Telephone services

Today, almost all students in Germany have a smartphone. Many also use it at home and do without landlines. It usually makes sense for international students as well to buy a German SIM card. It allows to you communicate with your friends in Germany simply and inexpensively. With a foreign SIM card, you pay significantly more for text messages and calls inside Germany.

Landlines

If you don’t exclusively use a smartphone to make calls, you can also order a home landline. Here, too, you can choose between multiple telephone companies with diverse offers. Usually, DSL connections come with internet and a flat rate, although international calls are sometimes excluded from the latter. For them, there are also special offers, and various websites can help you compare the different plans and fees.

Call by call numbers: Saving money on foreign calls

You can also save money on foreign calls by using special prefixes for landline calls. Before placing every call, you search out the cheapest provider. Not every telephone company, however, accepts these ‘call by call’ numbers. For that reason, it makes sense before you sign a contract to ask whether your prospective provider does so. You can find the cheapest call prefixes on the internet.

Internet and postal services

Internet

In Germany you mostly connect your laptop or netbook with the internet via cable or wi-fi. If you don’t have a connection, you can order one and procure mobile service. For the former you usually need a landline telephone connection. You can find the cheapest offers on online comparison portals. There are a lot of mobile internet connection options, for example SIM cards or surf sticks, with or without contracts.

But you can also study in Germany without an internet connection of your own. Universities tend to have numerous workspaces, for example in libraries, with computers for general use. They can also be used to surf the web. Many colleges and universities also have campus-wide wi-fi. Students receive the necessary codes and passwords upon registration. Moreover, there are many cybercafés on German campuses where you can surf the internet cheaply.