Swisscom is upgrading prepaid

For long phone calls (> approx. 2 minutes) this is a clear deterioration. Likewise for very short calls of a few seconds, you immediately pay for the full minute…

Increasing the speed to 10Mbit/s looks like a technical retouching of the above deterioration…

For phone calls that tend to be short (approx. 2-3 minutes), M-Budget Prepaid +/- is now the same price, although the same tariffs apply throughout Europe/USA (LG 1-3). The M-Budget data package 150MB/CHF 4.80 is also not bad compared to the Swisscom prepaid data packages - at least for consumption of up to approx. 500MB/month.

International roaming options are identical in terms of costs…

I use the Natel®easy prepaid offer without surfing option.

– The marginal speed increase is of no use to me.

– SMS will now be more expensive, as with the old subscription you only have to pay for a maximum of 13 SMS/day.

- and as already mentioned, a phone call of 2 minutes or more is more expensive.

As long as paid remaining balances from data packages are canceled after 30 days, I will not book any of them.

Quote: “Telephoning will be clearer with a cheap per-minute rate.” What, dear Swisscom, is supposed to be clearer here than with the previous regulation?

I’m thinking about switching to another pre-paid provider…

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@POGO 1104 wrote:

For long phone calls (> approx. 2 minutes) this is a clear deterioration.

Increasing the speed to 10Mbit/s looks like a market retouching of the above deterioration…

For telephone calls that tend to be short (approx. 2-3 minutes), M-Budget Prepaid +/- is now the same price, although the same tariffs apply throughout Europe/USA (LG 1-3). The M-Budget data package 150MB/CHF 4.80 is also not bad compared to the Swisscom prepaid data packages - at least for consumption of up to approx. 500MB/month.

International roaming options are identical in terms of costs…

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I share your opinion @POGO 1104! It is a significant increase in the price of the offer, at least when it comes to making calls!

Do these changes also apply to Natel Easy Smart prepaids that have already been activated or only to the new ones from January 26th?

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@prometheus wrote:

Do these changes also apply to Natel Easy Smart prepaids that have already been activated or only to the new ones from January 26th?

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As far as I have understood the notification, these changes automatically apply to all Natel Easy Smart users. Users who still use old Natel Easy offers (e.g. Natel Easy Liberty Uno) are not affected.

I find the increase in surfing speed to be good news - but the removal of the “cost ceiling” for SMS is less so. The extent to which telephony should be made clearer with a per-minute rate instead of a (transparent) per-second rate is also a mystery to me.

I mainly use the prepaid offer to make phone calls. When I call someone, I have a conversation that either: 1. Lasts more than two minutes but less than an hour. Here we now have a price increase of almost 50%. or 2: The person called is often not available and his Combox comes up, which I usually don’t say anything about. This previously cost me 2 centimes for 2 seconds, but now it costs 29 centimes because a connection was established. So for me that’s a price increase of 1350%. Swisscom sells this to us in nice words, literally “Your benefits from January 26, 2016…” etc. Why doesn’t Swisscom communicate honestly and brush the most important facts under the table? The customer isn’t that stupid, he notices it anyway… and then goes to another provider even quicker.

The speed adjustment, which you will hardly notice in daily mobile use, was probably only done so that you could at least write something positive in the media release.

It would be very interesting to see a few anonymized CDRs of the prepaid customers - I could well imagine that the bottom line for Swisscom is that even more money will come out of this change than as the previous speakers already said - for short calls of up to 28 seconds and from 2 minutes the old offer is more expensive.

And the data packages are 60% more expensive than the competition. Well - with prepaid you can change at any time - maybe Swisscom no longer wants the low end customers.

This is a one-sided upgrade of prepaid.

The only thing that will be improved is Swisscom’s profitability.

It is simply a price increase. And a steep one at that.

This is embarrassing, dear Swisscom. You could at least stand your ground and stand by this price increase.

Only people who really deal with the matter in this forum report the new tariff structure.

Nobody will notice the slightly higher speed, it will be in most places anyway - SBB! - immediately eaten up again by the network load.

But everyone is right to criticize, in unison! the price increase for longer telephones from 3 minutes from 60 to 87 centimes and for short telephones the anachronistic transition from the second to the minute tariff. Nobody will have poor days because of this, but for Swisscom it is a massively profitable business. Will Swisscom’s shareholders be grateful? We’ll see.

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@Googlook wrote:

Is it actually the case that 29 centimes are due from the first second? Isn’t it billed to the second, in 5 centime increments? Then calls of up to 2 minutes would be cheaper than they are now…

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I was wondering that too… It’s almost certain that the billing will not be done to the exact centime, but rather in 10 centime increments at best. Please correct me, but in the past Swisscom mobile offers (except for the previous Natel Easy Smart offer) were never billed to the exact centime, but were rounded to the nearest 10 centimes.

However, Telekomzentrum Schweiz GmbH assumes in its calculations (see infographic “Costs when making calls”) that the 29 centimes will now be due immediately (i.e. from the 1st second).

http://telekomzentrum.ch/index.php/verbrauchenteninfo-reader/swisscom-verteuert-prepaid.html

Absolutely right, that

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@Hannes-Sp wrote:

Only people who really deal with the matter in this forum report the new tariff structure.

Nobody will notice the slightly higher speed, it will be in most places anyway - SBB! - immediately eaten up again by the network load.

But everyone is right to criticize, in unison! the price increase for longer telephones from 3 minutes from 60 to 87 centimes and for short telephones the anachronistic transition from the second to the minute tariff. Nobody will have poor days because of this, but for Swisscom it is a massively profitable business. Will Swisscom’s shareholders be grateful? We’ll see.

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Absolutely agree. Nobody notices the higher surfing speed because it’s just theory. The difference when making calls doesn’t mean the world, especially since that was already the case (I think CHF 0.80/min for prepay). In fact, the only thing that’s annoying is that Swisscom has to try to lure its existing customers with cheap slogans like “cheap per minute rate” - a clear flop. But for me there is no reason to change, as suggested in various posts. I rather think that a young “marketing professional” fresh out of college and with a gold-rimmed diploma under his arm was allowed to let his creativity run wild…

Take it easy folks!!!

I bought a prepaid cell phone from the Swisscom shop just three weeks ago.

Can’t you cancel after this unilateral contract change?
What happens to the cell phone then?
Or do I have to tolerate this new, customer-unfriendly tariff for almost two years?

I feel totally ripped off.

@F-E-R-D: have you signed a contract with Swisscom? My Easy cards come without a contract - I can port the number to another provider at any time. What kind of device do you have? I don’t see any option to pay off a device if you don’t have a subscription.

@Charleston: 0.80.-/hour that was Natel Liberty Uno. Since October 1, 2012, Natel has been offering Easy Smart with a per-second rate. So it doesn’t go from 0.80 to 0.79 per hour, but from 0.01-0.60 per hour (as a function of the duration) to 0.29 to 0.79 per hour. And… don’t think that Swisscom is so unprofessional as to unleash a few bunglers on an offer. Every change is analyzed in detail - Swisscom knows 100% exactly what the financial impact of the change will be because it is calculated (based on current figures and then you take into account the impact that you expect on customer numbers and usage). And sugarcoating it has nothing to do with people fresh off the press. Just look at what happens when a company announces mass layoffs. There is grandiose talk of improvements for the customers, and then the remaining overtime has to be done because the work is not keeping up with those who have been laid off - negative effects for the customers are guaranteed. Glossing over things is the job of every marketer when it comes to selling unsightly things better.

@Googlook: why shouldn’t they… that would reduce the additional income 😉 And… 2mbit… that would put us in binge on territory (see T-Mobile USA).. that gives a max of 480p . With the exception of low-end cell phones, devices today usually have at least 720p, and it goes up to 1440p. And you can also put such a card in a tablet (the same subscription is also sold as pure data prepaid)… you’re guaranteed to see it.

@doom2: it is an easy-bundle prepaid cell phone from Swisscom. So with Simlock for two years.

I don’t think the chances are bad that current tariffs will remain as they are. It used to be like that when prepaid tariffs were adjusted. You had to explicitly switch to the new tariff with a specific SMS to 444.

I asked the hotline and all prepaid customers will automatically switch. For me, the tariffs for telephone calls are clearly a deterioration!

@F-E-R-D: then you probably have to rely on goodwill. The device is yours, but you got it at a discount because of the simlock. With deals like this, the provider hopes that you will recoup the discount on the device through your use. Maybe you can pay the discount and the lock will be lifted. And next time: getting cell phones from the carrier always has a catch. It’s worth considering whether a 2-year commitment is really worth it. Who knows what will happen in 2 years. All you have to do is change your job and in the new place you get paid for the cell phone, but it’s with a different provider, or you move to an area with poor reception, an antenna is knocked out, etc.