Help with options

[Motel75]

If you can get a landline, Alice offers a flat rate for calls to the US, Canada, and landlines in Europe and a few other countries (www.alice-dsl.de). Combined with unlimited DSL, it costs about 50 euros a month (you can make unlimited calls for this amount). You might find this a cost-effective option, and they don't have fixed contract length, you can cancel service whenever you need to.

[Mephisto]

Originally Posted by Motel75

If you can get a landline, Alice offers a flat rate for calls to the US, Canada, and landlines in Europe and a few other countries (www.alice-dsl.de). Combined with unlimited DSL, it costs about 50 euros a month (you can make unlimited calls for this amount). You might find this a cost-effective option, and they don't have fixed contract length, you can cancel service whenever you need to.

Hello,
will I be able to use my Cell Phone if I get this land line option? That is, will getting this land line help me get lower phone rates on my mobile? Thanks a lot for your help,
Cheers,
Pawel

[Motel75]

Originally Posted by Mephisto

Hello,
will I be able to use my Cell Phone if I get this land line option? That is, will getting this land line help me get lower phone rates on my mobile? Thanks a lot for your help,
Cheers,
Pawel

No, it won't. The Alice flatrate applies only to calls made from a landline (they have some plans that include low-priced mobile calls, but these are within Germany only). Other German mobile flatrates pertain to German numbers only.

The cheapest mobile calling options to Canada are: 01051mobile (5 cents/min but no longer offered, 60/10 billing, i.e., you pay for the first 60 seconds no matter what, and the call is subsequently billed in 10-second increments), Solomo (9 cents/min in 60/1 billing), and Blauworld (9 cents/min in 60/60 billing plus connection charge of 15 cents).

Even without a flatrate, calling from a standard Deutsche Telekom landline to Canada (by selecting the cheapest provider with tariftip.de or billiger-telefonieren.de) usually costs around once cent per minute. So you'd be well advised to place as many calls as you can from a landline and get a cheap international-calling SIM for when you're travelling. 9c/min can add up, but 1c/min rarely does.

[Mephisto]

Thanks for your help so far - does anybody else have ideas on how best to minimize fees for calls between a Canadian land line and a German mobile phone assuming that it doesn't matter which side bears the costs, and that the German mobile could be prepaid or contract or any other option there is?
Cheers,
Pawel

[Motel75]

Originally Posted by Mephisto

Thanks for your help so far - does anybody else have ideas on how best to minimize fees for calls between a Canadian land line and a German mobile phone assuming that it doesn't matter which side bears the costs, and that the German mobile could be prepaid or contract or any other option there is?
Cheers,
Pawel

To recap:

It will almost certainly be cheaper to call the Canadian number from a German mobile than vice versa. All Canadian numbers (landline and mobile) cost the same to call from Germany (Canada uses the recipient-pays model for mobile billing, so any cost for using the mobile is paid by the person receiving the call) whereas calls to German mobiles are usually more expensive than those to German landlines (like most places, Germany uses the caller-pays model for mobile billing; receiving calls within Germany is always free).

The cheapest international calls from Germany are from specialized prepaid SIM cards (01051mobile, solomo, blauworld). International calls from most other mobile phones can be very expensive; almost all prepaid mobile phones charge €2 per minute for all international destinations, and contract phones are usually also quite expensive.

You can call Canada quite cheaply from a landline in Germany, either by using call-by-call from a standard landline (this involves dialing a five- or six-digit code before the number to select the cheapest provider, and you can use one of several internet sites to find out the cheapest at the present moment; it's often one cent or less per minute), by preselecting one of these companies for all your calls to avoid dialing the code), or by selecting a flatrate (offered by Alice and perhaps other companies) in which all the calls to Canada would be free in exchange for a higher monthly fee (the flatrate does not apply to mobile numbers in caller-pays countries, but again, this does not apply to Canada).

As far as cheap calls to German mobile numbers from Canada go, I suspect your best rate would be using a calling card, but perhaps some of our Canadian friends might have another suggestion.

[Mephisto]

Originally Posted by Motel75

To recap:

It will almost certainly be cheaper to call the Canadian number from a German mobile than vice versa. All Canadian numbers (landline and mobile) cost the same to call from Germany (Canada uses the recipient-pays model for mobile billing, so any cost for using the mobile is paid by the person receiving the call) whereas calls to German mobiles are usually more expensive than those to German landlines (like most places, Germany uses the caller-pays model for mobile billing; receiving calls within Germany is always free).

The cheapest international calls from Germany are from specialized prepaid SIM cards (01051mobile, solomo, blauworld). International calls from most other mobile phones can be very expensive; almost all prepaid mobile phones charge €2 per minute for all international destinations, and contract phones are usually also quite expensive.

You can call Canada quite cheaply from a landline in Germany, either by using call-by-call from a standard landline (this involves dialing a five- or six-digit code before the number to select the cheapest provider, and you can use one of several internet sites to find out the cheapest at the present moment; it's often one cent or less per minute), by preselecting one of these companies for all your calls to avoid dialing the code), or by selecting a flatrate (offered by Alice and perhaps other companies) in which all the calls to Canada would be free in exchange for a higher monthly fee (the flatrate does not apply to mobile numbers in caller-pays countries, but again, this does not apply to Canada).

As far as cheap calls to German mobile numbers from Canada go, I suspect your best rate would be using a calling card, but perhaps some of our Canadian friends might have another suggestion.

Hello Motel,
thank you for your very detailed reply; the information you're providing is extremely helpful.
Cheers,
Pawel