Ok am off to germany in 2 months, any german members have any advice on the best pre pay sim cards, ie call charges, coverage and rates to the uk, am off to berlin if that helps?

I believe it has been discussed here a number of times. You may want to search the forums.

They say 900 is better than 1800 overall. If you are in large cities, it probably won't matter. I don't hink you are going to find bargain rates to the UK on cell phones. Try a calling card or call thrus.

PERSONALLY, I might go with Pennymobile (D1) 15 cents or next ALDI (E+) and 15 cents or SIMYO or BLAU (both E+), in that order -- for domestic German rates. But that may not matter.

Wait for the Germans to answer or search the forum.

Stan

In Berlin all providers have 100% coverage - most even trough the whole subway system.

So you can basically choose any card. Remind that the original provider cards mostly have longer validity-periods (but much higher rates) than the "discount" cards if you want to keep the card for further stays.

Rates to the UK direct are shocking high - except blauworld.de cards which "only" cost 0.99 Euro/min compared with 1.99 Euro/min with the other cards.

For calling the UK get a callingcard that can also be accessed from mobiles and public phones. (I'm sure someone here has a hint for him as i dont use calling cards in germany myself).

Chris

I think your concerns have been addressed, but it depends what you're looking for. If you're going to make a lot of calls within Germany, you should consider one of the discount chains' SIMs, namely Aldi Talk, Penny, etc., which have per-minute prices of about 15 cents.

However, if you just want to be reachable, don't plan on calling much within Germany, and want a card that you can keep for return visits, you might prefer one from the networks themselves, specifically Vodafone, T-Mobile, or O2, all of which last 15 months or so, are easy to top up in the UK to keep them going, and for which you can create an internet account to monitor. (E-Plus is the fourth network, but topping up can be more difficult in the UK, as it is not present there and does not belong to an alliance.)

Topping up the discounters' accounts from outside Germany will be difficult, although Aldi Talk can be extended to two years' validity by topping up with 15 euros after buying it. AFAIK, none of the discounters offer Internet accounts, and topping up with a credit card is not possible with any German mobile (except for Simyo, and then it has to be a German card).

Coverage is a non-issue for visitors, as all networks are pretty similar.

Note that all international calls from all SIMs (with the sole exception mentioned above) cost an outrageous 2 EUR, a rate that hasn't changed since prepaid was introduced nine years ago. Data rates are also among the highest in the world. Your UK mobile will probably offer cheaper calls back to the UK than your German SIM will, and probably better data rates as well (Virgin Mobile does, for example).

I've used Vodafone DE SIM with an Alpha Telecom account, mainly because my brother in Germany is on Vodafone and he could check the 0800 access number (others are barred). 13p a minute to UK landlines

If starting now I'd probably go for Aldi or similar with a Bizon calling card to call UK.

But actually, using one of the global SIMs with other callback is a bit cheaper for landlines

ok ta for info, looks like its a tough call about what prepay sim card to get....btw just one last thing, does germany use the same wall plugs as the czech rep?

German electrical outlets have a rounded 2-prong setup. One prong is on the left and the other is on the right.

http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedi.../Steckdose.jpg

looks like it will work, ta for that everyone

might be interesting -

Simyo just cut the start-up price of the SIM to ?9.95 with ?10 of calls at 16c, until mid-August