Vodafone has launched a new discount brand in the German phone market. o.tel.o offers a prepaid price plan with low rates of EUR 0.09 per minute for national calls and for calls to landline phones in selected countries. Checking voice mal within Germany is free of charge, for sending an SMS message users of a prepaid SIM card of o.tel.o pay EUR 0.09 as well. The prepaid starter packages includes a SIM card and is available at www.otelo.de for EUR 4.95 (with EUR 5.00 calling credit ) or at retails stores such as Euronics, EP, Promarkt, Saturn, Media Markt for EUR 9.95 (with EUR 10.00 calling credit).

Users of a o.tel.o SIM card can also access the internet via GPRS or UMTS over the Vodafone network. However, since this is a WAP 2.0 service (APN: “data.otelo.de”), which excludes certain online services. The charge for using the WAP 2.0 service amounts to EUR 0.09 per minute.

o.tel.o offers also low rates for international calls from Germany to home phones in other countries such as Austria, Belgium, Bulgaria, China, Croatia, Estland, France, Greece, Great Britain, Hong Kong, Hungary, Israel, Italy, Japan, Lithuania, Luxemburg, the Netherlands, Poland, Portugal, Romania, Russia, Serbia, Singapur, Slovakia, Spain, Switzerland, Taiwan, Thailand, Turkey and Ukraine. Mobile phone calls to home phones in these countries are charged with EUR 0.09 per minute as well. On the other hand, calls from Germany to mobile phones in these countries are quite expensive.

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