What Is Prepaid? – Telephoning With Prepaid Cards

Prepaid cards score numerous advantages over contracts: short contract terms, no basic fee, complete cost control – and thanks to many discount offers, prepaid tariffs are cheap. To use prepaid cards, the customer purchases credit in advance, which can be used to bill for calls, SMS and MMS, and mobile Internet. The most significant advantage of prepaid telephony is cost control. If you make calls on a prepaid basis, you must be satisfied with a high mobile phone bill since options can only be booked, completed calls or other services used for the previously paid amount of money.

Pitfalls For Infrequent Users: Top Up Credit Regularly

Even those who only receive incoming calls and SMS should top up their credit from time to time because most prepaid providers have so-called activity periods in their terms and conditions. After lengthy periods without credit topping up and outgoing calls, they reserve the right to deactivate the SIM card and terminate it for the prepaid customer. On the other hand, other prepaid providers charge an administration fee for non-use, which can amount to up to several euros per month.

Prepaid Credit Does Not Expire: Repayment Is Free Of Charge

Once the customer has topped up a prepaid credit, it must stay active. Therefore, after the end of the prepaid contract, he is entitled to have his remaining balance paid out. The mobile operator may not charge a fee for this payout. However, it can be different with bonus credit that the customer has received from the provider as a “gift” as part of a campaign. 

Find The Right Prepaid Tariff

If you want to make prepaid calls, you can choose between the prepaid tariffs of the network operator ( Telefónica, Telekom or Vodafone) and the tariffs of the prepaid discounters. An important question for many is: Which network does which provider transmit? You can find this information in our overview of prepaid providers sorted by the network. In the prepaid area, flat-rate booking tariffs are also possible as an additional option. Are you looking for a suitable tariff for your smartphone? You can learn about special features when choosing a tax in the information on prepaid smartphones.

Take Your Mobile Phone Number With You: Possible With Many Prepaid Providers

Anyone who buys a new prepaid package does not necessarily have to get used to a unique cell phone number. Many prepaid providers now also allow you to take your phone number from the old provider to the new one: incoming porting. You can find an overview of which mobile phone providers allow number portability and the costs involved in this in our overview of porting fees.

Of course, immediately after purchasing the new prepaid card, only the number specified in the prepaid package is available – until the porting process between the old and new provider has been completed. Incidentally, every newly purchased prepaid card must be activated. It is required by law that the customer goes through an identification procedure for this purpose. We explain all activation options in our guide, Activating and activating a prepaid SIM card.

Make Calls Abroad With The Prepaid Card

In principle, it is no longer a problem with most prepaid cards to use abroad – thanks to roaming. However, there may be a few extra steps for those traveling to areas outside of India. In our guide to roaming with prepaid cards, we have summarized what these are and the conditions under which you can use the prepaid offers of the network operators to make calls abroad.

Also Read: From E-Commerce To Kindle, The Story Of Amazon