Hi,

Does anyone have thoughts about choice of mobile phone package? I am recently moved to Zurich with my wife, and we are light-to-medium mobile phone users. My wife will be phoning and texting the UK. Also it would be great to have coverage when we are in neighboring countries (e.g. for short weekend trips),

Thanks for any suggestions,
Paul.

Just yesterday there was a news report on DRS3. Said that customers pay
some-odd million too much each year (combined ) because they have the
wrong Handy-Plan. Most people would be better off using a pre-paid type
account.

I, too, am light to medium user. However, due to the amount of data
transfer, I have a fix-abo.

With regards to "which is best for me", I suggest to shop around. As the
big names in tele-communications which of their plans best fit your profile
(UK calls and SMSing). Make your decision based on the offers and their
respective prices.

You may get the most information off the websites:
Sunrise (only available in German, does offer English per telephone call)
Orange (English)
Swisscom (English)

Take a look at TalkTalk. No monthy fee, free sim when you fixed line is with them or CHF 29 a month including fixed line rental AND free mobile and fixed line calls to other TalkTalk customers.

Probably for a "light to medium" user not really the cheapest, but an interesting offer:
Sunrise has a promotion for the Zero Plus subscription (= 50CHF/month, which is also the amount included in the subscription, ie if you phone for 50 or more per month the subscription is for free) if you take it or renew before January 24: for one or two years (depending on for how long you take the subscription) free unlimited calls to all Sunrise and Cablecom numbers.
We will use this, with my wife taking a Sunrise prepaid and me this Zero Plus offer.

For light users probably the prepaid from M Budget (Migros) is the cheapest with a flat fee of 28 Rp/minute for all calls mobile and fixed anywhere in Europe.

Thanks all!
Paul.

I've got an iPhone on Orange Optima 100. It's 60 odd Francs a month and for that you get 50 text messages, which include ones back to the UK, and 100 minutes of talk time, which also includes calls to the UK. Plus you get to nominate 3 numbers in Switzerland (landline or other Orange mobiles) which you can call for free. You don't get as much for your money as in the UK but it's not too bad, especially the fact you can call and text back to the UK as part of your plan.

I was looking at this myself. I'm thinking of either going with the Migros, but this would mean very little data usage - OR going for the Swisscom 35 Fr tariff:
http://www.swisscom-mobile.ch/scm/prv_surf_abos-en.aspx

which would give me 250mb of data per month.

Orange has the advantage of offering local rates for other European countries as well. You can use the included minutes for calls within the EU.

They also offer a 75mb data package for 10 Fr. or a 1gb package for 19 fr / month which is pretty cheap. If you 're ever planning on using data I'd steer away from prepaid offerings.

peter