Mobile phone provider Drillisch has launched a new discount brand called Fiotel. Fiotel offers a prepaid price plan with low rates for mobile phone calls within Germany. For calls to home phones and mobile phones Fiotel charges EUR 0.08, for sending SMS EUR 0.08 per message. Subscribers pay per minute for mobile phone calls, checking voice mail is free of charge. The prepaid starter package (SIM card for the T-Mobile network and calling credit of EUR 3.00) is available at www.fiotel.de for EUR 9.95.

For accessing the internet via GPRS or UMTS over the T-Mobile network Fiotel subscribers pay EUR 0.49 per megabyte. Maximum data transmission speed is reduced to 384 kbps (download) and 32 kbps (upload). Other services of Fiotel can be rather expensive, as well. For example, for international mobile calls from Germany Fiotel users pay EUR 1.99 per minute. On the other hand, Fiotel users get some calling or SMS credit when using their mobile phone.

In order to buy a prepaid starter package of Fiotel, customers need to have a German banking account and have to reside in Germany. The cell phone plan comes with a short minimum term of month and seems to be a quasi-prepaid tariff. Since the billing is not done in real-time but delayed in time, there can be a negative credit balance of the mobile phone user’s prepaid account, especially when the prepaid user has called expensive hotlines or made expensive roaming calls.

Overviews of current cell phone plans in Germany:
Prepaid Price Plans with Single Tariff for Mobile Phone Calls
Prepaid Price Plans with Flat Rate Tariff for Mobile Phone Calls