Germany's Mvno List Grows

[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.