My experience in Germany with Alditalk

[tcruiser]

Just got back to the States from a week in Germany. I had a Medionmobile card which I purchased on ebay, which came with 10 euros of time. My phone automatically picked up all settings; I did make a call as recommended in other posts, but as I was already sending and receiving 3g data on the phone it really did not seem necessary.

One thing I noticed that the automatic APN setting was internet.e-plus.de; this setting did not work when I used the sim in my laptop card. For that to work I needed the APN recommended in other posts: internet.eplus.de. So maybe the dash is needed for phones and the other for laptop cards. That could be why some have experienced problems getting data on their phone. I have a Motorola Q9h which is usually a pain to set up but it worked flawlessly for this sim. I was on a Rhine River cruise and had 3G data in all ports except for one smaller town, but had a decent signal on the river and GPRS whenever 3G was not available. Really a good choice of card; many phone stores where it was possible to buy an e-plus top up, even though I have absolutely no German lanugage skills at all. I did notice that the card worked only in Germany; I got nothing in Switzerland, France or the Netherlands, and had to use my US Tmobile sim there. I have a passport plus world sim which I could not get to work anywhere on this trip so am kind of annoyed about that.

[snaimon]

Thanks for the report. Bought on eBay US or DE? And it was Medionmobile and not one of the offshoots like Aldi? So how much did you spend in one week & how much data did you retrieve? Or how much did you use the data portion? Did you need to REGISTER yourself? I bought 2 T-MO cards from eBay DE a long time ago and had to send back registrations. Then I bought a SIMYO online and the online purchase serves as a registration. Then I bough a SUNSIM online and same thing.

Not surprised you had not data roaming elsewhere. Maybe our German friends will comment, but I believe that is fairly standard. e-plus does not service and cannot be received in the other countries expect perhaps very near the border with DE-land.

I have had my MDA there, but never set it up for data. I have never taken a laptop over there. Several reasons for me, including just one more thing to keep track of and not lose.

Somewhat OT....... The expiration date on the credit card I used to purchase the SIMYO card about 3 years ago was closing in and they kept sending me emails telling me to update my records. Well, I could not do it -- it never "took". I had complained via email that SIMYO would not allow me to update my credit card info with any of my VISA cards; even talked to customer care and they were powerless. They said the card had to be a German-based credit card. I later tried my US-based AMEX card and that took.

Merry Christmas.

Stan

[razfaz]

Roaming in all of Europe (and beyond) is activated automatically when activating/registering the card on the internet. It may take a while, but it works.

[snaimon]

Yes, for voice that is clear, but does the automatic roaming apply also to DATA?

[wolfgang]

Originally Posted by snaimon

Yes, for voice that is clear, but does the automatic roaming apply also to DATA?

I don't know an e-plus SIM (Mediononline is e-plus reseller) working outside Germany for data. As far as I know this is only offered by T-Mobil and Vodafone and for it's really expensive it makes no sense for "Non-Germans".

[razfaz]

Originally Posted by wolfgang

I don't know an e-plus SIM (Mediononline is e-plus reseller) working outside Germany for data.

Me neither, would be far to expensive anyway.

[tcruiser]

Originally Posted by snaimon

Thanks for the report. Bought on eBay US or DE? And it was Medionmobile and not one of the offshoots like Aldi? So how much did you spend in one week & how much data did you retrieve? Or how much did you use the data portion? Did you need to REGISTER yourself?

I searched for the card on US ebay but it came up as a DE listing. The brochure which came with the card says 'Aldi talk mit dem MEDIONmobile'. I made a few calls to the US which didn't cost much but mainly I used the card in the laptop as I run my own business and have to be connected all the time. The data cost was a maximum of 15 euros a day; I probably used about 50 euros on data but am not certain how much data I was using. I am pretty certain that I was hitting the maximum only because I was using it on my laptop. Did not need to register the card at all, and the best thing about it was being able to just get an e-plus top-up voucher whenever I started to run low; none of the issues of dealing with a non-German credit card. I was wondering if the requirement for a credit card could be circumvented by getting a pre-paid card; I'm not certain where you can buy one in Germany but they're supposed to be the same as a regular credit card, so maybe it would work for topping up SIMs.