Best mobile phone network to use in Hamburg

Hi

I'm moving to Hamburg in June and want to get myself a pay as you go handset so I can have a German 'handy' while I am here to help with employment, friends etc. Does anyone know what the best network would be to use? My girlfriend says T-Mobile are the best for reception, but if anyone has any other recommendations I'd be grateful.

Cheers guys.

Barri :-)

I can say whole heartedly NOT to go with Vodafone. I signed up for a two year contract with them when I moved and have regretted it many times since. The guy who sold me the contract took advantage of the fact that my German was limited and added things (including an extra phone line to pay for) that I to this day cannot get removed from my contract. My advice is to go for a pay as you go with another company like T-Punkt.

Cheers for that.

Trust me, last company I will ever go with is Vodafone, I had a nightmare with them in the UK; I had separate mobile insurance, and didn't use Vodafone's own package, and when I lost my phone in Germany it took me an age to get the relavant documentation from them so I could claim with this other company. I think I must have spent 5 hours on the phone trying to sort it. Eventually I wrote letters of complaint and emailed them saying I wanted to cancel my contract. You know what the funny thing was? After waiting on the phone for hours trying to sort my insurance out weeks before, within 20 minutes of sending the email saying I wanted to cancel my contract I had a phone call from a 'customer service representative' asking me why and whether I wanted to change my mind!

If you want to escape your contract you could do what I did and comlain your balls off until they offer you a half-decent cancellation fee...

I also have a friend who worked at Vodafone and she said that they used to time their toilet breaks, you had to push a button when you went and if you were longer than 2 minutes they would ask questions...talk about Big brother!

Yeah, needless to say Vodafone are not my favourite people! :-P

Yeah, think I will go with T-Punkt, seems like a simple choice, and everyone says it's the best reception.

Ta

It depends on what you use your phone for. Vodofone, O2, T-Mobile and E-Plus are the 4 companies that have their own infrastructure. Then there is a long list of companies that use these 4's networks.

I hear good things about Congstar but I've no personal experience with them. Their package prices looks good by German standards but not by UK standards. Calls and SMS are expensive here in general.

Cheers Jester.

What I'm planning on doing is using a pay as you go service until I find employment, to minmise my costs. I'll probably use the pay as you go phone to allow potential employers to contact me etc.

Thanks for the advise, I'll have a nosey at that website. :-)

Barri

I've got Alice DSL at home and was planning to take their SIM card offer whereby you get free Alice to Alice calls etc. Anybody know what network they are reselling?
Regardless, it seems like a good deal, at the moment I've just got a prepaid Vodafone card that really costs a fortune to do anything...

If you want to go pay-as-you-go there is a service called SIMply which has low prices and no monthly minimum or fee. Connections always good.

Or Simyo... if you can bear the blokie in the tweed jacket!

Cheers for all the ideas. I've gone ahead and bought a T-Mobile pay as you go, €50.00 for a half-decent sony erriksson phone and no monthly fee. It will do the job until I can get myself a job at leat!

:-)

get o2 , it comes with an homezone number which might not be useful to you but definitely useful to the person calling you.