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Three years on, many people do not realize how good the otelo prepaid card has become.

Although the €20 otelo sim card purchase price is more expensive than most other cards, an otelo sim card also has a €20 monthly flatrate "speech option" which can easily be cancelled/restarted. Best of all, the flatrate option does not require a german credit card or bank account, and otelo uses the higher quality vodafone network.

For tourists who want to make long international calls to friends and relatives back home, the otelo flatrate option may initially appear to be more expensive than other cards but the beauty of this option is that it allows people to make very cheap international calls via call-through companies, sometimes for fractions of a cent per minute.

The otelo flatrate "speech option", however, may not be perfect for everyone because it does not include any monthly data or SMS allowances.

There are two kinds of otelo cards:

1. "Genuine" (or "original") otelo cards obtained directly from vodafone
2. "Other" otelo cards sold/resold by card providers such as Debitel, Mobilcom, Drillisch, The Phone House

Visually, both kinds of otelo card appear to be identical. They are both simply called, "otelo".

Purchasing an otelo card is easy in Germany:

1. "Genuine" otelo cards can be bought in vodafone shops, or, if you have have a german address and bank account, online at otelo.de
2. The "Other" otelo cards are sold in supermarkets and electrical superstores like Saturn, MediaMarkt, etc, and are very common on ebay.de

Both types of otelo cards can be topped up using "otelo vouchers", bank standing orders, etc. Genuine cards, however, can also be topped up using vodafone "CallYa" vouchers, as well as by direct (international) bank payments to vodafone. A Genuine card has additional access to the vodafone portal. Think of it as a special kind of CallYa prepaid card.