Austria cell phones · Cell phones in Austria
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Cell phones in Austria
Cell phones in Austria
Austria has a perfect GSM and 3G (UMTS) network coverage of nearly 100%. If you bring your own cell phone with you assure yourself that it operates on 900MHz / 1800MHz (GSM) or 2100Mhz (3G WCDMA). There are cell phones that operate at 1900MHz (e.g. networks in the United States) which are not supported in Austria. If you plan a longer visit in Austria it might be useful to buy a new mobile with a prepaid card from a local cell phone network provider. Be aware that some remote areas (especially mountainous areas) do not have network coverage yet, though this rather the exception than the rule. Even the Vienna underground lines do have perfect coverage.
Despite being a rather small country, Austria has a large number of cell network providers including A1, T-Mobile, Orange (former called One) , Drei (3G), Telering, Tele2, Bob and Yesss.
The probably cheapest prepaid mobile providers right now are Bob and Yesss . A prepaid card costs €15 including 100 minutes talking time. Then you pay 6.8 cent per minute to all Austrian networks (as of June 2008) and 70 cents to the most important other countries. The Yesss SIM card is only available at the discounter Hofer . Yesss also sells cheap UMTS data cards (that are different from the normal SIM cards). The starter kit includes 1GB traffic and is available for 20 Euro. In order to prevent the SIM card from expiring, you need to recharge it once per year.
If you have an Austrian bank account, you can purchase a registered (non-prepaid) Bob SIM card. Calls then only cost 4 cent per minute to all other Austrian networks. There is no basic fee and no minimum charge.
The new provider eety has a prepaid SIM card with very cheap international rates (13 cents to Germany, 9 Cent for Short Messages (SMS) worldwide). Online available at www.eety.eu and also sold in a few stores in major towns.
You may often purchase a prepaid SIM card for Austria before you depart from an online vendor which can be convenient as you get instructions in English and your cell phone number before you depart.
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Austria Travel Guide from Wikitravel. Many thanks to all Wikitravel contributors. Text is available under Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 3.0, images are available under various licenses, see each image for details.