Swiss Airline launches Swiss-Mobile

[hrgajek]

Swiss Airline launches a roaming SIM Card, which can be bought online or in duty free shops on Swiss Airports.

https://www.swiss.com/de/en/book/swi...e/swiss-mobile

Swiss-Mobile has nothing to do with incumbent Swisscom-Mobile.
Tarifs are lower than Swisscom.

Mobile Number is coming from the UK (don't know which Provider)

Buying Price: 29.90 CHF (about 30 US$) including 20 CHF starting credit

Minutes starting with 0.14 CHF or 0.10 CHF per MB

Incoming free in 50 countries.

SWISS Mobile Europe

Data volume Price
100 MB / 30 days - CHF 9.00
200 MB / 30 days - CHF 17.00
500 MB / 30 days - CHF 39.00

SWISS Mobile USA

Data volume Price
100 MB / 30 days - CHF 19.00
250 MB / 30 days - CHF 39.00

SWISS Mobile South Africa

Data volume Price
100 MB / 30 days - CHF 9.00
200 MB / 30 days - CHF 17.00
500 MB / 30 days - CHF 39.00

[gkeeper]

Sounds a good deal, but i cannot seem to find much info on the site i.e T&Cs or user guide, any links to info would be appreciated.

[Marschel]

Launched yesterday. The SWISS Mobile SIM card costs CHF 29.90. This price includes a starting credit of CHF 20.-. The card is available from the Onlineshop or from 1th November by SWISS Duty Free Sales on board.

• Make phone calls and surf at the lowest roaming charges in over 180 countries:
  from CHF 0.14 / minute and CHF 0.10 / MB in any EU country, South Africa and Australia
• Free incoming calls from over 50 countries
• Minimum top-up amount is CHF 20.00 (according their FAQ's (PDF))

Additional data packages:

[tux]

From the rates page:

SWISS Mobile provided by NAKA Ltd

Website: http://www.nakamobile.com/

[inquisitor]

This time our friends from United Mobile have put a lot of efforts to hide their identity.

That NAKA AG in Buchs (coincidentially located just next to Liechtenstein) is registered with the Swiss company register as a branch (see http://www.moneyhouse.ch/u/a/naka_ag....073.864-2.htm) of NAKA AG located in Sirnach (Thurgau) (see: http://www.moneyhouse.ch/u/naka_ag_C....026.773-4.htm). NAKA AG is managed and officially owned by two nominees, namely by a lady called Antia Eugster and Christoph Reuss, both employees of an escrow agent company called Thalmann Treuhand AG.

Against this background and given the track record of the people behind United Mobile and the also failed attempt of at least one of them (Cornelis Swart) with FreeTimeTelecom you should definitely think twice before getting a Swiss Mobile SIM card. I'm surprised to see that Swiss (the airline) are giving their name for this product.

[rfranzq]

Originally Posted by inquisitor

This time our friends from United Mobile have put a lot of efforts to hide their identity.

That NAKA AG in Buchs (coincidentially located just next to Liechtenstein) is registered with the Swiss company register as a branch.....

Thanks for doing the research. I had gone to the website and looked at the map and saw that their location seemed to be almost "across the street" from Vaduz. I had wondered if that was a coincidence.

[hrgajek]

Heard the Name of the Former CFO of UI in Relation with NAKA...


73 & 55 Henning
Gesendet von meinem iPhone 4 mit Tapatalk

[inquisitor]

Actually there are a couple of hints on the web that Achilles Rupf is behind Naka, such as the SOA record for the domain name nakamobile.com:

nakamobile.com
SOA 86400
MNAME: ns27.kreativmedia.ch
RNAME: achilles\.rupf.peraro.com


In a recent article about Swiss Mobile a comment also points to Achilles Rupf:

Mueller Peter
15.10.2014 11:58
Ohje, das sind die selben Typen, die auch schon United Mobile in den Ruin getrieben haben. Achilles Rupf ist da der Drahtzieher. Anscheinend hat die Swiss hier keine gute Recherche gemacht.

in English:

Mueller Peter
15.10.2014 11:58
Oh dear, these are the same guys who already ruined United Mobile. Achilles Rupf is the mastermind. Obivously Swiss has not investigated here very well.

Customer support is available at swissmobile@nakamobile.com

[Danidw]

I have this sim card from Naka since a few months. They made a trial and I have relatives in Swiss Airlines, so I got the card.

The service works fantastic. I'm an international pilot and often spend weeks abroad. It's exactly what I needed. As a Swiss citizen, we were always treated worse by telcom providers, because we are not member of the European Union. So we pay way more inside Europe.

With the Naka card I can cover my communcations needs for the fraction of the costs before. I use mainly Whatsapp to be connected with home. I normally use only a few kB to say that I'm landed until I'm in the hotel. This costs me only a fraction of Euro cents.

The only exceptions are some countries in the Middle East, like Israel and Jordania, where the MB-prices are still very high (20€/MB). But you always get a text message when you enter a country that tells you how much.

The service is absolutely reliable, you always get connected with the national telcom providers.

No matter what background the company may have, this sim card is a gemstone. I hope they will continue this service as long as I need it.

Cheers,
Dani

[inquisitor]

Congratulations to your first posting, dear Danidw! Reads like fabricated PR writing though.

There's nothing explicitly cheap nor sensational in Swiss Mobile. The only innovation I can see is that rates for South Africa are quite low, though totally overpriced when you compare to South African prepaid offers like those of Cell C. In South Africa you can get a SIM card including 1.2 GB of data for R89 (CHF 7.60). This amount of data would cost more than CHF 80 with Swiss Mobile.

Btw, the Swiss Mobile website does not disclose what happens once you've consumed your data allowance. Will data stop? Will bandwidth be throttled? Will exceeding traffic be billed based on volume? Can subscribers immediately reorder another pack?

In many other countires including USA, Australia and many European countries Toggle Mobile is much cheaper for both, data and voice and has the unique feature of having up to 9 local numbers from a choice of countries including Switzerland. Especially Swiss residents will find it great to have a Swiss number at which they can be called from Switzerland at local rates, something included in Toggle. In contrast to Toggle and to what the product's name suggests Swiss Mobile does not include a Swiss number but only a British one, which is usually expensive to call from Swiss cellular networks.

And regarding data Toggle gives you 1GB for CHF 30.45 which converts to unit costs fo CHF 0.03/MB:
http://www.togglemobile.co.uk/roaming-data/en

With Swiss Mobile data costs between CHF 0.078/MB (+260%) and CHF 0.09/MB (+300%) depending on which data pack you select. Depending on how of you allowance you actually need/consume, Swiss Mobile is up to three times more expensive that toggle.

Als Swisscom's "Natel Data Travel 1GB" is cheaper in many regions and comes with a native Swiss number:

Thailand
Swisscom: CHF 99
Swiss Mobile: CHF 1,220 (CHF 1.22/MB)

China
Swiwsscom CHF 99
Swissmobile CHF 12,290 (CHF 12.29/MB)


Lastly the fact that this company is hiding its shareholders and recalling memories of how many of us lost their prepaid credit when United Mobile went bankrupt, Swiss Mobile appears even less attractive to me, even though it comes with the logo of a prestigious airline.

Originally Posted by Danidw

[...] I have relatives in Swiss Airlines [...]

Interesting. Family relationships. Is that a hint?