Germany's Mvno List Grows

[Triband81]

Starting on December 7th, ALDI Germany will be kicking off its MVNO service on E-Plus' network.

The offer is on par with what you get from Simyo and blau.de to name a couple examples. Here are the basics:

SIM pack: ?19.99 (?10 of talk time included)
Refill cards: ?15 or ?30, available only at local ALDI locations

Prices:

?0.05/min for all calls to other ALDI Talkers numbers
?0.05/SMS to all ALDI Talkers numbers
?0.15/min for calls to landlines/other German wireless networks
?0.15/SMS to other German networks
?0.20/SMS to int'l numbers

Free Voicemail

Other important info:

-Billing: 60/1 billing for the 1st min, then to the exact second or 1/1 billing!!
-Roaming available in 34 countries and you are reachable in 110 countries


Info: http://www.aldi-essen.de/OFFER_D/OFFER_49/OFF001.HTM
http://www.aldi-essen.de/OFFER_D/OFFER_49/OFF002.HTM

[Effendi]

Thanks for the info, I just update the German page... I found the official site should be this one: http://www.medionmobile.de/
Aldi is a discount store, a bit like Tchibo, isn't it? I think now Tchibo should lower its prepaid tariff again...

[Effendi]

I noticed also Schwarzfunk lowered its tariffs to 25 cent/min (it was 30 cent/min) and SMS to 9 cent (it ws 10 cent). Not so competitive anyway... and on the site they still write the old tariffs in the main window, and the new ones in the detail?bersicht

[Przemolog]

Originally Posted by Triband81

Starting on December 7th, ALDI Germany will be kicking off its MVNO service on E-Plus' network.


Prices:

?0.05/min for all calls to other ALDI Talkers numbers
?0.05/SMS to all ALDI Talkers numbers
?0.15/min for calls to landlines/other German wireless networks
?0.15/SMS to other German networks
?0.20/SMS to int'l numbers

Free Voicemail

Other important info:

-Billing: 60/1 billing for the 1st min, then to the exact second or 1/1 billing!!
-Roaming available in 34 countries and you are reachable in 110 countries


Info: http://www.aldi-essen.de/OFFER_D/OFFER_49/OFF001.HTM
http://www.aldi-essen.de/OFFER_D/OFFER_49/OFF002.HTM

Really nice rates, but...
why the hell in this prepaid (and other Germans ones) international rates are so high???
You complained many times about lack of competition resulting in high rates in your country. However, after fast reviewing Italian prepaid tariffs, I see that at least to some countries it's possible to call from Italian prepaids for significantly less than German 1.84 or 1.99?/min. And newer and newer German MVNOs don't change this!

[MATHA531]

Well high international rates are what keep Enlinea and callbackworld in business...and another important question I always have with any sim is

1. The ability to set voice menus (as opposed to phone menus) to English, one of the reason, despite the higher rates, I keep my Vodafone DE sim...

2. The ability to make calls into long distance cards...of course with lower internal rates that makes this a very desirable way to make international calls....

[Przemolog]

Originally Posted by MATHA531

Well high international rates are what keep Enlinea and callbackworld in business...and another important question I always have with any sim is

As well as direct dial or calling cards businesses ... Yes, I know all this but here I wonder why there is no effect of competition on imternational rates from German sims...

Originally Posted by MATHA531

1. The ability to set voice menus (as opposed to phone menus) to English, one of the reason, despite the higher rates, I keep my Vodafone DE sim...

Yes, it's very important and I don't think it's very expensive for service providers to add such a feature. But I think that the reason of implementing voice prompts in local language(s) only may be very simple - to discourage foreigners from buying such a SIM and to rip off them on roaming.

Originally Posted by MATHA531

2. The ability to make calls into long distance cards...of course with lower internal rates that makes this a very desirable way to make international calls....

You mean issues like e.g. restricted availability and costs of 00800 numbers in Poland what I said about in http://www.prepaidgsm.net/forum/index.php?showforum=5 ?

OT. The two issues you mentioned are not satisfied by any prepaid SIM in Poland . 00800 and (some, not all) 0800 numbers can be accessed from Orange SIMs only.
But Polish Orange prepaid SIMs have voice prompts in Polish only (but before rebranding they had - in English and German!). And voice menus are the only way to turn on/off voicemail and CLIR. Prompts in VM can be set to English anyway, but it requires registering the SIM on the Polish-only website, and can be done only through this website! :P

[andy]

Originally Posted by MATHA531

2. The ability to make calls into long distance cards...of course with lower internal rates that makes this a very desirable way to make international calls....

At the moment, the calling card I use from Vodafone costs me 13p/min to UK landlines; maybe there's a cheaper one I haven't found (several are blocked).

Using this with a different calling card would be 11.3p (I hope the access numbers aren't barred), and actually use the card credit where the Voda credit is redundant when used for 0800 calls, and it would be cheaper to call my brother on Vodafone DE when I visit. A pity I topped up Vodafone in July then (still ?15+ on there) - I may end up with both.

Also I'd like to see cheaper landlines, like the Belgian Simyo.

[Triband81]

Originally Posted by Effendi

Thanks for the info, I just update the German page... I found the official site should be this one: http://www.medionmobile.de/
Aldi is a discount store, a bit like Tchibo, isn't it? I think now Tchibo should lower its prepaid tariff again...

Effendi,

that's the better homepage. Medion and ALDI are tied very closely together on several fronts. ALDI is Germany's leading discounter with LIDL and Plus rounding out the remaining important competitors. Tchibo is Germany's largest coffee store chain and they've entered into other sectors such as their MVNO GSM service and their own line of different products for the home/office environment (clothes, furniture, electronics etc).

Przemolog,

I can only speculate as to the background on why int'l rates remain so expensive. My guess is that these remain unchanged since the MVNOs know that the bulk of their customers will use their cheap rates for domestic purposes only.

[MATHA531]

Originally Posted by Przemolog

"Yes, it's very important and I don't think it's very expensive for service providers to add such a feature. But I think that the reason of implementing voice prompts in local language(s) only may be very simple - to discourage foreigners from buying such a SIM and to rip off them on roaming."

Forgive me but maybe I'm a little dense...I don't understand the last sentence....don't the companies want as much business as possible...why would they care if foreigners buy their sim and how would they be ripping them off on roaming?

[Przemolog]

Originally Posted by MATHA531

Forgive me but maybe I'm a little dense...I don't understand the last sentence....don't the companies want as much business as possible...why would they care if foreigners buy their sim and how would they be ripping them off on roaming?

Sorry for my poor English - maybe that's the reason of misunderstanding .
Here goes what I mean.
If you are going abroad and want to communicate by using a mobile phone, you have 3 basic possibilities:
1) Using a mobile phone from your home country in roaming. You are available under the same number as at home and you don't have to buy a new SIM and to unlock your phone (if it's locked). But you usually pay horrible amounts of money for any service (maybe except for receiving SMSes - usually free everywhere).
2) Buying a local prepaid SIM. You must buy a new SIM in each country and distribute its number to people who are to call you. But you save a lot of money on national calls, incoming calls and you can listen to VM for a national rate (even for free in some networks).
3) Buying an international SIM which a compromise between the two options above.

Now, think what would do if you come to some country and want to save by buying and using a local SIM. You can buy it for a few dollars and most or all money you spent is available as a credit, rates are reasonable, incoming calls are free etc. But you don't understand a word from voice messages and SMSes sent to you by the operator, VM messages are like ancient swahili . And the operator's website is in local language only. All this forces you to use roaming INSTEAD - what means paying huge money to your roaming operator (rates for roaming visitors don't have to be the same as for local users!) and service commision to your home operator. If you used a local SIM instead, you'd simply save too much from the point of view of operators :P.