Operator O2 Germany provides the personal navigation and mapping service Telmap to its customers. Effective immediately, the application is preinstalled on many new GPS-enabled mobile phones such as Motorola Milestone, HTC Touch HD2, Samsung Galaxy or Sony Ericsson W995. Customers who are already using GPS-enabled smartphones can download the Telmap client directly to their phones at http://wap.telmap.com/o2de/. O2 Germany offers the Telmap navigation service to its customers for free, regardless of whether they have a prepaid price plan or a fixed-term agreement. The only fees are for the mobile data transmission.

The iPhone App by Berlin recommendation platform Townster is available for free and does two things for users: It helps them find the good places to eat and drink in Berlin, and it includes a game that should make going out even more fun. Via GPS, the app lists restaurants, cafés, fast food joints, bars, and pubs in the users’ immediate surroundings and shows them on a map, including location details and user reviews.

Because of high data roaming charges it is not advisable to use an UMTS surf stick with a German SIM card in Denmark. And don’t count on finding an internet café in one of the small villages along the North Sea coast. Therefore, it is probably best to consider buying a prepaid SIM card (with or without an UMTS surf stick) of a Danish provider. In a mobile phone shop of operator TDC, I have bought a prepaid starter package called “Bredband-2-GO-Cash” including a SIM card, the UMTS surf stick Huawei E1550 USB and credit for accessing the internet via GPRS or UMTS over a period of one week. Purchase price: DKK 290.00 which is around EUR 35.00. Internet access for one day costs DKK 39.00, for one week DKK 129.00, or for one month DKK 299.00.

Mobile phone provider O2 Germany is changing its mobile data roaming tariffs: As of tomorrow, April 19th, o2 customers pay EUR 0.05 (instead of EUR 0.07) per 10 kB when accessing the internet via GPRS or UMTS in another European country. This means, for each megabyte transferred over the mobile network subscribers are charged EUR 5.12. However, O2 Germany also limits the maximum costs of its customers for mobile data roaming in another European country to EUR 59.50.

Because of high roaming charges, prepaid SIM cards of domestic providers are a good choice when making mobile phone calls in another country. Usually, these prepaid price plans come without any minimum term or any monthly fee and users are only charged when actually making a phone call. Thus, tourists, travelers, au-pairs or exchange students can even take the prepaid SIM card back home and use it again when visiting the country next time. When being in Germany, there is a broad range of prepaid price plans offering low rates for mobile phone calls within Germany and for international mobile phone calls. However, some of them require a minimum turnover by the customer.

Car navigation specialist TomTom now offers prepaid cards for its Live services on portable navigation devices (PNDs). After a free three month trial period users can choose to buy a prepaid Live services card for six months (EUR 59.95) or for twelve months (EUR 99.95). Alternatively, users can book an ongoing subscription via TomTom Home desktop software for EUR 9.95 per month which can be canceled with an one month’s notice. With TomTom Live services latest traffic information (HD Traffic), weather forecasts, fuel prices, safety alerts and information about local shops and business found by way of Google search are sent directly to the SIM card in a compatible navigation device.

(Updated on June 17th, 2011)

Getting a new landline is pretty expensive, using call-through services is quite complicated – thus, two adequate alternatives for making international calls at low rates are not available to many phone users. Another way to make phone calls from Germany to other countries in the world at comparably low rates is to buy a prepaid SIM card of a German discount provider specialized in international calls. They offer cell phone plans with which mobile phone users can call family members, friends or acquaintances for rates beginning at € 0.09 per minute. However, prices vary and interested parties should select their prepaid starter package carefully.

Sunday, classic hangover day, one might say. But of course, not only New York is a city that never sleeps. There are parties worth going to every day of the week without an exception. But where to go? During the last couple of years, Berlin got famous especially for its electronic music partys. Some tourists only consider visiting Berlin, because they want to see the huge, factory-like seeming halls of “Berghain” – or maybe just the legendary face-tattoo-bouncer, whose communication skills appear to be limited to minimalistic nods. To find interesting events, the websites of city magazines like zitty, tip or – especially recommendable – 030 are always reliable options. A little bit more thrilling is certainly “restrealitaet”, which means “rest of reality” in English…

Nokia has launched a new version of Ovi Maps that includes high-end car and pedestrian navigation features such as detailed maps for more than 180 countries, voice-guided turn-by-turn navigation for 74 countries and traffic information for more than ten countries. Both navigation and maps are free of charge and will be installed on any A-GPS smartphone with Symbian S60 sold from March on, updates of maps and additional Ovi Maps services will be carried out automatically over the air.

Tonight millions of people welcoming the new year will use their mobile phone in order to contact loved ones and friends and to wish them a Happy New Year. The German industry association Bitkom estimates that about 290 millions of SMS messages will be sent at midnight. Even though mobile networks are constantly expanded and upgraded by the operators T-Mobile, Vodafone, E-Plus and O2 Germany, it is likely that they will not be able to handle all the traffic and to forward every SMS messages sent immediately. In some cases, it could even take two or three hours until Happy New Year wishes will arrive at their destination when the SMS messages has been sent at midnight or a few minutes later. But there are ways to avoid this.