Together with two publishing houses Augsburger Allgemeine and Schleswig-Holsteinischer Zeitungsverlag, mobile phone provider Simply has launched a prepaid price plan called Newstarif. What makes this price plan so special is that subscribers may browse one of the two mobile web portals www.augsburger-allgemeine.mobi and mobil.shz.de and read news on the mobile phone’s screen for free. Naturally, articles and other content found on these web portals are aimed at people living in either one of the two regions around Augsburg or in Schleswig-Holstein and are written in German. Users will receive the correct settings from the provider via SMS.

To mobile phone users not speaking German the new prepaid price plan “Newstarif” offers low rates for mobile phones calls, at least. Mobile phone calls to landlines and other mobiles in Germany are charged with EUR 0.09 per minute, sending SMS messages within Germany with EUR 0.09 each. Also, the rate of EUR 0.35 per megabyte for accessing the internet via UMTS with up to 384 kbps (download) and 32 kbps (upload) over the network of T-Mobile is quite fair. Checking voice mail is free of charge. However, “Newstarif” should not be used for international calls to other countries because of its high rate of EUR 1.99 per minute.

The prepaid starter package of “Newstarif” including a SIM card and calling credit of EUR 5.00 is available for EUR 9.95 at www.newstarif.de. New customers need to indicate a German residency and a German banking account when ordering the “Newstarif” prepaid starter package. Since there can be a negative balance on the subscriber’s prepaid account due to a possible delay in billing and since there might be a solvency check (Schufa), the “Newstarif” should be allocated to the category of quasi-prepaid tariffs. Simply will cancel the prepaid contract when the SIM card has not been in use for two months and no new calling credit has been topped up for 15 months.

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