Best prepaid choice for a German in Australia work&travel

[beissel]

Hey,
a friend plans to work&travel in Australia and I would like to give her a prepaid SIM Card for Australia as a gift.
What's the best choice?
Data is not important
Incoming calls should be free
Calls to Germany should be as cheap as possible

Any ideas????
Thank you all!
Regards Christian

[inquisitor]

I consider Amaysim as quite attractive, who charge A$ 0.15/min to German landlines and A$ 0.29/min to mobiles. Besides low rates their huge advantage over any other Australian prepaid offer is the lack of a call-setup fee ("flagfall" in Australian English).
Btw Amaysim was founded by the former management of simyo, Germany's first prepaid discounter.

[dg7feq]

yes, agreed.
If you plan to travel a lot you should concider of buying a handset that supports 3G on 850 MHz. This has by far the best coverage in AUS, much better than GSM 900

Chris

[inquisitor]

UMTS 850 is only used by Telstra. Amaysim however is based on Optus' network, which runs GSM at 900 and 1800 MHz and UMTS at 900 and 2100 MHz.

[dg7feq]

Originally Posted by inquisitor

UMTS 850 is only used by Telstra. Amaysim however is based on Optus' network, which runs GSM at 900 and 1800 MHz and UMTS at 900 and 2100 MHz.

Then Telsatra is the network to choose. My parents were travelling down under frequently and outside big towns there is only UMTS850 and CDMA network coverage. No sign of 900/1800 GSM, sometimes for hundrets of kilometers along the main highways...

[beissel]

I was travelling myself --but thank you all for your help!

[DRNewcomb]

Taking a quick glance at the coverage maps, it does look like Telstra's 3G-850 service has the best coverage footprint of any of the Australian carriers.

[inquisitor]

Telstra doubtlessly provides the best coverage in Australia, but they don't have the best tariffs and most important of all most European visitors' handsets (except for iPhones) do probably not support UMTS850. Most 3G devices sold in Europe do only support UMTS900 and UMTS2100 and I except very few people to be ready to buy a new phone just for their holidays.

[dg7feq]

UMTS 850 is useful in several other countries as well (e.g. Thailand), thats why we bought one...