the SIMs there. I don't suppose that I can buy German SIMs in Amsterdam airport or the Netherlands.
2. I seem to need a German bank account to order and/or activate some of these cards.
3. In some cases, e.g. solomo pro, I actually have to go through the ordering process, step-by-step, in order to find out what the requirements are. I am worried that I will go through it all and then find that I am unable to have the cards shipped to me or that I may be unable to activate them when I get them.
4. We are expecting a postal strike soon.

As I see them my options are:

1. Buy the SIM cards on-line. A 10€ Ortelmobile starter SIM kit costs three to five times that if I buy from a U.S. source. Buying direct is cheaper, if the company will sell and ship them to me..
2. Buying the SIM cards when I arrive won't work because I first arrive in Amsterdam with only a quick plane change in München.
3. I could have a friend/relative buy them for me online and have them shipped to me here or to my first hotel in the Netherlands. But doesn't the shipping address usually have to match the billing/bank address?
4. I could have the friend or relative buy it in a store and mail it to me here (but we may get a postal strike).

Sorry for the long list but have I missed anything? Any suggestions? Thanks.

You mean the Dutch Ortelmobile, right?
Then you can find these prices here: Ortel Mobile - Tariffs
For example, calling from Germany to any EU country costs €0,46/min.


In Germany it is, best to worst: T-Mobile, Vodafone/O2, E-Plus. Correct me if I'm wrong.

FWIW I've purchased SIMs, e.g. yesss.at, online and had them shipped to the first hotel in my itinerary. I used a Canadian credit card (TD/CT) with a Canadian billing address without any difficulty.

In the case of yesss.at, they will only ship SIMs within Austria. I don't know if the German carriers have the same restriction, i.e. will ship only to German addresses.

Postal strike? Canada Post is still in business? :)

Nope, I meant German Ortelmobile. A dutch SIM card I could pick up in The Netherlands when I arrive but since I am spending most of my time in Germany I need a German SIM card. The German Ortel cards have a decent rate from The Netherlands to Germany of about 0.25€ (or so). It is the German roaming rates I cannot find, for example the cost of a call to Canada from The Netherlands using a German Ortel SIM card.

So far I haven't discovered any comparable priced choices for the T-Mobile net, but then I haven't finished looking yet.

I did that in 2007 but the various German web sites now seem to be far more restrictive in what they allow. In some cases one needs a German bank account or credit card to order/register or the delivery is restricted to Germany, etc.Well now, that depends upon what we mean by in business, doesn't it?

The ranking is rather Vodafone, T-Mobile, O2 and after a huge gap eplus.
eplus is still a discount network with an inferior network, that regularly suffers from congestions making phone calls impossible and data over the eplus-network is a total mess, too.

@Kritiker
I would recommend a Fonic SIM for your purposes. Getting a Fonic SIM in Munich is a question of minutes. For further information on Fonic see Germany - Fonic - Prepaid Wireless Internet Access

Yes, agree with Inquisitor. Fonic is an obvious choice (cheap domestic and international calls and data) and easy to find. There's a Müller drugstore in the middle of Terminal 1 of Munich airport that should have Fonic SIMs.

Thanks all. I am able to focus my efforts a bit thanks to your help. More later.

So I have a good idea now about availability etc. and calling rates within Germany. Thanks.

Looking at Solomo Pro (E-plus) and Fonic (O2), I find that Solomo Pro has considerably cheaper roaming rates than Fonic.

For example, a call from the Netherlands to Canada costs 0.26€ (via call back) with Solomo Pro but 1.29€, per minute, with Fonic. Other calls from Europe but outside Germany to Europe or Canada seem to cost the same.

Calls from the Netherlands to Germany are 0.46€ on Fonic and 0.26€ - 0.46€ on Solomo Pro .

Is the O2 network that much better than the E-Plus? Any other reasons to choose Fonic over Solomo Pro or the other way around? Can both be topped up using the Internet and non-German credit cards? Do Fonic SIM cards really not expire? The Fonic Kostenschutz is of little use to me. Have I missed something? Any further advice? Thanks.

Will decrease to €0,40/min by 1 July 2011.

For mobile data there is a huge difference which I have experienced myself. For calls I have only heard there are a lot of dropped calls etc. The network is clearly the worst in Germany.

Yes.

Yes.

I have eplus based SIM cards for private use for several years and i have never experienced any dropped calls. The voice quality is very good.
For data o2 might be the better solution, but as my phone only supports GPRS there is no difference for me either..

In our company we have more than 500 simyo cards for data traffic (m2m applications) and the connection is always reliable (but our case scenario does not depend on speed, only on reliable connection and small data amounts).

Chris

@kuba.g
Fonic SIMs can not be recharged by credit card, but only by topup vouchers or a German bank account.

@Kritiker
A disadvantage of solomo pro is, that the SIM is only available online and can be shipped only to Germany and few neighbouring European countries.

@dg7feq
I don't know where you or your company have been using the eplus network, but three of my friends recently switched operators because they had continuing enormous problems with data connections as well as with voice calls with epus. Two of them live in Stuttgart and one in Hamburg - they reported not being able to establish data connections and not being able to receive or place calls while their phones were registered on the 3G-network almost every day during the rush hours.
When I was an eplus customer from 2006-2008 the 3G network in my home town was so congested, that with a probability of 80% incoming phone calls would not reach me, allthough I had very good signal strength.
Problems may lessen if you switch your phone in 2G-only mode, but all in all their network still is a pain.

Thank you all for your advice so far. It has helped me tremendously.

Since I too have had problems with E-Plus (in 2007) I am inclined to try Fonic. What's holding me back is Fonic's much higher roaming rate for calls from some country via Germany to some other country. Of course, if you can't make or receive the call, then it is cheaper still, isn't it? ;) The roaming does represent only about 20% of my intended use.

I'll be out-of-touch for a few days and will respond to the most recent, and any future posts, when I return. Thanks again.

Solomo surely have cheap roaming rates especially for outgoing calls through their callback service. However their callback service is unreliable and some phones (e.g. some Samsung phones) even don't support it at all, since it is a tweaked STK/USSD-solution which seems not to be complying fully with standards.
Further there are dozens of reports on the solomo customer forum of solomo SIMs not even registering on foreign networks.
You should know that solomo is based on a MVNO called vistream and vistream is a real MVNO running some essential core network infrastructure by their own while they basicly only use the cell towers of eplus. However vistream have a lot of problems with their infrastructure - e.g. a lot of users experience no calls and SMS coming in while there's an active data session.
This combination of the messy, overloaded eplus network plus the buggy vistream infrastructure results in an inferior product, which I just cannot recommend. You may end up spending way more money if solomo once again does not work.

Is it still true that to purchase a Fonic card online, you need to have a German bank account? I couldn't seem to get past that requirement when I tried recently. I will have a German Address, but no bank account during my visit this summer.

That question has been answered all too frequent. Use the search function or read the detailed article on Fonic linked in this thread.

Yes they can. I recharged mine online by credit card :) although not via Fonic.de, obviously ;)

I know of voucher resellers like aufladen.de, who accept credit cards, but afaik they do only accept Dutch, German, Swiss and Austrian credit cards. So these resellers are of little use for our American fellows.

Cabox, where I have recharged my Fonic once, also accepts PayPal :)

Inquisitor, I have indeed searched for this information, and would not be asking had it been answered satisfactorily. Most threads are from 2009 and before, and some imply that the requirement has changed in the meantime. The page you mention I've already looked at in detail, and it does NOT answer my question:

This addresses activation, not online SIM purchase. Hence, my question.

You can't purchase it online from Fonic.de without a German bank account.

I am still trying to decide between O2 and E-Plus discount vendors (Fonic and Solomo Pro, respectively (I also still can't quite let go of Ortel, despite their poor customer service)).

In test Der größte Mobilfunk-Netztest Deutschlands - CHIP Handy Welt the authors write:

Dass die Technik, die das Unternehmen für Sprachtelefonie einsetzt, tatsächlich ausgereift ist, belegen unsere Messergebnisse: E-Plus schneidet im Voice-Bereich bis auf wenige Zehntelpunkte genau so gut ab, wie die beiden großen Netzbetreiber Telekom und Vodafone. [E-Plus, for voice, is only a few tenths of a point behind the two large networks, Telekom and Vodafone]

The subsequent charts, for voice (Sprache) only, show little overall difference in point scores among the nets (T: 80.5, V: 80.0, E: 79.7, O: 77.8), with O2 having the better rating for establishing calls (Rufaufbau) but E-Plus losing fewer calls (Abgebrochene Anrufe).

Test http://www.p3-group.com/communicatio...glish_2010.pdf doesn't show E-Plus in quite as good a light, but not significantly worse than O2 either.

I am thinking that this and the better roaming rates and purchase & top-up options for the E-Plus net might, after all, make it a better choice for my needs (voice & SMS, no data). What do you think? Have I missed something?

Edit: Hmm, I just reread Inquisitor's sticky thread about Solomo and am left wondering. I have also reread Inquisitor's comments in this thread about the unreliability issues and the tests I mentioned above don't deal with things like that. Spending a little more for peace of mind is certainly worth it, so perhaps I should go Fonic after all. Back and forth, back and forth.

My phone, incidentally, is an unlocked quad-band Motorola V551 which I have, in the past (2007), successfully (but with a few lost calls and an occasional inability to establish calls) used on E-Plus, at least in Germany.

Is shipping within Germany, the EU (where offered), typically included in the on-line SIM cost or is it additional? I don't recall seeing this mentioned. Of course, I might just have missed it.

dg7feq, which E-Plus cards do you use, have you used, and can you speak to the roaming call-back problems and unreliability that inquisitor mentions?

Perhaps some E-Plus provider (although it doesn't seem likely, does it?) other than solomo is the answer? Or, inquisitor, are they all afflicted?

I'll reread everything again to see what else I missed. Every time I reread this, and inquisitor's sticky, thread I seem to find something else that I missed. Thanks to all.

I don't think that E-Plus grants some kind of priority in traffic to one of their operators.
If they would, they would probably do it for their own customers (E-Plus prepaid card), but E-Plus doesn't provide a prepaid service of their own any more so it's all highly unlikely.

I was actually wondering about
and whether other discount carriers using the E-Plus network do it differently. For example, Ortel and Blau, other E-plus discount operators, are not listed as a vistream partners at vistream's web site. In the prepaidgsm.net DB also they are listed as non-vistream MVNOs.

Aside: Is the Rufaufbautaste [literally build-the-call key] just the button we push to start a call, to answer a call and to go off-hook? Sorry to ask such a basic question.

Sorry. You are right of course. Online orders with Fonic require a German bank account.

Regarding your decission between O2 and eplus you might also consider that from July, 1st roaming fees will decline once again due to EU-regulation. Then no German operator may charge outgoing calls with the EU with more than € 0.42/min and incoming ones not with more than € 0.13/min. However this does not apply for calls from other European countries to Canada.

Yes, it is.

Other eplus providers at least don't suffer from the problems resulting from the vistream infrastructure, but afaik there's no other prepaid tariff on the eplus network with international or roaming tariffs that would be lower than Fonic's.
Note that Blauworld and Ortel charge a call-setup fee of € 0.15 per call, which doesn't exist with Fonic.

Yes, the "Rufaufbautaste" is the usually green key, that initiates a call. In the English-speaking world it's sometimes called the "send" key (and once this key was even labeled "SEND").

I have been looking at the roaming rates for more of the discount carriers and can find nothing that beats the Fonic direct rates or the solomo pro call back rates.

Since, in the end, it is the ability to make and receive calls and SMSes effectively, and without a lot of bother, that matters, that leaves only Fonic, as you have suggested. I may supplement with a cheap Dutch SIM for the time we'll spend in the Netherlands and just roam in Austria, Switzerland and France, since our time there will be relatively short.

Thank you all for your help. It is greatly appreciated.

Does this new regulation affect data roaming? I had read that the EU capped data roaming at €0.49/MB, but FONIC's web site reports €0.50/100kB! This is my biggest concern about a provider for my upcoming trip, ~14 days in DE and 8 in NE, BE, and FR.

No, data is not affected yet. Currently there are only two EU rules applying for data: One affects only operators, who may not charge more than € 0.50/MB each other (however consumer tariffs may still be higher) and the other says that consumers must be cut off from data usage after reaching € 50 (+VAT)/month (see Roaming: The roaming regulation | Europa - Information Society), but it does not rule the actual price.
There are plans to introduce a price cap of € 0.90/MB from 2012, which shall be reduced to € 0.50/MB until 2014, but these are still in an early stage of legislation.

Hi, Kritiker!

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