Germany - Ortel Mobile vs Fonic

[betto.la]

Hello to everybody...

I'm new in this forum but an old member of the "windworld.org" ones...

By the way, I'm moving to germany pretty soon, i had a look at the offers (I have already an ortel mobile de sim card) to find an operator cheap to call Italy from Germany as well as not so expensive in the in-country calls and so on...

from the web site of Fonic
FONIC Handytarif im Überblick - Günstig mobil telefonieren!

it seems cheaper that the ortel
Ortel Mobile - Connecting the world

but I dont find any start-call costs...did I miss something?
maybe some german friend can help me?

thanks a lot!
Carlo

[inquisitor]

There's no call setup fee with Fonic. You just pay 9 ct/min to Italian landlines and 29 ct/min to Cellulari.

[ronwi]

Am I understanding the Fonic website correctly that they charge 29 cent per minute to US and Canada mobile phones? If so, that is either a mistake, or a very high rate (Ortel has no surcharge for US & Canada mobiles.)

The language in question is as follows:

Gespräche in Mobilfunknetze von Europa,
den USA und Kanada* 29 Cent / Min.

Originally Posted by betto.la

Hello to everybody...

I'm new in this forum but an old member of the "windworld.org" ones...

By the way, I'm moving to germany pretty soon, i had a look at the offers (I have already an ortel mobile de sim card) to find an operator cheap to call Italy from Germany as well as not so expensive in the in-country calls and so on...

from the web site of Fonic
FONIC Handytarif im Überblick - Günstig mobil telefonieren!

it seems cheaper that the ortel
Ortel Mobile - Connecting the world

but I dont find any start-call costs...did I miss something?
maybe some german friend can help me?

thanks a lot!
Carlo

[inquisitor]

That's a persisting error on Fonic's website. North American mobile networks cost 9 ct/min as landlines do.

[betto.la]

thanks inquisitor...

so to sum up:

i would pay the calls to italy the same that with ortel...only the smss a bit more (19 instead 15cents)

but the calls and the texts within germany 9 cents instead 15 right?

[MATHA531]

Question for the technology geeks (which I most certainly am not):

Is there a way for the equipment or whatever to differentiate between an American (or Canadian) landline number or a mobile number? For example here in New York, both my landline and my mobile numbers have the same exact area codes and I believe if I wanted I could port one to the other....

[inquisitor]

Yes, that's correct.

There's also a third option: solomo pro

With solomo pro you also pay € 0,09/min or € 0,29/min to Italy, but they bill in seconds after the first minute, whereas Ortel and Fonic always bill whole minutes. So if your call exceeds 60 seconds solomo pro is always cheaper than the others, as they bill more exactly.

Domestic calls cost € 0,08/min to landlines and € 0,10/min to mobiles. Here again the more exact billing makes solomo pro cheaper than Fonic.

SMS - no matter if national or international - are charged with € 0,14.

The only disadvantage of solomo pro is that you can order it only online and you can pay and recharge it only by credit card or German bank account.

If you order solomo pro through the link above, you'll receive an extra credit of € 5. So for the initial price of € 14,95 you'll get € 15 of credit.

Solomo pro has also very cheap roaming rates. Incoming calls in most European countries including Italy cost only € 0,10/min and they've also decent outgoing rates while roaming.

Further solomo pro includes a VoIP-account, through which you can answer calls free of charge if you're outside Germany.

They use the eplus network, so you'll experience the same coverage as with Ortel.

Please notice, that those cheap international rates do only apply for solomo pro but not for their other tariff ("0/8/5").

[inquisitor]

Originally Posted by MATHA531

Is there a way for the equipment or whatever to differentiate between an American (or Canadian) landline number or a mobile number? For example here in New York, both my landline and my mobile numbers have the same exact area codes and I believe if I wanted I could port one to the other....

Well, generally there must be some master routing database, where one can look up, to which network a phone number belongs. That's necessary in order to send calls and SMS to the correct network. So theoretically you can look up, if a North American number is assigned to a cellular network operator or not. However I suppose O2 has an interconnection with some international carrier, to which they hand over calls to the US and who then forwards it to the corresponding American carrier. It just wouldn't pay off for O2 to interconnect directly with all American operators. That American carrier will surley charge a flat tariff for any landline number to O2, no matter if assigned to a cellular or wired network, because that's the American way. Sure, that American carrier could signalize the type of network to O2, but I believe that's too complicated to implement just in order to allow a German MVNO to rip it's customers off.

[betto.la]

thank you have been really clear...it also seems good the suggestion of solomo pro...but I think that eventually I'll take the fonic one, and i'll be able to recharge it from the supermarket...let's see...

[betto.la]

just out of curiosity, if i buy a solomo pro sim card, is it possible to do a number portability between virtual operators later on?