SIM card for Germany, Austria, and Swiss

[pb111222333]

I will be in Germany in a few days an am going to take my Nexus One with me. I want to get a pre-paid card, for DATA only. I wont be making any calls, but will be using Data for text (Google Voice) and for GPS (Google Maps).

Any recommendations on what my best option would be?

I was considering Vodafone, but I dont really know. I saw their plans were 1 euro a day for 5mb of DATA... that's not very much!

Any input would be awesome.

Thanks,
Levi

[inquisitor]

You won't find a single SIM card enabling affordable data use in all three countries. For Germany the usual recommendation is Lidl (for detailed info see this wiki and the Lidl thread on this forum.
Depending on how much data you need in Switzerland I would either recommend Swisscom's "Natel Easy BeFree" (CHF 4/day for unlimited data) or ok,- mobile (300MB for CHF 7/month or 1GB for CHF 15/month). The latter are sold by most "k kiosks" scattered all over Switzerland (including airports and train stations).
As of Austria hopefully another forum member will be able to advise you. However it may help if you provided an indication of your expected data demand.

[pb111222333]

I'm not sure how much data I'll be using. I think Lidl's 15 euro a month for 5GB is pretty good.

I'm not sure about getting a different carrier for each country. I'm only going to be in Switzerland for 3 days... I dont want to pay 5 francs for a SIM card and then load it up with 10 francs, only to use 3 of them.

I'm going to be in Austria for 3 days as well. Do I really need to get a new SIM card from a different carrier? Does Lidl not offer roaming capabilities?

Thanks again.

[inquisitor]

Data roaming with Lidl would cost € 1.50/MB in Austria and € 12.00/MB in Switzerland. Given these rates a separate SIM for each country would quickly pay off.

If you activated the 500MB data pack with Lidl you would automatically benefit from the "EU Internet-Tages-Pack" which applies in EU countries (so not in Switzerland as it is no part of the EU) and gives you 10MB for € 3/day (afterwards you get disconnected until midnight).
Unfortunately this "EU Internet-Tages-Pack" is only available in combination with the 500MB-pack. If you activate any other data option (even the bigger 5GB pack) you will be stuck to the volume-based tariffs given above.

[pb111222333]

Okay, so it makes the most sense to get one in each.

When I go into a Lidl store, is there a specific section of the store I need to go to? Are the SIM cards up near the cash register?

Thanks again for all your help.

[inquisitor]

You need to ask the cashier for a "Lidl SIM-Karte". They usually do only have recharge vouchers (for Lidl and several other operators) on display but not the actual SIM cards.