Mobile phone contracts: Post and prepaid tariffs at bargain prices

You pay too much for your mobile phone contract or want to switch providers, but keep your phone? Then these tariff deals are worth a look for you.

These mobile phone contracts are currently cheaper

The big providers and many mobile phone discounters compete for the best deal. The following offers are currently available:

around in Jungle of SIM-only contracts and prepaid offers To keep an overview, we will introduce you to the mobile phone providers in more detail and tell you what you should consider when signing a contract.

Which mobile phone contract is the cheapest?

The big providers like Telekom, Vodafone or O2, a company of Telefónica Germany, still offer you services in their branches, but they do In terms of price, you often go with the cell phone discounters like Blau, Fonic or AldiTalk better. Many gigabytes of data volume, All-Net-Flat and Co. sometimes from as little as 5 euros.

You have to take this into account when choosing a network

Use in principle Mobile phone discounter of one of the networks of Telekom Germany, Vodafone or Telefónica Germany. Some providers even belong to the big companies as their own brands, such as SIMon mobile to Vodafone, while other branding brands only enter into a partnership with the mobile phone providers – such as Aldi Talk with Telefónica Germany. There are also providers who operate via so-called MVNEs, Mobile Virtual Network Enablers. This Service providers take over the network operation for providers who do not have a radio license and provide networks of other mobile phone providers.

You can find out which provider and which network is behind it in the following table:

So use it all providers of one of the well-developed mobile networks in Germany. Nevertheless, it is advisable to know which network your preferred provider uses and whether the Network coverage guaranteed in your place of residence is.

For network coverage at Vodafone❯

For network coverage at Telekom Germany❯

About network coverage at Telefónica Deutschland❯

Which is the best network for you?

As already mentioned, all providers use one of the three major mobile networks in Germany. Telekom’s D-1 network and Vodafone’s D-2 network sometimes cover more areas than Telefónica’s E network. Above all, Vodafone scores with the theoretically highest possible speed. But usually the best network for you is there depends on which areas of Germany you use it the most. Also look at the contract regarding the Provider’s LTE speed worthwhile so that you can get the most out of your SIM-only contract.

Do I actually need 5G?

5G is intended to be the new standard in the mobile communications industry in terms of quality and speed put the LTE network in the shade. Unfortunately, 5G has not yet been rolled out across the board. Provider Drillisch Online is even just beginning to expand the 5G network. In addition, is also still not every smartphone is 5G-capable and yours Mobile phone contract must explicitly support this standard. From a technical point of view, 5G offers advantages in data download. For example, an HD film should be loaded onto your smartphone in a few seconds, while an LTE connection still takes several minutes. So 5G offers you a lot of comfort, but for At this point in time, you don’t necessarily have to pay extra for this service.

How much data volume do I need?

That depends entirely on your usage behavior. who who travels a lot and uses his mobile phone extensively naturally uses up more data volume than someone who uses his smartphone in the home WiFi network. But it also depends what services you use Music streaming consumes significantly less than video streaming.

Data consumption when using messenger services

According to measurements by the provider 1&1, messenger services such as WhatsApp and Co. have the least data on average. A text message takes up about 1 kilobyte. Only prolific copywriters have to be careful not to burn their data volume. However, the situation is quite different when sharing videos. the Forwarding a one-minute clip eats up 15 megabytes.

• Voice call: around 3MB per minute
• Video call: around 5MB per minute
• Voice messages: approx. 0.2 MB per minute

Data consumption when using social media services

Scrolling the social media news feed beats about 120 megabytes per hour. But beware: Instagram and TokTok are with many Image media and videos are significantly more data-intensive. Ever larger images and longer stories in your feed tend to increase the data volume per hour to 220 MB per hour and more. Here, 1 gigabyte of data volume can be used up in just under four hours.

Data consumption when using music streaming

Music services like Spotify, Apple Music and Co. are more popular than ever. Therefore, music lovers will be pleased that listening to your favorite songs consumes relatively little data volume. music inside low quality consumes about 60 megabytes per hour. If you increase the audio quality, however, you quickly get to 120 MB per hour.

Data consumption when using video streaming

Video streaming on the go via YouTube or Netflix turns out to be the true data killer. Depending on the resolution of the video, the data consumption ranges from a resolution of 144p to 120 MB per hour a whopping 1.8 gigabytes at 1080p. If you watch films and series on Netflix on the go in the best quality, you can save up to 3 gigabytes per hour.

How fast should my data plan be?

There are indeed differences in transfer speeds. A tariff in the German LTE network is therefore not always as fast. The price comparison provider Check24 lists the speeds of the providers and the requirements for applications. LTE speeds of up to 225 Mbit/s are theoretically possible with Telefónica Germany, up to 300 Mbit/s with Telekom Germany and up to 500 Mbit/s with Vodafone. In the In practice, however, these are rarely achieved. However, this is not absolutely necessary, as 20 to 50 MBit/s are usually sufficient for most apps and applications.

• WhatsApp and Mail: 2 MBit/s
• Music streaming: 2 to 4 Mbps
• Video streaming (SD): 2 to 4 Mbps
• Video streaming (HD): 7 to 25 Mbps
• Video calls in HD: from 1.5 Mbit/s

It should be noted, however, that many discount providers are often throttled in data speed. These use the mobile networks of the big three and so that they can compete with the cheap providers with their prices, Telekom and Co. use theirs LTE speed down to 21.6 to 50 Mbit/s on average. But as the table above shows, these speeds are usually quite sufficient. Only passionate video streamers should definitely inquire whether watching movies in HD is possible and whether the network coverage also allows it.

connection fees

It should be noted here that you some providers charge a one-time fee for the connection in addition to the monthly costs to calculate. But more and more providers give you the option of having the connection fee waived for a fixed term of 24 months.

contract terms

contract terms usually 24 months, so 2 years. Many discounters advertise that their Mobile phone tariffs are flexible and you can conclude them without a minimum term can. So you are unbound and can If you get a better offer, just switch providers. However, note that this is not uncommon a connection fee will be charged will if you choose your tariff without a minimum term.

What is the difference between pre- and postpaid?

You are certainly familiar with prepaid tariffs: you top up your credit and could use this for telephony, SMS, online services and Co. until it is used up. behind the term Postpaid hides what you call a collective agreement knows. You conclude this with certain conditions and if you do not use any special services such as extra data volume, you pay the fixed amount monthly.

Do you often have no network?

If only you are affected by a fault or if there are failures in large areas of Germany, you will find out in our fault report. Most mobile phone providers are listed here and you can find out what you can do in the event of a fault.