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pre paid micro sim in europe

A

abbeyswihart

macrumors newbie
Original poster
Dec 3, 2011
1
0
hello everyone

i am traveling to europe (germany, czech republic and austria) for around two weeks in a couple months and would like to have my game plan for my phone set.

after doing some research on google,
i believe there are a couple of ways i could go about international use.

FYI i have an unlocked iphone 4s.
Plan A: i could order a micro sim from http://www.telestial.com/ or http://www.onesimcard.com/ i don't really know how dependable these websites are, the only benefit i see is that they will send it to my us address. but they seem somewhat odd to me

Plan B: i could buy a micro sim cutter and just buy prepaid sims over in europe, but i am not familiar with how/where to get these and how they work, as far as data or which carriers are the best

Plan C. i could use AT&T's catastrophically expensive data plan (for a college student that is) another FYI this is my last plan for a reason.

So does anyone have any experience with this? i am looking for the cheapest and most dependable data is not a huge factor but would be nice!
please let me know!
thank you :)
 
Wirelessly posted (Mozilla/5.0 (iPhone; CPU iPhone OS 5_0_1 like Mac OS X) AppleWebKit/534.46 (KHTML, like Gecko) Version/5.1 Mobile/9A405 Safari/7534.48.3)

Plan b! Prepaid sims are very common!
 
With an unlocked iPhone DEFINITELY NOT plan C. I was in Germany and Ireland in 2011 and just walked into the nearest store advertising iPhones (so I know they have the prepaid microsim) and bought them there. A month abroad cost around 30 bucks.
 
Don't sweat this.

When you land at your first European airport, find a telco shop in the airport shops, buy the micro SIM and some "time"on the network, install the SIM in your phone and you are good to go.

I used Orange, but there are other options.
 
I was in germany this summer for 2 months. I just went to 02 and got a prepaid USB 3G internet stick. It was only 15 euros for the internet stick +5 days of unlimited data (1gb a day, after 1GB you get a speed cap).
Then I popped the sim card from the internet stick into the 3Gs I had with me.
No problems. I could make phone calls, use internet, text etc.
They have amazing prepaid rates there. After my 5 days was up I think I paid 25euro for a month of data (6gb), phone service (unlimited calling to other 02) and unlimited text.
 
VPrime said:
I was in germany this summer for 2 months. I just went to 02 and got a prepaid USB 3G internet stick. It was only 15 euros for the internet stick +5 days of unlimited data (1gb a day, after 1GB you get a speed cap).
Then I popped the sim card from the internet stick into the 3Gs I had with me.
No problems. I could make phone calls, use internet, text etc.
They have amazing prepaid rates there. After my 5 days was up I think I paid 25euro for a month of data (6gb), phone service (unlimited calling to other 02) and unlimited text.
Click to expand...


Yeah, we got great prepaid deals actually! :)
For 30euros a month you can get unlimited data (how many MB/GB's doesn't matter), free texts, free calls within the same operator and very cheap calls to other networks, the only downside is you gotta refill it every 30days to maintain that. Still, for me for example which uses everything, i always end up having 25euros left after 30days that i can use even if i don't fill it up within 30days, it's just that the rate and the cost to do things is much more expensive when you haven't filled it up.

So for me, i always end up having loads of money on my prepaid because you never reach to the bottom of the money you spent hehe.. which is great, and far cheaper than any bills coming from an operator for many..


I guess it's because the operators gets their money first and not after.. who doesn't like to get their money first ;)
 
I use my phone all day so i have a plan with Telekom but when you come you should definitely go with a prepaid card purchased local. For 30€ you can get a months unlimited data loaded on the card and maybe place another 15€ on the card to use for a phone.

The biggest thing though is that the data will not work unlimited when in Austria or Czech if you buy the card in Germany. Well it will work but it will be outside of the unlimited territory and you will pay dearly for it. It would probably cost you 8€ just to load a google map of the area you are in and check your mail one time.

The phone portion while outside of Germany will cost you .29€ per minute when you make a call which is not bad if your just calling places very quickly for reservations and what not.

It really depends how long you will be in each country. Buy the sim for wherever you are the longest. If Germany is your main place buy the sim here and if your just doing a weekend in Prague you really do not need the internet there on your phone. Your hotel will most likely have wifi and you can load maps up and do business from there.
 
Plan B.

You can get a SIM card from discounter supermakets like LIDL, ALDI, Real, Kaufland etc. or from electronics discounter shops like Media Markt or Saturn.

These are really everywhere.

Example "ALDI TALK" from ALDI:

The "Starter Set" costs €13 and includes the SIM card and €10 credit.

Phone call costs inside Germany (per minute) or a text:

to "ALDI TALK": €0.03
to other carriers: €0.11

Phone call costs from Germany to other european countries and North America (per minute):

Landline: €0.12
Mobile carriers: €0.29
Text: €0.13

Internet costs €0.24 per MB, so if you're planning to use internet buy the internet flatrate for €7.99 per month.

They also offer a 7-day "free" 60 min phone calls / 60 MB internet package if you're in a EU country outside Germany for €4.99 each.
 
I recommend reading over at Prepidgsm forums.

In Germany, personally I use Fonic. Great calling and data rates.
 
Orange PrePaid Card- is it any good?

Hi,

I’m thinking about getting this card offer I saw in compareprepaid.co.uk. It is an exclusive offer from the web but I’d like to ask for some feedback first: Have you tried it? Is it as good as it sounds?

Orange prepaid card is offering cash conscious consumers when they apply for an Orange Cash card a refund on their £5 application fee when they load £20 onto their account by February 29th, 2012.

Let me know please, cheers!
 
Prague

What is best place to buy a micro sim card for iPad and also for iPhone in Prague?
 
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