Best Pre-Paid Data Plan For a Visit To Germany?

code prole writes "With two upcoming trips to Germany, and no readily available Internet (Wi-Fi or otherwise) in the location where we'll be staying, I'm looking for a no-contract USB stick and pre-paid data plan. Vodafone has a huge selection of USB sticks but has proven to be unresponsive to questions about data plans. And the US-based T-Mobile Help Center was clueless about getting the device in Europe and using it there. Hopefully the Slashdot community has some suggestions. Any duds to avoid?"

Comments

I recommend blau.de

[pleumann]

They have good pricing for telephony and internet access, and their website is easy to use.

OMG - first post? :)

Re:I recommend blau.de

[ducomputergeek]

If you're dead set on it, first place to visit after you land and go through customers is the Vodophone and T-Mobile store at the airport or at the main train station. I've used Vodophone for years when traveling in Germany. But I'm not sure what their data charges are as I've only gotten prepaid phones.

Re:I recommend blau.de

[quadrox]

I tried getting a vodaphone callya (debitel) prepaid card - the phone and sms part works, but it refuses to do any data, although that is supposed to be included.

I suspect that is because I have a HTC hero, which apparently is not supported very well by vodaphone (i.e. you can't pick it when you're supposed to select your phone model on their website).

Re:I recommend blau.de

[carp3_noct3m]

I spent a month in Germany not too long ago and i got both vodaphone and blau cards but i really preferred the blau card and this was on my blackberry, as if i would ever pay the crazy ass rates att wants, pfff. As a matter of fact I still have it in one of my spare phones (gave my number to some peoples while I was there)

Re:I recommend blau.de

[idji]

simyo is 24c/MB so not cheap.
Vodafone is no-contract, 19,99€ upfront and prepaid 15min/2h/24h/7days, where 7 days= 7,99€ for max 1GB

Re:I recommend blau.de

[Weezul]

Just check their frequencies :

http://www.prepaidgsm.net/en/germany.html

Re:I recommend blau.de

[bemymonkey]

Or Tchibo. Similar pricing scheme (buy 1GB at a time and use it as you please... pretty cool) and on o2 (HSDPA coverage isn't bad, with downloads regularly hitting a constant 400-500KB/s).

Re:I recommend blau.de

[weeeeed]

Yeah, blau.de is pretty good. But you will need internet access and some basic german skills to activate the card on their website.

100mb/30 days: EUR 3.90, activate by calling 1155 and pressing 8,1,4,1

1Gb/30 days: EUR9.90, 1155 and press 8,1,2,1

Unlimited/30 days: EUR19.90, dial 1155, press 8,1,3,1

All plans auto-extend the next month, to disable dial 1155 and press 8,2,1

APN: internet.eplus.de
Username: blau
Password: blau

Re:I recommend blau.de

[lennier1]

Great summary but please don't forget to mention that the "unlimited" plan contains 5GB per month at 3G speed.
After that it's limited to GPRS. Same situation with the 1GB data plan. A common measure on many networks.

Voice call minutes are deducted separately from the prepaid credits but blau actually has fairly good rates.

Re:I recommend blau.de

[SomeKDEUser]

I feel your pain. Arriving from Europe, I still have not got a mobile in Canada: the fees are outrageous. Never mind data, in Europe, you can get cheap prepaid for just voice and SMS that have an expiry of 6 month after the last call and are really cheap, too.

Apparently, here, "prepaid" really means "slightly cheaper contract (add money every month, or your balance goes to 0), with outrageous fees, but hey, you also get to buy a new phone from us, which we made crappy with useless addons".

I absolutely hate that I cannot buy my own phone and put any SIM in it. I despise the fact that the rates are so bad that SATELLITE PHONE is competitive with, say, rogers. Seriously, look it up. Of course, the antennas are large, and you don't get coverage in buildings -- but at least the global coverage is good.

Basically, I am angry. And I have concluded that obviously whatever organisation is in charge of breaking cartels in Canada is obviously defective.

Re:I recommend blau.de

[egghat]

Blau.de is an ePlus reseller and ePlus is the slowest network in Germany. A lot of areas are still EDGE, many are normal speed UMTS (384kbit/s) and only a few are UMTS/3G. A kind of "official" reseller of eplus is called Simyo. They offer 1 Gig data for € 9,95 valif for a month. If the gig is used up just buy a new card for 10 Euros. No plan whatsover.

o2 is the second of the two smaller providers in Germany. Their coverage ist a bit worse than that of eplus, but in urban areas their network is usuallly faster. o2 has a prepaid plan as well called Fonic. Their rate is 2,50 Euros per day. USB stick costs 60 Euros.

Vodafone and T-Mobile are the two big providers and usually offer the best network coverage and best speed. But they are more expensive. A day with a maximum of 1 Gb costs 4,95 Euros (Vodafone Websessions) or 4,95 ;-) (T-Mobile Websessions). Vodafone has 7 days with 1 Gb data for 9,95 as well.

USB sticks should be no problem. If you buy one at the phone store you'll get them some Euros cheaper, but in most cases they will have a simlock, but you can go to an electronics store and buy one without a simlock. That should be the easiest part ...

After a short check there are no pages in English on their websites (vodafone.nl has them).

Blau

[uigin]

I find http://www.blau.de/ quite good. Aldi (http://www.aldi-nord.de/aldi_aldi_talk_95.html) are also good.

Dude, you're in central Europe

[buchner.johannes]

Just find a open WLAN and use that ...

http://start.freifunk.net/
http://www.hotspot-locations.com/modules.php?name=HotSpots&op=hotspot_query&hsl_countryhs=2DE&hs_state=&hs_city=&hs_operator=&hsl_type=&hs_access_box=on&search=Search

Re:Dude, you're in central Europe

[nacturation]

Just find a open WLAN and use that ...

What a great idea. From the fine summary: "and no readily available Internet (WiFi or otherwise) in the location where we'll be staying".

Re:Internet cafe's

[uigin]

Actually very few places in Germany have free Wifi. The going rate is €8 per hour! (If you are asking about it, they call it Wlan)

I agree about waiting until you arrive though. I think you'll have a lot of problems buying before you travel unless you sign up for a special tourist phone network that costs an outrageous amount.

Dave.

Re:Avoid non-carrier providers!

[rolfwind]

Nice thing about T-mobile is that if you have a locked phone on their network in the US, you can use a prepaid or regular sim by them over there in same phone. I have tried this and it works.

Fonic

[stefanb]

First T-Mobile USA has very little to do with T-Mobile Germany, except having the same owner. In fact, there's rumors that Deutsche Telekom wants to divest of T-Mobile USA, similarly to what the recently did in the UK. My experience has been that T-Mobile USA don't really care what's going on elsewhere in the world.

Fonic is a service brand of O2 Germany (owned by Telefonica), offering pay as you go prepaid services, both voice and data. Their data offering is 2.50 Euros per calendar day, for a maximum of 1 GB transfer volume. O2's UMTS network offers HSUPA with up to 3.6Mbps down, 384 kbps up. Their coverage tends to be concentrated in urban areas; rural areas might have no coverage. If you exceed the transfer volume, speed will be limited to 64kbps for that day. Adding credit to the account can be done through credit card, direct debit from a German bank account, or by purchasing vouchers available at many stores. The sell a USB data stick for 60 Euros.

There's a couple more offerings, but most come with additional strings attached. With any offering, you technically will need a residency permit in the EU, with appropriate paperwork; some shops are less stringent than others. If you do have friends in Germany, have them order the package online in advance. You might want to get a seperate prepaid SIM for voice service as well, instead of international roaming.

Finally, if you do have friends living in Germany, ask them if their DSL or cable provider has good deals on package extensions for mobile data options. For example, Alice offers up to ten SIM cards for free, and has a 6 Euro per month data option available. Billing would go to whomever is paying for the DSL/Cable.

Finally, have fun!

Re:Avoid non-carrier providers!

[stefanb]

I would only consider Vodafone and T-Mobile as your options, these two have established cell networks, all the others borrow on these networks and as such tend to be at the bottom of the traffic prioritization.

Nonsense. There's four network operators in Germany: T-Mobile, Vodafone, E-Plus, and O2 Germany. While T-Mobile and Vodafone have a larger buildout (higher density, more towers in rural areas), E-Plus and O2 are not that far behind. I find that O2's network works really well in cities, with no noticable degradation compared to T-Mobile.

All four operators have their own "value" brands, and there's a couple of MVNOs, and as far as I can tell, no priorisation is in effect for any user. If you do have coverage, chances are that you will have excellent throughput. Nothing like certain US operators...

Voda or T-Mobile

[hart]

T-Mobile have hotspots all over the place (cafe's, hotels, etc) and at €29 for a month's access (pre-paid, sign up online at any hot spot) you can't beat the price. If you are absolutely certain that no wifi is available where you're going then the previous posters advice of visiting a Vodafone or T-Mobile shop when you land is spot on - both have very good networks in Germany. You can't beat the price of buying local when you arrive! Vodafone USB stick without contract: http://translate.google.com/translate?js=y&prev=_t&hl=en&ie=UTF-8&layout=2&eotf=1&u=http%3A%2F%2Fshop.vodafone.de%2FShop%2Fpicknmix%2Fchoose_callya_tariff.jsp%3FpropositionId%3Dprod233554&sl=de&tl=en T-Mobile: http://translate.google.com/translate?hl=en&sl=de&tl=en&u=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.t-mobile.de%2Fmobiles-internet%2Fmit-dem-notebook%2F0%2C20338%2C23098-_%2C00.html

A list of prepaid providers

[poszi]

Available here. Some have decent data plans (30-month unlimited GPRS, first 5GB on HSDPA is available in O2). You will need an unlocked GSM phone and buy a SIM card in Germany.

Re:Avoid non-carrier providers!

[okock]

+1: If you're within cities, it generally doesn't matter, which network you use. I've learnt that Vodafone and T-Mobile are the more expensive solutions and generally like to sell you sim-locked devices.

I'm quite happy with a cheapo-solution, using a (non-sim-lock) stick and prepaid plan from "Aldi", one of the nation wide supermarket chains. Stick: ~50€, monthly flatrate: ~15€ (careful: if you've got enough money prepaid and not cancelled the monthly flatrate, it's automatically continued the next month) or ~2 or 3 € per day. They say to limit the speed from 5GB (monthly) or 1GB (daily) on. This is a resold "E-Plus" network access.

Windows "wizard" software is provided on the stick. Access also works well with Ubuntu "Karmic Koala" (without the windows software, of course).

Information Resources

[chess]

Coverage:
http://www.t-mobile.de/funkversorgung/inland/
http://netmap.vodafone.de/cover4internet/index.jsp?appprofile=UMTS-Maps
http://www.o2online.de/nw/support/mobilfunk/netz/index.html
http://eis03sn1.eplus-online.de/evportal/portal/umts

Speed:
T-Mobile, Vodaphone have HSDPA 7.2Gb/s, O2 has HSDPA 3.6Gb/s, Eplus has 384Mb/s (UMTS)

Price:
http://www.teltarif.de/mobilfunk/datenrechner.html

As you are only interested in Prepaid, use this link and change the amount of Mb per month at the end of the URL from 310 to what you need:
http://www.teltarif.de/db/res-mobildaten.html?prepaid=1&von=Heimatnetz&mb=310

Can you read German? If so, look here:
http://www.teltarif.de/mobilfunk/

For news like this:
http://www.teltarif.de/tchibo-surfstick-30-euro/news/37951.html

Join Fon or buy your connectivity here in Germany

[Qbertino]

Join Fon if you can determine that there's a Fonspot near where you're staying or get your connectivity here in Germany. There are multiple Phoneshops in every street of every city and town here, the hassle will be much less than if you try to get german connectivity in the US. Most people speak usable english here, so you'll have no trouble negotiating in a Phoneshop.

If Fon isn't an option I'd try and find out if there is a T-Mobile WiFi Hotspot near where you're staying (probably is) and get a Flatrate code for a month or so. T-M. Hotspot had that sort of thing a few years ago - you'd buy a card with a code which, once activated, you could use for a month. They probably still have simular offers - iirc you can purchase them directly at the T-Mobile webshop.

Bottom line: If Fon isn't an option, don't worry and just come over here, you'll get your daily internet fix one way or the other.

aldi?

[zzg]

http://www.billiger-telefonieren.de/aldi-surfstick-flatrate-webstick/

Sorry, link is in german, maybe babelfish will help out.

I have the austrian "hofer" equivalent, which is a pure data prepaid. It seems to work slightly differently in germany, where it's an addition to a prepaid voice sim. I'd acctually prefer the german style, but oh well.

I'd recommend combining it with a S60(or Maemo) Joikuspot compatible handset, that way you can use the voice part as well.

Try Aldi

[seaton carew]

Cheap, no contract, available over the counter almost everywhere as a SIM only or including dongle:
http://www.medionmobile.de/index3.htm

Enjoy the trip!

Re:Internet cafe's

[postbigbang]

Uh, no.

I had no difficulities going thru major cities in Germany this month, and getting free WiFi. The nicest place was the Corkokian Irish Bar south of the Dom in Cologne. Drink Guinness (or coffee) whilst getting blisteringly fast 802.11n. Free.

Small towns might not have it, and most APs actually have minimal security on them. Not that we want to crack that. Seriously, there's sufficient free WiFi to prevent getting soaked tethering to some horrible data plan. Save yourself the Euros and wing it. Use WireShark, iStumbler, or your favorite wetted-finger-in-the-air AP spotter.