Cell Phones, Internet, Cable

You need to be prepared to be a little confused when deciding how to go about getting all three of these things. Just go ahead and know it might take a while and a lot of question asking!

There are four different cell phone companies, TKS, T-mobile (aka Telekom or Deutsche Telekom), Vodafone, and O2. All of these companies have different plans that you will need to research to figure out what works best for you and your family. Some of them have home phone, internet and cell phone services all packaged together, but you don't have to get them together. Make sure to ask about calling back to the states either from a cell phone or house phone. Most of them will allow unlimited calls to the states from a land line for around 5 euro a month. Don’t jump into a plan just because you want a phone; be sure to understand the contract. Ask about military, deployments, month to month plans or 2 year plans. Know all your options before signing a contract.

Be prepared to wait a LONG time for internet if you are living off post in a private rental. Not all companies can service the small villages. Your best bet is to go to T-mobile for internet, they are the largest company and can usually service all locations (usually, not all the time). The day you pick your house be sure to sign up for internet and home phone. It can take weeks before a technician can come to the house to hook it up. Even if you’re not moved into your house yet, go set it up! Lucky for me this is how all these posts came about…. 5 weeks without internet!

Remember you are living in a foreign country, all of your letters and mail from phone and internet companies will be written in German. Be sure you translate them (use Google translate or a neighbor) they usually have some kind of important information in them such as a company can’t service where you live… after you’ve waited a week. Yup, it happened to us.

As for cable... we do not have cable. If you can live without it then there really is no point in paying for it. Since I don't have cable I don't know all the ins and outs about it, but to get AFN and all 11 or 12 channels it offers you have to have a decoder box and those can cost up to $200. You will also need a satellite. If you move into a house that previously had a military family it might already have a satellite. We do not have one which means we'd have to buy one. And they can be quite expensive so we have opted out of having cable. TKS does offer a cable package with more channels than AFN. I don't have much information on that but just ask different companies when you get here. If you choose not to get cable you can watch TV shows on ProjectfreeTV.com. The post library also has a large selection of DVD and TV shows that can be rented. 

Getting a cell phone is usually first priority. You will have no way of contacting anyone without a phone. If you don't feel comfortable setting up a plan you can always get a pay as you go phone from the PX. You add any amount of money to the phone and use it until you need to add more. Pay as you go phones work great from some people who don't use it much, or that teenager who might run up a bill ;)

My husband and I have a phone plan through O2 and internet through T-mobile. We originally wanted internet with O2 as well but they could not service where we lived. Just remember to be patient, it's normal to wait a few weeks for internet.