New MVNOs in Belgium and Luxemburg

Our dear friend Vincent tells us about 2 new MVNOs in Belgium and Luxemburg. The first is Basic by Mobistar, and it's not a real MVNO, but just an internet-based offer by Mobistar, with a different brand. One simple cheap tariff to all National numbers of € 0.19/min, no-frills: data, MMS, UMTS are all not available.

In the small Luxembourg we register the first real MVNO, Kiss, roaming on the brand new GSM and UMTS network of Vox Mobile (which was a MVNO as well on LuxGSM). Rates are much simplier compared to Vox ones, but not always cheaper. The nice advantage are the 3 free SMS per day to any network in Luxembourg.

For all the detailed information take a look at Belgium and Luxembourg pages on PrePaidGSM.net.

Swiss MVNOs lower tariffs

It's a great moment for the Swiss prepaid GSM market, after the entrance of the 2 new MVNOs prices are falling down regularly.
This time it's Orangeclick, the internet-based offer by Orange, to lower its tariffs, followed at once by both Migros Mobile and COOP Mobile, the 2 MVNOs of the two big department stores in Switzerland.

The new rates for both Orangeclick and COOP are now CHF 0.39 per minute, while M-Budged customers can enjoy the lowest rate in Switzerland, CHF 0.37 per minute.

For more information take a look at the Switzerland page on PrePaidGSM.net.

DNA Finland goes 3G

Finnet Verkot has finally opened its 3G network yesterday, 19 December 2005.
Now all Dna customers, postpaid and prepaid, can make videocalls and use 3G data connections.
Prepaid videocall rates are the following:
- to Dna subscribers: 16 c€/min
- to other operators: 25 c€/min
Quite unusual the fact that videocalls are little cheaper for prepaid users compared to postpaid. Postpaid clients pay 19 cent/min to Dna and 25 cent/min to other operators.

Here you can find the actual 3G coverage, which is still quite poor.

Only Capital region, Tampere region and Lahti have coverage at the moment, but Finnet has planned that their 3G network will be available for 3 million Finnish people (about 55% of Finnish population) before the end of 2006.

Gomobile has no opportunity for 3G yet, but it should come soon in the future.

Many thanks to our Finnish friend Jesse for all the precious information!

Taiwanese prepaid offers on PrePaidGSM

Thanks to our friend Yuri, who went to Taipei and tested a Taiwanese prepaid card, I made the page about Taiwan, its 6 GSM/W-CDMA operators and 4 of the 6 prepaid offers (2 of them are unavailable from their sites in English, and Taiwanese is quite hard for me to understand!).

All the information is of course here: Taiwan on PrePaidGSM.net

Here is Yuri's review about his "prepaid trip" in Taipei and there around.

There are several mobile operators in Taiwan. I was able to get prepaid card from FarEastOne, IF card (Yi-Fu card as chinese-speaking people pronounce them).
I purchased the package in one of mobile phone shops at Chang Chun Road in Taipei. Initial kit cost was 350 NT$ (rate to USD is about 32 NT$/ 1 US$). Still do not know how much funds were on balance - there is voice menu that seems very good, but chinese only... There is requirements to have 2 IDs to activate card (first was my passport number, second was embarcation card that was stapled by officer at passport check to a page with Taiwanese visa). Guys at shop make a copy of both IDs for the mobile operator. They also filled all forms for us - if you don't speak Mandarin or Taiwanese, you are out of luck to do it yourself. Cards was activated in about three hours after purchase - guys from shop faxed copies of our IDs to a processing center at once.
There is limit for one card/phone number per ID. If you have one card, you cannot use this IDs to purchase one more (you can purchase it, but it will be not activated).
Card is valid for a half year after last payment (as I understood from explanations that was in quite poor English - maybe I misunderstand something).
Refill cards are about everywhere (I purchased them at 7-Eleven shops that are everywhere) but I was forced to ask a guy at the hotel counter to activate it because of chinese-only voice menus.
Can't say anything about tariffs for now - they were for sure way lower than horrible roaming.... There are several long distance carriers of course, with different tariffs. I used 002 and 006 prefixes - quality was the same.
We were in Taipei city only, so we had no problems with coverage, but our taiwanese partners told us that FET coverage in rural areas is not so good. Chunghwa have much better countryside coverage.

Orange and Orangeclick.ch updates

Our AndreA has just come back from Switzerland where he "upgraded" his Orange PrePay card to an Orangeclick.ch one and he can now tell us much more about the Swiss GSM market about prepaid and internet based offers.

You can fibd all the precious information on the updated Swiss pages on PrePaidGSM.

Another MVNO in Germany: Aldi Talk

The German prepaid GSM market is getting more and more competitive every month; today our friend Triband81 updates us about a new offer by the discount stores Aldi in cooperation with computer stores Medion and e-plus, all with the brand new name of MedionMobile. So a new MVNO on e-plus 1800MHz net after the good success of Blau and SIMyo.
Aldi Talk costs the usual 19.90 euros for the starting kit (including €10 of credit) and has very good voice tariff of 5 €cent to other Aldi Talk numbers and 15 €cent to the rest of Germany. Also SMS have the same rates. The other rates are the same as e-plus, Blau, SIMyo tariffs.

More information, as usual, on PrePaidGSM at Germany page.

Heyah lowers off-net rates

Good news from Poland, where Heyah starts the Christmas campaign lowering its off-net rates to PLN 0.68 (€ 0.17), which become PLN 0.62 if you join the HeyahKlub. This makes Heyah probably the cheapest prepaid solution for Poland, along with the already low on-net and international tariffs.
The only little disadvantage of Heyah compared to the other Polish prepaid offer is the higher price of the starting kit (PLN 20), but still very low compared to western European countries.

Thanks to our friend Przemolog for the info! :)