Mobile data in Germany? (but D1/D2 only)

[9eor9]

...is not the same. Grundgebühr (basic fee) is for instance the monthly fee of a contract without additional costs. If you do not use your mobile, you'll have to pay that only, if you use it the additional costs will be added.

Anschlussgebühr is the charge which they want at the beginning (to do anything at all for you), but only once.
This covers for instance the very high expenses of your new SIM......
So there are often adverts like "Heute keine (=today no) Anschlussgebühr" which means that you can save this fee today in that shop.

[petkow]

Thanks for clearing that up! I might have misread something then as I saw something advertised once which seemed to have a "Grund Gebühr" and an "Anschluß Gebühr" as well as a "Monatliche Grund Gebühr". I presumed the first two were setup costs and the last was a monthly cost. It looks like I completely misunderstood.

[inquisitor]

@VladS
Yes, BILDmobil's and N24's SIMs are only available online, where the firstmentioned is only sold bundled with the 3G modem for currently € 50 + € 5 shipping. The separate voice SIM which BILDmobil offers has different data tariffs (€ 0,35/MB) and those timebased WebSessions can't be activated for it.

Beyond Vodafone, BILDmobil and N24 I have forgotten a fourth product:
Prosieben mobil (named after the TV-channel "Prosieben"), who have the following tariffs
7 days (limited to 1GB) for € 8.99
3 days (limited to 1GB) for € 3.99
12 hours (limited to 1GB) for € 1.99
1 hour (limited to 1GB) for € 0,77

[VladS]

I think I'll just get a Vodafone Websessions modem kit on my next trip to Germany. Does anyone know which modem is included in the EUR29.99 bundle these days?

A question on the Websessions SIM card. Does it allow voice calls? If it does, what are the costs?

[inquisitor]

Those Vodafone-bundles for € 30 (currently only € 20 at some Saturn and MediaMarkt shops) are ZTE K3565-Z, which are a bit more complicated to debrand compared to Huawei modems. There's no real SIM- or netlock on those devices, but the included software won't connect to other networks than Vodafone's, but you can change that by debranding it. Detailed information and instructions are available at ZTE K3565-Z (Vodafone) - 3G modem wiki
The SIM card in the bundle is not voice-capable.

But the ZTE K3565-Z does only support European 3G bands (900 & 2100 MHz), which makes it useless for American 3G networks (however it still has quadband GSM-support).

You may prefer the "Tchibo Internet Stick", which is a Huawei E160 with support for 3G at 850, 1900 and 2100 MHz, so you could use it e.g. on Rogers and Fido. It currently costs € 30 and is available online and at local Tchibo shops. The Tchibo netlock can easily be removed by entering an unlock code, which you can purchse on eBay.co.uk for ~€ 2 or sometimes even less.

The K3565-Z and the Huawei E160 share the same Qualcomm chipset (MSM6246) limiting their download bandwidth to 3.6 MBit/s and the upload to 384 KBit/s (no support for HSUPA), so they are not the fastet ones.

If you want a faster device with support for American 3G bands, check out the "T-Mobile web'n'walk stick IV", which is a Huawei E176 sold for € 50 (incl. shipping) at German eBay:
T-Mobile web´n walk Stick IV NEU ohne Simlock PORTOFREI bei eBay.de: UMTS-Router (endet 30.12.09 15:31:02 MEZ)
It's unlocked and the T-Mobile dashboard software can easily be removed by running a firmware update, as described at: debranding Huawei USB modems - 3G modem wiki

[VladS]

Originally Posted by inquisitor

Those Vodafone-bundles for € 30 (currently only € 20 at some Saturn and MediaMarkt shops) are ZTE K3565-Z, which are a bit more complicated to debrand compared to Huawei modems. There's no real SIM- or netlock on those devices, but the included software won't connect to other networks than Vodafone's, but you can change that by debranding it. Detailed information and instructions are available at ZTE K3565-Z (Vodafone) - 3G modem wiki
The SIM card in the bundle is not voice-capable.

But the ZTE K3565-Z does only support European 3G bands (900 & 2100 MHz), which makes it useless for American 3G networks (however it still has quadband GSM-support).

You may prefer the "Tchibo Internet Stick", which is a Huawei E160 with support for 3G at 850, 1900 and 2100 MHz, so you could use it e.g. on Rogers and Fido. It currently costs € 30 and is available online and at local Tchibo shops. The Tchibo netlock can easily be removed by entering an unlock code, which you can purchse on eBay.co.uk for ~€ 2 or sometimes even less.

The K3565-Z and the Huawei E160 share the same Qualcomm chipset (MSM6246) limiting their download bandwidth to 3.6 MBit/s and the upload to 384 KBit/s (no support for HSUPA), so they are not the fastet ones.

If you want a faster device with support for American 3G bands, check out the "T-Mobile web'n'walk stick IV", which is a Huawei E176 sold for € 50 (incl. shipping) at German eBay:
T-Mobile web´n walk Stick IV NEU ohne Simlock PORTOFREI bei eBay.de: UMTS-Router (endet 30.12.09 15:31:02 MEZ)
It's unlocked and the T-Mobile dashboard software can easily be removed by running a firmware update, as described at: debranding Huawei USB modems - 3G modem wiki

Debranding ZTE modems is quite straight forward these days... DC-Unlocker.com offers a free tool to read/write the device's virtual CD. An unbranded client is also available on the site.

I'm already loaded with USB data sticks... Huawei E220, Novatel MC950D and a ZTE MF668 (21.6Mbps). A EUR10 (EUR30 for the kit vs EUR20 for the SIM alone) one would make a perfect fit in my collection.

Would the EUR20 sale still be on towards the end of the month?

[VladS]

Originally Posted by inquisitor

The SIM card in the bundle is not voice-capable.

If it's not voice capable, how do you use the 12007 trick to extend the card's validity?!

[inquisitor]

I don't have the K3565-Z anymore and so I can't try whatever DC-unlocker has published, but using the generic dashboards from other ZTE-devices doesn't work, as the K3565-Z requires special drivers. Actually those differing drivers were the biggest hurdle in the debranding process. On the linked wiki you will also find instructions for the soft debranding, where the flashmemory will just be disabled and the unbranded dashboard will be stored on a microSD-card.

Regarding the promotional price of € 20, I can't give you any information, as it was part of local promotions of some Saturn stores and usually their promotions last for 1-2 weeks.

Anyway I just discovered that O2 also has an interesting offer: They sell a Huawei E161 for € 30. The E161 was released only some weeks ago and it is very tiny - the tinest 3G modem I've seen so far. It's netlocked, but that's not really an issue, if you know how to use eBay. But make sure it's really the Huawei E161 if you buy it in a O2 shop or some other retailer, as some may still have older models in stock. Here's a photo of the E161: o2online - Prepaid-Surfstick

Regarding the inexistant voice-capability of those data-SIMs and prolongation, I actually don't have an answer. It's definitley impossible to place voice calls with those SIMs - so I hope Vodafone will realize that problem and prolong validiy based on usage and not on recharges.

[dg7feq]

Originally Posted by petkow

By the way talking of setup fees, I love the way German companies like to list a "Grund Gebühr" and an "Anschluß Gebühr" seperately! Don't the two basically mean exactly the same thing!

nope, the "Anschlußgebühr" is ususally referring to the "Setup fee - so thats a one time payment when you sign the contract.
The "Grundgebühr" is the monthly fee which you pay every month.

Christian

[Motel75]

FWIW, I'm having a lot of trouble with my ZTE modem at the moment, since I upgraded to Windows 7 64-bit (I had Vista 32 before). The 32-bit drivers don't seem to work, and ZTE does not seem to make 64-bit ones readily available. This is really the only driver problem I've encountered with the 64-bit version, so I might get another Huawei if it persists and use the ZTE only on my (32-bit) netbook.