SIM for travel to Germany, Bulgaria and others

[eurouser]

Having let my Ortel SIM expire and having my Solomo SIM join my collection of SIM's from bankrupt carriers, I now need a new SIM card. In the past I have only needed voice communications and that remains my primary concern, but if data rates have become very affordable, I might be interested in data this time.

I travel to the EU from the USA, my base of operation in the EU is Germany, but I always travel to several other countries in the EU during my visits. I visit a couple of times a year and stay for two or three weeks each visit. I carry a laptop and need Internet, which I usually have included in my accommodations, but it has sometimes been inconveniently absent on the road, although I can always find wireless in a cafe in any business district, thus I am not willing to pay much for data.

This is my first visit since Solomo went belly up. I will be visiting Germany and Bulgaria (Sunny Beach area) on this trip and so my current interest is mainly for communications in these countries.

My calling pattern is mostly incoming calls from the USA and I originate very few calls. When I originate a call it is to numbers in the locality where I am staying or to Germany and the USA. I absolutely need to have reliable communications. I am required to be available 24/7 wherever I go, so an unreliable network is a no go. In the past I have carried two phones on two carriers to insure I am available. I am not sure that is still necessary, but I can do that if needed.

I am looking for advice on the best card to get for my usage as described above. Thank you!

[eurouser]

By the way, I did read the recent post by kuba.g "Bulgaria mobile internet sim card" , but since I don't know if and when I will return to Bulgaria after this trip I was wondering if there was a card that would be more useful for me, especially in light of my need for a new Germany based card.

[dg7feq]

Well, not so easy to answer. For voice communication all networks here are equally good, if you want to be secured of bad surprises just stick with the carriers themself and not 3rd party SIM-cards. As you said you are not placing many calls this will not make much of a difference.
As Bulgaria is in the regulated EU-rate any german card will charge you 9ct/min for inbound calls (rounded by the second).

Data is a completely different story, there i am not the expert, maybe some other members of the community have some smart suggestions.

Chris