Moving to Switzerland (Phone question)

CrazyMoney

My apologies for the late reply just been busy with making arrangements. It looks like swisscom may be the best as what I'll be needing it for mainly is to call Swiss landlines and possibly int'l calls back to UK (also receiving UK calls) - the roaming charges are something I may have to be aware when using basel-mulhouse airport but dont envisage that to be too often.

Thanks for all your help guys - now just got to sort out accomodation !

redux

Calling cards to look at

https://www.masterbell.com
https://www.enjoyprepaid.com

Nobelcom is behind Enjoyprepaid and some of the cards on Masterbell. Calls to most landlines are around US 2 to 3c via an ordinary area code number, or about 11c more via freephone numbers

If you are going to make a series of calls, press # to follow-on with the calling card, and it should count as one call with Swisscom - I've tried this out with 2 networks here and 18866 and it seems to work.

At the airport, I should think there'd be plenty of overlapped coverage and it wouldn't change over from Swisscom, but to be sure switch the phone to manual network selection.

redux

I don't know if you're also interested in mobile internet access, but I just found this - 1GB capacity for CHF79 per month

http://www.swisscom-mobile.ch/scm/gek_mobile-unlimited_tarife-de.aspx

CrazyMoney

Thanks redux, it might have made it slightly easier if I could have ordered off the website and got the easy liberty sim card sent to my UK address. But no worries I can purchase this when there

I shall use this package with calling cards to phone back to the UK

justpaper

CrazyMoney wrote:

Yes visas are involved and these are easy to obtain if you have the right experience for a particular job I've been told.

thats true and u have to earn a set amount... if i remember correctly

dont worry about the phone thing.. just get ur self over there,.. good move

redux

I'd be interested to know how you're getting on.

I understand that the Orangeclick SIM has 20 CHF value on it for 5 CHF, and that call charges have dropped to 0.39 CHF per minute. And interesting roaming charges in neighbouring countries. And there is a refer-a-friend scheme that gives both people CHF 20 credit. I don't know how many new SIMs you could churn at 5 francs for 40 francs value.

So I'm imagining you with 2 SIMs by now ...

justpaper

CrazyMoney have u got yet !?!?

CrazyMoney

Hi all, apologies for the delayed reply. Yes I am over in Switzerland now and although I have a sunrise payg sim for the time being I am investigating redux's post regarding orange sims.

Thanks for all your help so far.

Kind regards, CM

fatboyonadiet

CrazyMoney I am so jealous, wish I was there! Bet you literally are CrazyMoney now with all you're earning! LOL.

Lob_Rockster

In terms of Swiss coverage, service and price and not considering international calls, I would say Orange is reasonable and Orangeclick is a good way of having a PAYG contract without having monthly fees. Sunrise is not bad but Swisscom I would say comes 2nd (IMO). Also there are funky contracts to have that are not pre-pay and you might get some discount through the company you're working with.

Also all Swiss contracts, be they PAYG or not, need official ID to register after 9/11 and the Swisscom PAYG SIMs used by the terrorists.

I would not recommend using mobile for international calls when there are far cheaper options such as sunrise, one-tel, Swisscom, Cablecom Digitalphone, Skype-Out, etc.

And permits are not income-based; in fact, as an EU citizen, you'll likely simply get a permit which is not too restrictive - this is as part of the bilateral agreements allowing the Swiss cheeses to roam the EU too. There are still quotas though.