[inquisitor]

Originally Posted by Lucy

We are going in July for another month. Now, after a bit of checking on this site, I think I should get a second Tchibo (my travel partner and I were switching the device between our 2 computers and decided this year to splurge). So we need to buy a month's connect time for the old Tchibo and will get a month's time with the new one. Do you agree that the new device should be a Tchibo?

Generally you could also buy a 3G/WiFi-router, in which you would plug in your Tchibo stick and then share it's internet connection through WiFi with all your computers. But since these routers run at € 50 (e.g. Edimax 3G-6200n), while Tchibo currently sell their "Internet Stick" for just € 19.95 including one month of free internet access, a second stick from Tchibo would be cheaper and more flexible. Unforunately this promotional offer includes just the "Internet Flatrate L" (€ 9.95/month), which is being throttled after exceeding 500MB of data transfered, instead of the "Internet Flatrate XL" (€ 19.95/month) with an allowance of 5000MB before throttling. And I'm not sure if you can somehow switch to the "Internet Flatrate XL" during the first month, in which the "Internet Flatrate L" will already be activated automatically.

Tchibo SIMs remain active for 12 months after your last recharge (not "use"!), so the SIM of your old stick is probably approaching it's deadline. If it has already been deactivated you will notice this by the modem not registering to the network. In this case you would need to buy a new Tchibo SIM, which currently costs € 1.
In order to (re-)subscribe to the data flatrate you need to buy a top up voucher (for Tchibo you can also buy vouchers from O2, which are widely available), redeem that voucher so you have enough credit (at least € 20) and order the "Internet Flatrate XL" as described at Germany - Tchibo - Prepaid Wireless Internet Access

On the cell phone, the only problem with Fonic was finding a place to get a more-minutes card. Nobody had them. I think we didn't understand it didn't have to be called "Fonic" but could be the company that runs the network it uses. Is that right?

While Tchibo can be topped up with vouchers from the underlying network (O2), Fonic accept only their own vouchers, which are a bit more difficult to get. You can search for a dealer at http://www.fonic.de/html/filialfinder.html
But see the "where to buy" section at http://prepaid-wireless-internet-acc...ermany+-+Fonic as some dealers carry only new SIM cards but no topup vouchers.

When we arrive in Germany, our numbers will have been used last 11 months before. Are they still good?

As mentioned above your Tchibo SIM is close to expiry, but your Fonic SIMs should be fine, except for the remaining credit which has been blocked 6 months after your last recharge, but which can be released by adding credit. That also implies that as your credit with Fonic is temporarily frozen you can't place outgoing calls as long as you don't recharge your SIMs.

Do we just buy minutes?

You don't buy minutes, but credit in €, from which the charges for all your usage will be deducted. You can check your remaining credit by entering *101# [pick up] into your phone, after which it should display the corresponding amount. That should actually work even from the US if the Fonic SIM is put into a tri- or quadband phone supporting US frequencies, so it can find an American network for roaming.

(Where?)

Germany - Fonic - Prepaid Wireless Internet Access

or do you now advise us to get a vendor other than Fonic? It doesn't matter if we change phone numbers.

No, Fonic is still great value. Their tariffs for oversea calls have not been undercut by other operators yet.

We will be traveling in Croatia and Italy and would like to be able to do roaming with the mobile phones.

Roaming with Fonic will work in whole Europe by default. But be aware, that Croatia is not part of the EU and so the EU cap for roaming fees does not apply when roaming there.

In Italy you will be charged:
€ 0,46/min for calls within the EU,
€ 1,29/min for calls to the US,
€ 0,17/min for incoming calls,
€ 0,13 for text messages within the EU and
€ 0,39 for text messages to the rest of the world.

In Croatia tarrifs are
€ 1,29/min for calls to the EU,
€ 1,49/min for calls to the US,
€ 0,69/min for incoming calls and
€ 0,39 for all text messages

And don't even think about using data abroad - a single Megabyte would cost € 5 in Italy and € 14 in Croatia, no matter if you use Tchibo or Fonic.

So if you guys call each other in Italy the total price per minute would be € 0,46 + € 0,17 = € 0,63/min and in Croatia € 1,29 + 0,69 = € 1,98/min. If you plan to talk longer than 5 mnutes to each other in Croatia, better look for local SIMs!