Any recommendations for mobile phone carriers for England and Germany?

nigpd

nigpd

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Hi - my daughter is off to Berlin University next February for a few months and I am getting her an iPhone 6 for Xmas to take with her on her travels

I am looking for the best (ie most cost effective) solution for a suitable tariff and network provider that will do for both UK and Germany, if there is such a solution.

She will be a medium user and wants some decent text and call minutes to stay in touch etc, as well as a few Gb of data usage when she isn't connected to wifi

Does anyone have any experience of the same situation that could advise on the best way to go?

Thanks in advance for your help
 
Giff gaff unlimited everything for £20 month and on O2 network so 4G
 
neil_g said:
Three cover Germany on their free roaming dont they?
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No. But even if they did - and for all I know they might launch such a service next week - there are restrictions because it's designed for people visitinf these countries, not living in them. If you use your allowances exclusively in a "Feel At Home" country for any two complete months in a rolling 12 month period, they may suspend the service.
 
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nigpd said:
I am looking for the best (ie most cost effective) solution for a suitable tariff and network provider that will do for both UK and Germany, if there is such a solution.
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Simple answer is to get a phone that can be unlocked - either buy the handset outright or get one from O2, who will unlock it straight away. Then get your daughter to buy a PAYG SIM when she gets to Berlin. iMessage and other messaging apps will work fine over wireless too :)
 
nigpd said:
Hi - my daughter is off to Berlin University next February for a few months and I am getting her an iPhone 6 for Xmas to take with her on her travels
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We travel to Germany a lot (Berlin most years, so if she wants tips where to go just shout) and my partner is over a couple of times a year visiting family - she's gone with a Telekom* PAYG SIM which gave a reasonable amount of minutes and data. It even managed to be cheaper than her old EE SIM for sending an SMS in the UK.

You need to get the German SIM in Germany, there are a few places that will buy it for you and post it to you but it's as easy to get when she arrives.

Is her heart set on the jesusphone? - the dual SIM Moto G lets you flick between a UK and DE SIM effortlessly.


*note Telekom also have a separate Congstar brand which sometimes has better deals, and usually has the better PAYG deals. You could check the ToyTown forum (UK ex-pats in Germany) to see if anyone there has posted a good current deal.
 
Payg can work out cheaper in the long term as a contract phone simply subsidises the cost of the phone in your monthly tariff and usually the phone is locked to the network.

As for staying in touch, you may want to consider one of the main messaging apps such as Skype, wechat and WhatsApp. If you both use the app you can text, leave voice messages, voice call and video chat each other if the phone is connected to the internet (WhatsApp doesn't do video). So whenever the phone is connected to WiFi it's freeb and cuts down on the amount of minutes, text, and data you need from the phone network.

If all of you use an iPhone then apple have the imessage and facetime app too but only iPhone users can use those apps. Out of all the apps I mentioned, wechat is the most flexible, it can text, do voice or video calls, send pictures/photo's, send recorded voice messages and video messages.

Skype has the advantage that you can install it on your computer as well as on your phone. If you both have Facebook pages, then you can consider Facebook messenger too.
 
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I hadn't heard of Wechat, but it looks pretty good.

I'm leaning towards PAYG as the thing to go for. At least Apple have got the iPhone on 12 months interest free credit, which should ease the burden a little :(
 
hsp70 said:
Payg can work out cheaper in the long term as a contract phone simply subsidises the cost of the phone in your monthly tariff and usually the phone is locked to the network.
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That depends on what type of contract you have, surely. If you have a SIM only contract, there's no phone being subsidised so the costs should be more readily comparable to PAYG.

For example I have a SIM only contract with Three which costs me £11 per month. Last month I used 498 minutes, 86 texts and 828MB of data (all within my monthly allowances); on Three's standard PAYG rates that would have cost me £24 or thereabouts. So in my case the SIM only contract is much cheaper. YMMV, of course.
 
StewartR said:
That depends on what type of contract you have, surely. If you have a SIM only contract, there's no phone being subsidised so the costs should be more readily comparable to PAYG.

For example I have a SIM only contract with Three which costs me £11 per month. Last month I used 498 minutes, 86 texts and 828MB of data (all within my monthly allowances); on Three's standard PAYG rates that would have cost me £24 or thereabouts. So in my case the SIM only contract is much cheaper. YMMV, of course.
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Sorry you are right, I meant to say sim only contract/payg compared to contracts with a phone attached to the deal
 
Correction to me previous post, I got my PAYG confused with "prepaid". Look for a prepaid deal - this is the equivalent to a rolling month contract. Fixed price per month with inclusive package, extras paid on top. The slightly different terminology between countries got me in a muddle.
 
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