Okay, every once in a while I post completely off topic, and this is one of those times. The contract on my mobile service is coming up for renewal in a few months, and I’m looking for a company to switch to. I’ve been learning enough in the process, that I thought I would share some of it with the world. As well as those of you who might be looking for mobile service locally, maybe it’s interesting to others to compare the situation here with your own.
First of all, we have three main providers:
KPN: The former state phone monopoly, who thinks they’re still in charge.
Vodafone: Who has frequent complaints of outages; there have been a few cases where service was down in the entire country for a day or more, and several months ago had a fire in their data center. Statistically speaking, most companies who have a such a fire are gone within a few months. Vodafone is still around. Rumor has it they only have a cobbled together production system, and are just barely functioning. Existing customers do still have service.
T-Mobile: Originally called Ben, when they started here their systems were very overloaded, calls were dropped and service was very poor. After heavy pressure from consumer organizations, they finally admitted they had a problem, spent millions in upgrades and gave some customers a refund. This is the former German state phone monopoly.
There used to be a forth provider, Telfort, but this was bought early on by KPN and the infrastructure of the two companies were combined. This is probably one of the reasons the infrastructure of KPN is pretty reliable.
Beyond these three main providers, there are dozens of resellers who resell service under their own brand names. KPN in particular owns a large number of these resellers, and if you buy resold mobile service in the country, it’s probably still fully owned by KPN.
Honestly, all the choices are crap. There’s lots to choose from, but it’s known we pay higher rates for poorer service than other Europeans on average.
In my case, my existing service comes from Telfort. I was an original Telfort customer when it was taken over by KPN. Telfort used to be a discount service, and for some time KPN maintained this, offering a discounted full service product. Recently however, they’ve been raising prices and changing terms and conditions. In particular, if you do anything out of the ordinary, for example call, SMS or use data outside of your prearranged bundle, there are often unreasonable costs. In addition prices are set to increase sharply after my current contract expires, so it’s time to move on.
Basically what I was looking for was some sort of bundle that would cover most of my phone use costing about €10 or less, and to not face unreasonable costs if I should use my phone beyond this. A common way this is offered now is with a ‘500 bundle’ of some sort, in other words a minute of call time, an SMS or a MB of data are all ‘units’ in a common bundle, and such a bundle of 500 units are being offered by a few places. As an alternative, I was looking for an inexpensive data bundle, because then I could place calls over the Internet (VoIP) with Skype a similar service. Some of these services offer calls much cheaper than mobile phone companies, and with an app on my Android phone I could easily place calls through them.
Okay, since buying services directly from one of the three main providers is generally more expensive, I started looking to the resellers. There are two kinds of resellers, those directly affiliated with one of the three major service providers above, or foreign owned resellers, that operate across a number of countries and are not affiliated with a particular Dutch provider. Some resellers charge a small amount to send you a SIM card with a value on it, and others send it for free but then you have to add money later.
Initially, I tried two resellers, Delight Mobile (foreign owned) and Hollandsnieuwe (owned by Vodafone and resells their service).
The Delight Mobile SIM came within a few days. The offer from them I wanted was a prepaid €10 Dutch bundle with 500 minutes/sms/Mb. Since it came without any money on the SIM, the first challenge was going to be putting exactly €10 on it and buying the bundle without incurring any other costs, then seeing if this ‘all-inclusive’ bundle really covered all costs. That all mostly went to plan, I bought the bundle, but then couldn’t access voicemail. Voicemail it turns out costs a few cents, and it’s not included in the bundle. I was able to get around this by using the direct (06) phone number for voicemail instead of the 4-digit fast dial number, then it got charged as a normal phone call within the bundle.
I quickly noticed my Internet wasn’t working however, and set about to troubleshoot it. According to the web page, you have to set the APN (access point name) before you can use Internet. Every other provider seems to preconfigure this in their SIMs before sending them, but for Delight you have to do this by hand. As an alternative to doing it by hand, you could download and run a simple script. Both the manual instructions and script set the APN to different values, and when I surfed the Internet for more information I found yet a different value. The website says I can call customer service, but at least until now I haven’t been willing to do this for something that should just work, possibly with instructions off their webpage. I did send customer service an email, and they never answered it. That’s not a very good sign either. I was never able to get the Internet to work.
The Hollandsnieuwe SIM never came, a reseller of Vodafone. After about 2 weeks I sent customer service a message via their webpage, and several days later I got the automated response they promised within a few minutes. After another week, I got another automated message saying they were still working hard on answering my support request, but were just too busy. They promised to get back to me as soon as possible. I don’t suggest anyone waste their €2,50 on ordering a Hollandsnieuwe SIM. I think they are the only company currently reselling Vodafone, and I think they are just unable to handle any new orders because of their data center fire I mentioned above.
Then I ordered an Ortel SIM, a company owned by KPN. Ortel in particular had some very cheap prepaid data bundles, and I thought I could use it for calling over the Internet. At first everything went well, and the SIM came very quickly. The Internet worked very well at first, and was very fast. The problem was VoIP (calling over the Internet) seemed to be blocked.
It’s illegal by the way in the Netherlands for Internet providers to block VoIP. The Dutch government was very eager to pass a Net Neutrality law, and this was part of it. Before the law was passed, KPN attracted a lot of attention by blocking VoIP on mobile phones, and had to back down. On my Telfort service which is owned by KPN, I don’t have any problems with VoIP.
I sent an email to customer service, got a very fast and friendly response, verifying my APN settings, which were correct. I have the impression they have very few customers, because I was corresponding with them via their info@ortel.nl email address. Anyway, in answer to my follow up email, they told me it wasn’t their fault, they use KPNs network, so I should contact KPN.
This is like a time warp. When KPN was initially split up and forced to accept competition, this is what used to always happen. KPN would block something, often for example porting a phone number, and would blame the other company. The other company would tell you to call KPN, because it was their fault. This would go back and forth, until you finally gave up. Anyway, trying to convince Ortel or KPN that they were breaking the law by blocking VoIP was something I wasn’t going to get started on.
It seems if you get data service through a KPN company, and aren’t paying enough for it, VoIP will be blocked by KPN, in spite of it being illegal.
Considering I was leaving Telfort, owned by KPN, because I was feeling manipulated by them and I certainly felt disappointed by Ortel, owned by KPN, I decided to look more seriously for non-KPN alternatives. Vodafone didn’t seem like an alternative either, because of my experiences above with Hollandsnieuwe. This left either a foreign owned reseller without Dutch affiliation, or T-mobile.
None of the remaining foreign owned resellers seem to offer very good prices or interesting package deals, so I decided to try T-mobile. As far as I can see the only resellers for T-mobile in the Netherlands are Tele2, Ben and Simpel, and they don’t have very good deals either, so I decided to order a SIM directly from T-mobile.
My T-Mobile SIM came very fast, the next day.
They are really heavy on the marketing, and this can be very annoying! They have a very confusing range of packages, most of which are kind of expensive and sometimes very restrictive (for example if you read the fine print, some of their ‘minutes’ can’t be used to call mobiles from other companies and/or expire after a week). It’s eye-wateringly expensive to use any service outside of a package, so you have to choose something. I spent about €2 initially configuring my voicemail without a package. If you’re a little careful about packages and how you use your phone, take advantage of some of their marketing ‘opportunities’, it’s possible to buy reasonably priced service from them. With the prepaid service, it’s possible to buy a lot of bundles on the fly, only as you need them.
I decided to start with them on a prepaid basis, and for this the data service is very slow. They don’t block VoIP, but it’s so slow VoIP is not really usable. Skype is okay, but my other VoIP accounts have too much delay in the conversation.
I’m not really completely happy with them, but I’m probably going to eventually switch to them on a year contract basis, assuming the data quality will then improve enough to use VoIP.
If you have other experiences, let us know below!
I have a few updates to add.
I finally did get the Hollandsnieuwe SIM. It came about a month after I ordered it. The Internet worked really well and was fast. 3Mb down and 1Mb up according to an online speed test, faster than my home ADSL. VoIP worked pretty well. Everything else about their service was very buggy at best. I missed some calls because they went directly to voicemail for no particular reason. You can’t sign off their email spam list, supposedly because of a bug on their website. Their prepaid mobile Internet is €1,50 for a day bundle, and supposedly stops when it’s used up and sends you a warning SMS shortly before. Actually the warning SMS comes too late, and it automatically rolls-over to another €1,50 bundle, even though less than 24 hours has passed.
I wouldn’t really consider Hollandsnieuwe a serious choice, although they are cheap compared with most others, except for international calls and roaming. Since VoIP works well, this could be used for international calls. With Hollandsnieuwe you have to be willing to accept a service that is buggy, may not work, and without any meaningful customer service.
I got an 88mobile SIM, and they are not that interesting. Overall they are cheaper than most, but they don’t have any bundels, so they are only good if you don’t intend to use your phone much. VoIP doesn’t work on their Internet.
I also ordered a Vectone SIM. They are the same company as Delight (see above), and offer similar bundles. Unlike Delight, their Internet actually worked! The Internet was very slow, 64k/64k according to an online speed test (remember modems?) — almost unusable. Once you get a SIM you can login to their website, but most of the internal pages are broken! Vectone does offer a lot of cheap bundles, if this is of interest.
Thanks for the interesting read! I’ll be moving to the Netherlands for a short stay of 4 months, and am wondering what kind of mobile phone service to get. All normal contracts are out of question since they all seem to be for a minimum of one year, and all I’d really love is a working internet connection on my phone. What would you suggest?
Hi Alex,
Of the three main choices I mention on the top above, in my experience only T-Mobile is a good one. At the moment too, T-Mobile seems to be lowering some of their prices to get more customers. The main disadvantage is their data service is a bit slow with the prepaid bundles. It’s much faster if you get a normal subscription.
T-Mobile isn’t any slower than anyone else except Hollandsnieuwe, and in fact some others are much slower.
This could change though, and it depends on when you come. There’s a mobile spectrum auction going on now, and this is expected to allow at least one new company to enter the market and will almost certainly bring prices down.
T-Mobile has a lot of packages for use in Europe, so if you have T-Mobile locally, you could also look into buying a Europe package for use when you come here.
I currently have a Telfort subscription, and in terms of quality I’m very happy with it. I just think the costs are unreasonable, especially if you do something out of the ordinary like call or send an SMS to another country. If you’re okay with the costs, there’s no reason why Telfort isn’t a good choice too. I don’t know how fast the prepaid Internet is, but it’s probably similar to T-Mobile.
Ortel seemed to be okay in general, with reasonably fast Internet but I immediately ran into the problem that VoIP was blocked and wasn’t able to solve the problem with customer service. If you don’t care about VoIP, and otherwise are willing to risk problems with customer service that can’t or won’t help, this may be a possible choice.
If what you really want is fast, cheap Internet on a prepaid basis, than Hollandsnieuwe could be a good choice. They took a month to send me a SIM, and otherwise their customer service is really bad. Unless you’re prepared to accept a service that may or may not work, possibly spend a lot of time troubleshooting and trying to sort out problems with customer service, I would choose something else. Be sure not to give them an important email address or phone number, as you’ll probably get a lot of marketing spam.
According the story about delight.
The internet connection is working if you use the apn: webnl.mundio.com
except.. the connection speed is fixed to 64KbPS so is very slow
It’s been 10 months since I wrote this original post, and I thought I would share a few more thoughts.
First I am now more than 6 months into a T-Mobile year Smart Start 220 subscription. I have no complaints, and it works pretty well. Sometimes if I’m in a busy area, like Saturday afternoon in the park in good weather, or Friday evening in the part of town where all the bars are, the Internet is all but useless because the local cell tower is overloaded. It doesn’t happen very often, and is probably the same no matter who the provider is. The Internet is only 1Mb, which is not very fast, but good enough for most things.
T-Mobile prepaid is still absurdly expensive, like I mentioned above, and now most other companies have more competitive subscription prices as well. While T-Mobile is a reliable choice, several others might be better value by now. Also, T-Mobile only offers fast network if you pay for a higher priced subscription, so if what you want is fast Internet, it’s probably cheaper to get it elsewhere. It’s worth looking around.
I bought a second phone, and was looking for a cheap SIM card for it. Hollandsnieuwe has lowered their prices in the last few months, and especially their prepaid looked attractive. I decided to try them again.
I ordered a SIM, and it came very quickly this time, in 2 business days. I also didn’t have any problem signing off of their spam mailing list, unlike last time. They obviously have their act together a lot better this time.
It’s both a curse and a blessing that their network is so fast. Their prepaid Internet day bundle is a euro for 20Mb, and if you’re downloading a large file, this can get used up in less than a minute. Their website says they warn you when you are at 18Mb, then the Internet is supposed to stop when you’ve reached your limit.
What actually happens is their system doesn’t have enough time to send you a warning SMS before your bundle is used up. It rolls over into a new bundle without asking you, instead of stopping. If you’re in the middle of a download, this gets interrupted and restarted as you go from the old bundle to the new. This means if you aren’t paying attention, you can waste a lot of money and never succeed in downloading any file larger than 20Mb!
As part of the deal with Hollandsnieuwe you get a SIM card with 5 euros on it, then an email with a link to click in order to get an extra 5 euros. The email warned me not to click the link before my account was active, but I misunderstood and clicked the link too soon… The 5 euros didn’t get credited. I contacted customer support, got a reply within a few hours. The 5 euros was properly credited shortly after that.
There’s little doubt Hollandsnieuwe is a little on the buggy side, but if you can put up with that, the service seems otherwise reasonable.
Hello Patrick. Thanks for the feedback so far.
I am going to spend the next couple of years in the Netherlands and I want something cheap for calls and text messages.
Internet is very optional as I am going to use my old device. I am not looking for a contract as well.
I am told that Lebara offers some good prices around the market.
Have you tried it?
Hi John,
No, I haven’t tried Lebara.
The important thing I see about Lebara is they have a call start charge. They always give you a 50% discount when you top up your SIM with credit, and taking this discount into account, the start cost is 10 cents per call, for almost all calls everywhere. If you make a lot of short calls, this will add up.
Lebara has a lot of deals for calling, especially abroad, but there are often a lot of rules that go along with this. For example, you can call another Lebara customer for free, even in another country. This only applies however if you have topped up your sim in the last 7 days, and in any case you still have to pay the 10 cent call start cost. Also, only the first 30 minutes of the call is free, so if you forget to hang up and call back, you get charged the normal rates after this.
After the 50% discount you get when topping up, calls within the Netherlands cost 13 cents to a mobile phone and 6 cents to a fixed line, plus the 10 cent start charge for all calls.
Compare this to Hollandsnieuwe, which has no call start charge, and in the Netherlands all calls are 10 cents per minute. A text message is also 10 cents. Unless you make a lot of long calls to fixed lines, Hollandsnieuwe is probably cheaper. Hollandsnieuwe also has good rates for calling and texting many locations abroad.
If you have friends in other countries who are Lebara customers, Lebara might be a good deal, but otherwise there are probably cheaper alternatives.
I know you said you didn’t want a contract, but there are some very cheap contracts for calls and texts only. For example tele2 or simyo — 100 minutes/sms for €3/mo, 1-year contract. If you do this, make sure you get a large enough bundle, because calling more than your bundle is very expensive. Be careful calling or texting abroad with these, because this is also expensive.
Hope this helps…
Thank you for your answer.
I will consider it 🙂
A friend recently told me about Toggle Mobile:
http://www.togglemobile.nl/
He said he’s happy with the quality of the service, except he tried to port his old number and they ignored the request, so he lost his old number.
Their main features are cheap per minute rates within the Netherlands, 3c to both mobile and landlines — but with a 9c per call cost, good per Mb data rates, good incoming call rates for roaming many places and cheap outgoing calls when roaming in Europe.
They use the Vodafone network.
Because of the call start fee of 9c, calls of a minute or less are more expensive than with most other providers. Also, while 15c per Mb is a good rate they don’t have any bundles, so if you use a lot of data getting a bundle some place else might be cheaper.
For me their roaming rates are not horribly useful. Roaming rates within Europe are capped by law now, and not unreasonable regardless of the provider. Getting cheap incoming calls in the US is nice, but outgoing calls are €1,50 per minute. Prepaid SIMs are now more common than they used to be in the US, so just arranging phone service once you get there is by far the cheapest option.
If you do a lot of travelling, you might find their roaming rates to be of value. A nice feature they offer is it’s possible to get a free local incoming number in many countries.
I’ve had sort of a strange problem with T-Mobile lately. I have a reception problem with my phone in my bedroom. The rest of the house is okay, and so is the neighborhood in general, but if I get a call while I’m in my bedroom it usually gets dropped or doesn’t come through at all. It’s been like this for months now.
I contacted customer support, and so far I’m happy with the response. They confirmed it’s an identifiable problem on their end. They explained it to me exactly, but I didn’t understand completely, something about a burned out coil. They said it can’t be fixed right away, but has a high priority, and should be fixed within 4-6 weeks. They’ve offered me a small discount on my subscription in compensation, for a period of 3 months.
Anyone else have this sort of experience with T-Mobile?
About Lebara. They offer up a 1GB monthly prepaid data sim for €10 per month. Conditions are you have to have calling credit for it to run data and the speed only reaches 768Kbps download which is useful foe normal day to day communication. The snag is they advertise 7.2Mbps download (KPN) which is 7 x what I get.