Number Porting in Germany

[inquisitor]

Actually the E-Plus network doesn't provide the best coverage for Germany, but it's still good and since E-Plus and O2 (both used only the GSM1800 band before) got EGSM900 frequencies last year, they're about to close the gaps quickly with futher reaching EGSM900 basestations. However E-Plus' 3G network is cappy - it has bad coverage, is overloaded and doesn't support HSPA at all.

Regarding the porting process you should know the following:

1.) If you're on a postpaid plan you need to cancel the contract before initiating the porting or if you're a prepaid customer you need to send a so-called "Verzichtserklärung" (disclaimer) to your provider, so they'll release your number for porting. You can download a corresponding form for T-Mobile from http://klarmobil.de/nl/verzicht/tmobile.pdf

2.) The old provider will always charge about € 25 for the export of your existing number. If you're a prepaid customer you must make sure you have at least € 25 of credit left. Otherwise the old provider will refuse the porting.

3.) You shouldn't order your new SIM card 2-3 days before you have send in the "Verzichtserklärung".

[babble]

The genion s card is a really good idea if you make land line calls from your "home zone". After setting-up the first free home zone, each change of home zone costs about 5 euros. You can choose any german address to be your home zone address, and set it up yourself on the o2online.de website. The home zone has a radius of up to approximately 2 km within a city, and it can be a bit wider in the countryside. (O2 only guarantee a maximum radius of 500m, but in practice the actual radius is bigger.) On many new phones, a "little red house" icon appears on your phone display while you remain inside your home zone.

This site gives an accurate idea of the coverage of a typical home zone:

http://gsm.yz.to/karte.php?x=379732&...ehz=43264&kr=1

You can click on the map to physically optimise your address in order to maximise your home zone coverage. You can click on "zoom" and then click on the map to move to other parts of Germany. You might need to press the "Zeichen" button to update the map. Use: move the location of the central "X" marker to your preferred home zone location and keep your desired base stations (the small dark blue squares) within the brown 2km radius circle. Whenever you update your home zone, you will find that your real coverage has a radius of about 1.9 km. So don´t be disappointed if you lose a base station just inside the edge of the 2km radius limit.

If you are into voip, you can cheaply call or forward voip calls onto the land line number of a genion s card.

Within the home zone, you can make cheap international land line calls using a service like budgetmobil.de. Calls to the UK work out at about 5 cents per minute if you use the genion card to dial the budgetmobile access number. (Genion 3c/min plus budgetmobile 1.78c/min into the UK.) Call quality and reliability are first class. No problems in the last year. Normal direct genion calls to UK land line: 11.3 c/min, to UK mobiles: 36.9c/min. Budgetmobile calls to UK mobiles using genion to dial into Budgetmobile: Genion 3c/min plus budgetmobile 11.2c/min = 15c/min. Budgetmobile announces the charge per minute when you set up the call.

You may also wish to consider one of the german prepaid cards that offer unlimited german land line calls for about 13-15 euros per month. Tchibo, Aldi, etc. Personally, I prefer Aldi because of their "anywhere within Germany" 24c/MB data rate. Genion cards also have the option of cheap data rates for connections made within the home zone. For example, "Internet@home-Pack-M" gives 1GB/month for 10 Euros. You might find better rates if you ask the gurus on this site.

The last time I checked, the genion s card had a 25 euro connection charge but no monthly rental charge. If you buy the "genion s card with a mobile", the "monthly rental" is 10 euros per month.

It is probably better to buy a "genion s card" in an O2 shop. That way you get free telephone support when you dial direct with the "genion s card". Otherwise, if you buy the card online (then appropriately called: "genion s card online"), telephone support costs 62 cents/Min from a Deutsche Telekom land line, and 62 cents/Min from the "genion s card online".

[babble]

Just in case I have confused anyone, let me say that telephone support calls are free with a "genion s card", but they cost 62 cents/Min with a "genion s card online".

[petkow]

I now got the ball rolling thanks to you guys! Thanks. The problem he has is he has a bit too much credit now. In any case, if it takes about 3 days for T-Mobil to process the "Verzichtserklärung" (disclaimer), I now doubt that I will be able to get this done before Solomo's special offer of free porting finishes on Monday. Anyhow, the €10 normal charge is not too bad. I am confused about one thing with Solomo. It appears the discount applies for any topup made for over €10. But if you make a €10 topup do you get a 10% discount for that month only or is right it until that credit runs out? It would seem silly for anyone not to make the €20 topup (which is not that much really) to get the full 20% discount. I've just realised with such a discount applied, incoming charges in some EU countries is only 8c/min!! That seems like a good roaming product in its own right!

Thanks also to babble and the rest of you who mentioned the Genion S. I really think this is a very nice mobile product that you guys have in Germany. It's good not so much for the cheaper outgoing rate (that is nothing great) but for the fact of having a landline incoming number in your home zone. That really opens up exciting oppurtunities for VoIP diverts from Finarea/Betamax products etc. I was living in Germany in 1999 when this product was first launched and remember seeing the ads etc. A few friends of mine got it and I too was very tempted... but I didn't even have a German SIM at the time Genion was quite a bit more expensive then.... but so was all mobile telephony in Germany. I remember thinking it was so useful for me to call my friends who had Genion onto their "Festnetz" number from the classic old Deutsche Post style 'Yellow Brick' phoneboxes. All for a few 10 Pfennig pieces. I miss those phone boxes, just like I miss the red ones here in the UK. They are getting rid of so many of them, and are leaving them only in touristy areas! Ah Nostalgia... but slightly OT!

[dg7feq]

Originally Posted by petkow

I now got the ball rolling thanks to you guys! Thanks. The problem he has is he has a bit too much credit now. In any case, if it takes about 3 days for T-Mobil to process the "Verzichtserklärung" (disclaimer), I now doubt that I will be able to get this done before Solomo's special offer of free porting finishes on Monday. Anyhow, the €10 normal charge is not too bad. I am confused about one thing with Solomo. It appears the discount applies for any topup made for over €10. But if you make a €10 topup do you get a 10% discount for that month only or is right it until that credit runs out? It would seem silly for anyone not to make the €20 topup (which is not that much really) to get the full 20% discount. I've just realised with such a discount applied, incoming charges in some EU countries is only 8c/min!! That seems like a good roaming product in its own right!

No, it does not have anything to do with the recharge but with the volume of calling within one month. If you spend more than 10 Euro a month you get 1 Euro extra top-up in the next month. If you spend more than 20 Euro a month you get a 4 Euro extra top-up in the next month.

Chris

[babble]

O2 seems to have now reduced the radius of a home zone to about 1.43 km (for new home zone contracts).

Here is an example:

Patricks GSM-Seiten