German broadband Internet provider Hansenet (Alice) takes a second shot at marketing highspeed VDSL lines a second shot. This week the ISP will start offering VDSL lines with flat rate tariffs for surfing the web and home phone calls to other landlines in Germany and with data transfer speeds of up to 50 mbps (download) and 10 mbps (upload). New subscribers ordering the new VDSL package “Alice Speed” of Hansenet until the end of October will have to pay just € 29.90 per month for it. New subscribers ordering “Alice Speed” later than that will probably have to pay a monthly fee of € 39.90.

German mobile phone provider Bildmobil is launching a new mobile data tariff option for smart-phone users. According to Computerbild, the new tariff option costs € 9.99 for a 30-day period and offers mobile Internet access over the Vodafone network via GPRS, EDGE, UMTS or HSDPA for data transfers with up to 7.2 mbps (download). There is a traffic limit of 250 MB for faster mobile data transfers via EDGE, UMTS or HSDPA per billing cycle. As soon as the smart-phone user has reached this data volume limit, the bandwidth will be reduced to GPRS speed for the remaining days of that specific billing cycle. Without this tariff option Bildmobil customers pay € 0.35 per megabyte when surfing the web via cell phone or smart-phone.

The new micro SIM card of discount provider Maxxim is a good alternative to the Apple iPad micro SIM card offers of Telekom Deutschland (T-Mobile). The Maxxim mobile data flat rate tariff “maxxim data” costs € 19.95 per month over a period of 24 months. After that two-year period the monthly charge will rise to € 29.95. There is no long minimum term commitment, though, the subscriber can withdraw from the mobile data plan contract within four weeks. In addition to the monthly fees, Maxxim charges new subscribers an one-time set-up fee of € 24.95. iPad users can order the micro SIM card with the mobile data price plan “maxxim data” at the Maxxim web store at www.maxxim.de.

German mobile phone provider O2 Germany is offering a new prepaid 3G surf stick to netbook and notebook users which supports HSPA for mobile data downloads with up to 7.2 mbps and uploads of up to 5.76 mbps. A prepaid starter package including the new UMTS surf stick Huawei E1750 and a SIM card with O2o price plan can be bought at O2 Germany stores or ordered at the O2 Germany web store for € 29.99 plus € 3.95 for delivery. Before, prepaid customers of O2 Germany got 3G surf sticks that support download speeds of just up to 3.6 mbps.

With 1&1 there is one more provider in Germany offering micro SIM cards with postpaid price plans for voice and mobile data services to users of the smart-phone iPhone 4 or the tablet PC iPad. New customers can choose between a voice and mobile Internet flat rate for the new Apple smart-phone and two mobile data flat rate tariffs for the Apple tablet PC. In each case the subscriber can decide on a long term commitment of 24 months or a short term commitment of just three months. New customers agreeing to a long term commitment will benefit from a discount. The SIM cards and voice and mobile data price plans of 1&1 are available at www.1und1.de, during the ordering process the user can select the desired micro SIM card format for iPhone 4 and iPad.

It really surprised me: My article about how I got mobile Internet access via UMTS in Denmark during my last vacations in April attracted interest of many readers. Since in that article I only described one prepaid plan (“Bredband-2-GO-Cash”) for surfing the web over the mobile network of Danish operator TDC, this time I will offer some kind of overview of several prepaid price plans for mobile Internet access in Denmark. The following prepaid starter packages of TDC, 3.dk and One Mobile can be bought by any visitor in Denmark taking his or her notebook or netbook with him or her at the operators’ stores, at supermarkets or at gas station.

There will be a new tariff option for customers of network operator O2 Germany for low-cost international calls from Germany to other countries by cell phone soon. With the “O2 Global Friends” tariff option, O2 Germany customers with an O2 o price plan can make mobile phone calls to five friends who are abroad for rates of € 0.15 per minute – that’s just as much as users of an O2 o price plan pay for mobile phone calls within Germany. “O2 Global Friends” will be available from upcoming Monday and can be booked with an O2 o prepaid or postpaid cell phone plan of O2 Germany. There is no monthly fee for this international calling service, but a one-time set-up fee of € 5.00.

With the O2o Special Edition, we have seen a cell phone price plan with a short minimum term and a cost limit of € 40.00 per month for mobile phone calls and SMS before. Now, a similar prepaid offer of O2 Germany subsidiary Fonic is available at Lidl supermarkets only. This price plan called “Lidl Mobile” is quite attractive for mobile phone users: Actually, one can speak of the Fonic prepaid price plan as a flat rate tariff since subscribers will not pay more than the fixed amount per month for mobile phone calls and for sending text messages (SMS) within Germany.

Simfy is a new free music streaming service for web users in Germany, Austria and Switzerland. When connected to the web, registered PC users can listen to music and create playlists without buying or downloading songs. The Simfy music streaming service offers a basic membership that is free of charge and a premium membership for € 9.99 per month. Premium members can use the music streaming service ad-free, can listen to the music when being on-line or off-line and download the desktop and the mobile applications for the Apple iPhone or Android smartphones. Premium members pay via direct debit (with German banking account) or via credit card. Social networking features like the integration of Facebook Connect have also been added: Signing up for this service allows registered Facebook users to use their profiles on Simfy.

German Internet service provider 1&1 has launched a new flat rate tariff for mobile phone calls within Germany and mobile Internet access via smartphone as well as two new flat rate tariffs for surfing the web via Notebook or netbook.