[sleepy]

After my first ill-fated attempt in November (in the end I could not find a SIM card late on a Sunday evening and then it was too late to be useful), I decided to order a Simyo SIM in advance for my trip in Germany this time.

The SIM card arrived with no problems at my hotel (it took some days, though, so do not do that if you decide at the last minute. I think a week of advance buying is advisable.).
Using it was straightforward. Topping up with the SMS system was also very easy and immediate (though I find it a bit destabilising to have my credit card details on their server...). The SMS is not free, though.

In 30 seconds I was online with my PC, putting the correct APN and user/password (simyo/simyo).
More difficult was with my PDA. Though every setting was correct, it did not work until I did not set a profile for Simyo in my mobile (not needed for the PC). Usually putting the APN right is enough, even without a profile, but this time it was not the case.
No big problem, though.

I then activated the 1GB option. It took some hours to get active. Keep this in mind if you really need it in a specific occasion. Activate it some hours in advance. I received the second SMS, which, as it was correctly reported here before, starts the validity of the option, only 6 hours after I had sent the request.
Fortunately, at 0.24 Euro/MB, if you do not go in YouTube and only use it for moderate browsing and email checking, you are not going to get seriously hurt in the meantime.

Browsing speed: when you are in a city/town, chances are you are going to get connected in 3G, with reasonable speed.
Otherwise you are stuck with vanilla GPRS. But hey, we are talking here about moving around in another country. Roaming fees would be 6-15 Euro/MB (depending on our generous national providers) and here we are talking of 0.24 at the worst. You can exercise some patience...
German people can probably find better options or higher quality ones anyway (with longer commitment contracts). So we are talking about people coming from abroad.
I also tried the connection on an ICE between Ulm and Frankfurt. I had 3G only in the stations in the city, but I lost connection only twice in the whole journey. I would not call this bad service.

I now only have to figure where 3-4 Euros have gone... They vanished from my account without any notice. There is no trace of them in any account balance I consulted... mystery!

All in all: be patient, do not always expect lightning fast connection, but it is reliable, cheap and functional.

I would only hope that our national provider would not be as stupid as they seem to be to me: they charge us outrageous sums of money when we go abroad. But bit by bit, also in previously impossible countries, good options for talking and connecting are showing up. It is a waste of money for everyone: our national providers do not get any money from us (as they were getting until recently) and at the end of the game we shell out more money (but not outrageously any more) that we would in a better market organisation.

Sleepy