Mobile Service in Germany

There are two types of SIM cards: prepaid and postpaid.

Which option works best for you depends on your personal needs. If you want a simple phone with simple features and cheap prices, your best option is a prepaid SIM card.

However, if you need your phone on a daily basis and you would like to have a smartphone cheaper, the best option is a contract with a provider (“postpaid”). With the contract you can also get a phone for a cheaper price (but you can also get a cheap phone second-hand). It is important to know that mobile contracts often have a minimum duration of 24 months and extend automatically if you do not terminate it.

Depending on your situation, getting a contract can be difficult. Usually the providers demand some documents, such as a passport, your residence registration and sometimes a salary certificate. If you don’t speak German, it might be good to ask someone to help with the translation of the contract before signing it, there is often important information in the small print.

Most providers offer different services for the consumers inside their package:

• “Handy” flat rate: unlimited mobile calls to mobile lines in Germany without extra fees as the price in contract.
• “Festnetz” flat rate: unlimited calls to landlines.
• SMS flat rates: sending text messages to all mobile networks without extra fees.
• Internet flat rates: depending on your contract or prepaid offer you will receive a certain amount of GB data. Mostly you receive high speed internet (3G or LTE) till you finish the GB data in your contract. Afterwards your connection will be very low speed (GPRS) till the end of the month. Especially video calls and watching videos on platforms like youtube need a lot of data volume.

There is also the possibility to buy a prepaid card without flat rate services, which can be an option if you don’t use the phone too much. You can find more information here.

You can buy a prepaid SIM card in mobile phone providers shops and even small shops (Kiosk, Tankstelle, Spätkauf, …) or supermarkets. But to sign a contract you need to do it online or in one of the providers shops.

You can, for example, fill out an application form on the website of the provider „Deutsche Telekom“ here.

However, to avoid any mistakes or misunderstandings and to get detailed information, the best way is to go personally to one of the branch shops of the provider to sign the contract. 

After you received your SIM card, got your phone number, PIN and PUK you can activate your SIM card in two ways:

• by phone call: The easiest way to activate your SIM card is to call the service number of your provider, for example if you want to use a SIM card from “Deutsche Telekom”, you can activate it via calling the following telephone number: 0800 333 6666.
An agent then enters the data for you. To ensure that the activation can be carried out quickly, please keep your SIM card and ID card ready.

• online: To activate the SIM card on the internet, you can visit the website of the provider, or if you have a SIM card from “Deutsche Telekom” you can visit the this page. You will be asked for the card number and phone number. These can be found on the back of the SIM card or the package. Please refer to the package and enter the numbers in the fields provided.

You will also be asked for your personal data. In addition, you must accept the terms and conditions of data protection of “Deutsche Telekom”. Follow the activation process to the end and make sure you receive a message to successfully complete the activation. The activation process on other sites is similar. Please read the information about tariff and tariff options carefully.

International calls are a very important topic, especially if you want to contact family and friends in your home country. Depending on your contract, a call from the landline or mobile phone can be very expensive.

An other option could be a calling card. You can buy it in most of shops, call centers and foreign supermarkets. Calling cards have a credit, for example 10 euros, and offer less expensive rates per minute than most provider contracts. You have to call the call center of the provider with a landline or your mobile phone, so you can call an international number.