Hi,

Me and a Swiss guy have been busy beavering away, and we've developed a new mobile phone and contract comparison solution for the Swiss market.

If you've just arrived, then I think it could really help you out finding a good phone and contract.

It's called iCompare and is available online and on your iPhone or Android:
http://icompare.ch, iPhone, Android

If you've just arrived, then I think it could really help you out finding a good phone and contract. I remember when I first got here and it was so difficult to know which provider I should go with, and it's an important decision, since you'll be locked in for 1-2 years if you get a contract.

I tried Comparis, but they really concentrate on insurances (it's the place to go for health insurance) - iCompare is specialized for mobile and we aim to be fair independent.

I'd be really interested in any feedback that anyone could give, so we can improve and provider an even better service to the expats.

Thanks,
Rich

Great website, i signed up just to say that!

Hey Hybrid - thanks for the feedback - really great to hear that!

We're working hard to get in support for the rest of the providers. We also want to soon have international and roaming which is important for us expats!

Nice site, although I couldn't see any data only tariffs (for dongles, iPads etc..)

No, we don't support the tablet/internet devices (or the tariffs for these) yet.

But we have got all the phones, and we'll have the iPhone 5 and it's tariffs available for comparison as soon as it's out.

There's still a lot for us to do... check back now and then and hopefully you'll see some progress!

This is what I was going to ask about as well. For me, what I really want to compare are tariffs between service providers, if I am going to be calling a particular country often.

In my case, I want to know who has the best deal/plan if I am routinely calling the US.

Yeah, my parents live in New Zealand so I know what it's like to have to call international. We're working on it and I'll update the post when I have any news on international support.

Hi,

Just arrived in CH too.

Here's how I'm preparing my final choice:

1. I bought a prepaid card from SwissCom, Coopmobile (using Orange network) and Lebara (using Sunrise network). With each of those SIM cards, I check the quality of each network at different locations, and I test the speeds of Internet with Speed Test (app available for Android and iPhone).

2. Once I know the best network essentially for Internet, I will choose the best offer based on Internet maximum GB available per month, average download speed and price. Why Internet as most important? Because nearly all my calls are now VOIP and I use Internet a lot for surfing and mail on my smartphone.

3. As of today, the best combination seems to be the new sunrise24.ch offer: 49 SFR flat fee per month for unlimited calls to all networks in CH and fixes lined, and unlimitied SMS and Internet. The other providers are nowhere near, mostly double price. I get 3 to 6 Mbps download and upload on Sunrise network on average.

Hope this helps!

pvdm, i agree that's a great plan granted your a hardcore user. however, i am not a heavy internet user and until i have a large group of friends i am not gonna come anywhere near needing unlimited calls/SMS.

there are some truly cheap prepaid companies out there (lebara, yallo), but im probably gonna settle for the orange me + young account which gives me free calls/sms to other orange #'s, 30 min to other lines, and 1 Gb data without contract for chf35 (chf25 with contract )

I agree, this is a great deal - just be aware that if you want/need to call the hotline it'll cost you CHF 1.50 / min. The normal Sunrise line is free, but they don't support sunrise24 on that line.

For coverage, Swisscom is the best, but you pay a premium for that. Sunrise has generally good coverage, but it is patchy in the city sometimes. For instance in the Lion pub in ZH I can't get 3G on my Sunrise account, but with Swisscom it's full 3G there. Still, Sunrise is not a bad option.

SOMETIMES

I know locations with no Swisscom signal, patchy Sunrise Edge signal, and full strength Orange 3G signal. And I know others where Sunrise beat everyone else.

Everything depends on your location: the best mobile phone comparison website would be the one that showed 3G coverage in the areas that matter to YOU.

Who cares about price when you have no signal?

Yeah, can't deny that is true - but I would still argue that overall SC have the best coverage - they have more towers and own more frequency than the others.

In the future we hope to be able to add coverage to http://icompare.ch and I agree that any comparison solution worth its salt should have this... but you have to start somewhere!

My folks live in Nelson btw

not really - depending on what you need (e.g. a flatrate to all networks and some included calls abroad), Swisscom can be significantly cheaper than Sunrise.

agreed - Sunrise has been awful for me where I live. Orange doesn't work at all (not getting any signal in the building), so Swisscom it is for me.

Too true, that is why we created iCompare. Unfortunately it's not perfect yet, but we'll get there I hope!

Looks like a great website, and it seems that the contract that I'm currently locked into is a considerably better deal than the current ones!

Just checked mine before moving over to Switzerland next month; looks like what I had seen on Swisscom before coming onto this website is going to be the right one - thanks!

Hey--just wanted to thank you for this great website, post and the conversation that followed. All have been incredibly helpful for me as I'm moving to CH later this week and was looking for a place to start to figure out which phone to get. Best of luck moving the website from beta to a full launch!

Very nice website indeed, congratulations!

Another feature you might look to in the future for the "Handy & Tarif" is that the user only should enter his usage needs and based on his selection a full list of posisble handy's + associated costs. This model is used a lot on comparison websites in Holland and has proven to be very succesful.

If already implemented, and I simply didn't find it, I apologize

Hey, good job on the website, it seems to work pretty well and shows a lot of useful information.
Unless I am mistaken though, the calculation of one-off costs shown as a per month cost is confusing as although I am looking at a 24 month contract & tariff, the one-off cost has been divided by 12 months. (If I am locked into a 24 month contract, and paying 240chf up front for the phone then i equate that to 10chf per month for the phone, right?)


The next tweak you need is a way to extract the information on the random rebates that sunrise and orange offer online - 2x25chf with sunrise, vs 40 or 80chf with orange... all very confusing.