German Wifi and simm
 

Just purchased an ipad through AT &T for Germany, so will be able to use a simm card. How do I go about getting cards for both my blackberry, and ipad? I will be flying into Munich, will there be someplace I can purchase at the airport or main trains station before getting on to my final destination where there is limited if any wifi!

Both the phone and iPad will need to be unlocked to use a SIM from someone other than AT&T...

You can purchase SIM cards everywhere, from drugstores or dedicated phones stores to supermarkets (usually at check outs).
But the problem will probably be more what ParisAmsterdam wrote..
If you are stuck with WiFi and your hotel does not have it, you can get free access at almost any McD, BK, Starbucks and similar.

Parisamsterdam is incorrect about the iPad...iPads are unlocked, so can use any micro sim.

Most hotels have wifi now. Many are charging outrageous prices daily. I am using my IPAD right now at Hotel Florence in Bellagio. Free wifi

The Ipad is unlocked, comes that way, and Verizon has unlocked my blackberry...as I said, I know that where I will spend most of my time has little if any wifi. The more I read on the forums about simm cards, the more confused I get! Most of my time will be in Germany...

I don't know this business personally but came upon them looking at the shops at Munich airport:

Contact details
Capi

Phone +49 89 975-9 93 60
Fax +49 89 975-9 93 61

Address
Terminal 2
Level 03
public area
Street Terminalstraße
Postcode 85326 Flughafen München

(also: Location: Terminal 2 Level 03 / Terminal 2 Departure (Level 04) / Terminal 2 Departure (Level 04) / Terminal 2 Departure (Level 05))

Opening hours
Daily 6:30 a.m. - 9:30 p.m.

Offer
Electronic articles
Telecommunication
Computer accessories

They might have a solution for you - you could contact them in advance if you are that worried. But all the el cheapo SIM solutions will be through drugstores outside the airport, so you have a lot of options. Personally I would take my chances and get a SIM elsewhere.

Lavandula

When you have many outgoing calls (to the US), some prepaid cards are better than others. But as there are literally hundreds of resellers like supermarkets or drugstores.
Many resellers are only available via the web and have no physical outlets.

If I assumed that most of your calls will go TO the US, that you will talk with family or friends more than just a few seconds, and that a smaller percentage may be the odd call to a German landline (hotel, tourist info..) one of the best rates is from Lebara Mobile, one of the major resellers.
You will pay 1c/min to US landlines + 15c per connection. Activation is €10 but comes with €10 on your card so costs are zero. 500MB data can be bought for additional €9.90 if necessary.
If your calls to the US are much shorter than 3-5min/call, the SIM card from Lidl discount supermarkets would be offer a better rate at 9c/min and no connection fee. 500MB data cost €9.

Lebara sells their cards thru a myriad of outlets, usually small kiosks, convience stores, newspaper agents and such. You will find at least one of them at Munich central station on the lower level that connects S-Bahn and trains to U-Bahn.

If you need the phone more to receive calls you can get any at any supermarket or drugstore check out as you don't pay for incoming calls (as long as you stay in Germany).


I find the info on ipads Micro SIM cards a bit more confusing.
You will get them from the big mobile phone companies T-Mobile, Vodafone and O2. The two latter are supposed to offer better fees than T-Mobile.
The upside of T-Mobile is that their 3G network also covers most rural areas while the others have more focus on conurbations. This may be a factor for you if you travel away from Munich into the Bavarian hinterland.

With those prepaid cards you can book day or week passes with a cap on data volume. The costs are in the vicinity of €12-15 for activation/SIM card and €3.50-5 per day with an x MB cap.
The week passes are okay if you plan to access the web via ipad only occasionally. Otherwise you run out of data allowance too fast.

What you could check first is if your US access provider AT&T has data roaming arrangements for other countries.
My provider (T-Mobile in Germany) has those and whenever I log in my ipad in another country the browser/Safari goes automatically to a T-Mobile site that lets me buy a day or week pass from T-Mobile with a touch on the screen.
If your provider has same and gives you rates like €5 per day with 50MB cap or €15/week with 150MB cap this is not quite as good as what you were able to get here with a prepaid card but it saves you some hassles and the extra costs are in the vicinity of a beer or two for a one week vacation.

I'm not on "vacation" I'm interning at a resort, from June to Sept. I would like to Skype with my family (husband and kids) at home and make the occasional phone call as well. I have friends in Sweden, Austria & Turkey, they will most likely hear from me as well! I can spend the cost of a beer, I don't care for the taste. My Ipad is AT & T, so Cowboy, you are suggesting I contact them instead of a sim?

My remark re. AT&T was just the question if you checked your current provider if they provide any plans for your needs (for your iPad).

If you plan to use Skype regularly, I assume that none of the prepaid iPad micro-SIM cards and plans will work in the long run. The cap on data volume is typically quite low (50-100MB per day or 150MB per week) which I would not consider enough for making regular and probably lengthy Skype calls via the mobile 3G network.
For heavy use (lots of Skype video calls, listen to radio stations from home, watch several YouTube videos a day) I would not know any prepaid plan with enough data volume.
As long as no one else gave you better info of any more generous data plans, I would say you can't do that without WiFi.

For regular voice phone calls you should pay less in comparison if you used your mobile phone.
The list of countries you plan to call is quite diverse, though. And any SIM card provider (for your Blackberry/phone) has a different list of rates which can make more "exotic countries" (which can be any except the US, UK, Australia which are usually cheap) much more expensive to call.

Even though I Skype for free, I will not with the IPAD? If I find free wifi, I assume that will be free? Wow maybe the IPAD wasn't such a good idea?

Skype is simply an app that runs on whatever network you connect your iPad to. Like any other app.

If you connect to a free WiFi, you pay nothing for using Skype (or YouTube,..).
If you connect to a 3G network it will eat up as much from your data plan or the prepaid data volume as it needs. Skype does not pay T-Mobile Germany or Vodafone Hong Kong for pumping megabyte after megabyte thru their mobile networks. You pay.

That's why you have the feature to switch of Mobile Data in the iPad's settings. So you can't accidentely use a data hungry app (or any app that requires an internet connection) when not connected to WiFi.

Taking the iPad (or a notebook) abroad is a good idea if you
- have free WiFi or
- are happy with using just less data hungry services, like book a hotel en route, look up the weather forecast, send a bunch of e-mails, write a comment on Fodor's, and so on.

Most hotels have wifi now. Many are charging outrageous prices daily. I am using my IPAD right now at Hotel Florence in Bellagio. Free wifi>>

in booking our recent trip to Holland, i found that the bigger the hotel, the greater the wifi charge. the little 3 star hotels where we stayed had free wifi; the bigger chains all wanted a charge. i'm not sure i understand why it's that way round!

ibake - regarding wifi, my DH's ipad works the same way as my laptop [also an apple]. ie you need some sort of subscription connection, either your own or the hotel's. it doesn't work like a mobile phone unless you purchase what [in the UK] is called a dongle, which enables you to connect like a phone while you are on the hoof.

as i understand it, once you have your connection, you can skype in the normal way.

Would I be better off getting a overseas data package with AT & T and sticking with the simm card for my phone?

probably. Why not ask AT&T?

I wish I were more tech savvy!! AT & T, minimum plan is $14.99 per month (no contract) Plus I need to add a
"Data Global Add-On Package"
$24.99 50 MB Overage: $10/10 MB $.0195/KB
$49.99 125 MB Overage: $10/10 MB $.0195/KB
$99.99 275 MB Overage: $10/10 MB $.0195/KB
$199.99 800 MB Overage: $10/10 MB $.0195/KB
I'm thinking of starting at the 50 MG, and pray there is wifi available because just coming to Fodors will use up data! At the same time people here are giving me mixed reviews...simm vs. pre paid US. I will be in the "Bavarian hinterland" more often than not!

I took both my IPad and Blackberry to France and I made sure that the hotels we were staying at had wifi. I also added a data Global package to my AT&T BB. We also have two european phones and bought local simm cards for both when we arrived. We use the local phones for local calls and as walkie talkies.
My BB I use to check for messages and e-mails during the day. (Had it off the rest of the time). My ipad I used to send photos, e-mails, etc from my hotel via wifi. I communicated with my sons and grandchildren through the message app. I sent photos to my grandchildren almost every night. I also talked to them using FaceTime. The grandkids were using their Itouch4s which has wifi.
For telephone calls to the US, we bought calling "cards" at the local "tabacs". They are the cheapest way to call from the hotels and last forever.

I think getting a German SIM and a US data package sounds like a happy medium. But to help you decide which to get, a US SIM or a German SIM - what are you paying for with each? With the US SIM you are paying for convenience, the ability to have a number as soon as you land, and the ability to avoid interacting with the German language (as you would have to negotiate with locals to buy a SIM, validate it, recharge, etc). But - you pay more. No question. With a German SIM you get cheap calls and texts, much cheaper than the US SIM, but if you choose to wait and buy one when you get to Germany you will have a slight delay before you can call home.

Not all SIMs are equal. If you can get a Lebara you can 1. get it sent to you beforehand, 2. validate it with an English-speaking operator 3. recharge online with a credit card, or buy recharge cards at the gas station. Lebara also has good rates for phoning overseas. However, there are many, many other cheap SIMs available (fonic, Lidl, Aldi, Tchibo, etc, etc, lots available from drugstores and supermarkets) and it depends how confident you are with German as to which one you buy (and I take it you are going to be a little intrepid with German because of where you are going). If you don't go for the Lebara option I would probably buy a SIM somewhere close to where you will be staying because you will want to be able to get recharge cards easily, or buy at least one recharge card when you buy the SIM. After all, you do want to be able to recharge in the Bavarian hinterland ...

Here is a website to get you started: http://www.lebara.de/?isoCode=en_GB

Lavandula

It's lovely talking about hotels and where there will be wifi, I have been told it isn't readily available! As for the Lebara sim card, how exactly do I get it? I can only find free cards sent to a German address

I understand from a lot of discussion about lebara.fr on this forum that they will send SIMs to a US address, provided you do it far enough ahead. I would take this to be the case for Germany too because Lebara is international (we even have Lebara in Australia). Just manage to fit USA somewhere into the space you enter your address. I have heard good reports about this.

My own experience of Lebara (an excellent one) was when I found their SIMs at an internet / international calling shop in Bremen. They were by far the cheapest to call Australia, but there are a number of cheap SIMs to call the US. I also have experience of T-Mobile (when I lived in Germany), and Vodaphone and Tchibo on other visits. Vodaphone was all-round expensive, would never go for them again (even though I use Vodaphone in Australia), and Tchibo was the one I stayed with because they allow me to keep my credits for 6 years without expiring - plus we had one Tchibo-locked handset. I also have Tchibo mobile broadband. But it's not as cheap as other providers, although it is convenient - there's a Tchibo store in every town.

One thing which is an issue, and I think that's why Lebara only has space for a German address, is that many providers require you to have a German address (I think this is law). I think in practice many providers don't enforce this, as it's just not practical - when buying my Vodaphone SIM they told us we needed a German address - our Sydney address got registered as an Austrian one and we got the SIM. When we initially bought our Tchibo SIMs we had no problem, but when we went back another time, to another store in another city, they did enforce the German address and said we would have to provide a rental agreement of at least 6 months. Well, we went there to buy a second SIM but I knew I had one at home in Australia so I didn't bother, just got a recharge for the SIM I had and we coped with one phone.

I think try Lebara - as it's free it can't hurt to see if they will send you a SIM.

Lavandula