you know sunrise do unlimited sms for 1chf per day now on there dayflat pay as you go? you also get unlimted calls for 1chf per day too (sunrise to sunrise, sunrise to swiss landline)
19 CHF a month is cheaper, i'll never use more than 1000! Plus most of my mates are on Swisscom, so unlimited calls is a moot point.
I should have read all the posts as for data I have an orange contract for my sony x1, and frankly orange data coverage is rubbish! very slow and very very patchy, I couldn't use it on the train and we don't get an orange singnal at all at home (for phone or data) ,we live just outside zurich. I ended up sticking my sunrise sim in it, no problems with signal or data with that, speeds are way better then I ever got on orange.
Good to know mate, looks like i'm almost certainly going with Sunrise then.
If you do actually look behind the logos, you will find out that Sunrise belongs to TDC (the Danish equivalent of Swisscom) and Orange is France Telecom. Both are larger in every aspect than Swisscom and while they do have the money, decided to not make their networks "good enough" instead of perfect.
While Swisscom is clearly more expensive, it cannot really be explained with the better network alone. Most Swiss stick to the company as they always have. As people are unwilling to change, the company can simply charge up to the limit where people would consider to compare prices. Foreigners who arrive new in Switzerland see things differently and therefore are more open to change.
The problem with the coverage is that it does not matter how many percent or so the operator covers, but how good is it exactly at the spots Rich will want to use his card. And this can really depend on the individual base station and its position (especially indoors). Ideally ask some mates who use the other two operators to come over and have a look. I am with Swisscom and thanks to the steel supported concrete in my apartment, the reception is terrible...
1800 networks require 30-40% more sites than 900 networks, due to the nature of the frequencies (higher freqs are more easily attenuated).
Tele Denmark just wants to see a positive cash return for minimal investment. More or less the same for FT. That's just buisness I guess...
I sure I read somewhere that sunrise has the largest mobile network in swizerland, in terms of coverage and base stations.
Swisscom is definately bigger in terms of coverage, from the maps on the sites.
maybe it was when orange where trying to buy sunrise then (or rumoured to have been trying at the beginning of the year), then they would have been the biggest
I also heard rumors about orange and Surnrise merger, and that merger would defenitly put them on par with Swisscom, ....but I doubt the regulators BAKOM would allow that. The 3G frequency auctions in 200/2001 were forced to be seperated into 4 different lots so that one operator couldn't monopolize and to promote competition. Telefonica was the 4th winner of a 3G license in Switzerland, but backed out and never built a network.
I have sunrise, and so far, have beat all my friends in terms of receptivity. I also have a dataplan, and it works quite well. Yes, 3G covverage isn't so wide outside big cities, but it seems to be growing.
Depending on what your doing, basic web browsing, reading the news, rss feeds, etc, edge works fine. Granted, if you're browsing a heavy graphics site, it'll be slower.
On my occasional train rides, 1 hour outside Zurich, it switches back and forth between 3G/H/E ....but I'm always on and am able to do what I need/want.
....my 0.02 :-)
I have an orange subscription and I reported few times network coverage issues on orange.ch - my account - help - manage my incidents. Approx. 3 months after reporting these issues, I have seen some improvements at some locations (not all however). Give it a try, it could be worth it!
Considering it takes about 1-2 years to get building permits approved for new antenna locations, I'll venture to guess the improved coverage was already in the pipes for a while, and your 3 month time from reporting the problem to seeing an improvement was just a lucky coincidence
For my needs Swisscom is the best- I get services in English without a hassle and the coverage is excellent. With Orange there is no signal in my apartment except in the kitchen, and I am in the city centre.
My question is, which of these companies offers the best EU travel rates? Being from the US, I find it hard to believe that leaving a country as small as this is considered roaming, and that no phones (that I have found so far) offer competative EU rates as part of a package plan. US/Canada/Mexico has great plans that allow you to stay connected and travel freely.
My work is consistantly bringing me to France and Italy, so is it better to have phones in each country? Seems ridiculous when most people probably do travel out of the country quite a bit.......Need to have a good phone and unlimited data plan.
Any recommendations would be greatly appreciated, as I need to setup my own phone, as my business is located in the UK, and they cannot get a phone with a good EU travel plan set up there either.
Thanks!
All the tariff and call charges (domestic and roaming) are available on the respective websites.
RD, why are you considering a contract at all. I haven't seen one is CH that wasn't more expensive than if you went pre-paid. Some even don't even guive you anything for the montly fee!!!!!
On all budget pre-paid, 10cent SMS and 25cent/min calls to rest of the civilised world. So it comes down to data plan. Sunrise and COOP have good pre-paid data plans.
Although I must say that the first plan you showed doesn't seem so bad, depending on what the rates for international calls are.
Heh this thread was started agggesssss ago, and in the end I got a good deal with Orange. I pay around 24 CHF a month for unlimited SMS (which is what I do mostly anyway) and 1GB data on a 12 month contract. I send enough SMS to make it worthwhile.
That's a good deal; will look into it myself now that I have a real phone.
It was a christmas/new year special that gave 10 chuffs back for every month you took out a contract for, 120 CHF on a 12- month or 240 CHF on a 24-month. Damn good value imo, as I don't "do" 24 month contracts. Signal has been fine as well.