Cross-border commuters & cell phone

How do I find the cheapest and best cell phone contract as a cross-border commuter from Austria to Switzerland / Liechtenstein?

Cross-border commuters move permanently between two countries and therefore need a cell phone contract that covers both countries. Cross-border commuters to Liechtenstein have the advantage that the EU Roaming Regulation applies to Liechtenstein. Cross-border commuters to Switzerland need to take a closer look when choosing the right tariff, as Switzerland is not part of EU roaming.

Anyone using a normal Austrian tariff to make calls or surf the Internet in Switzerland must expect very high prices. As part of the European Economic Area (EEA), Liechtenstein is included in the EU zone and therefore the EU Roaming Regulation applies. But what is roaming and what is international telephony?

International telephony or roaming

If you call abroad, it is international telephony. If, on the other hand, you are in a foreign network, it is roaming. Calling someone abroad is international telephony, being abroad (e.g. Switzerland, Liechtenstein) and calling is roaming.

Making calls abroad

If you are calling from abroad, you are using roaming. Depending on where you are calling from, this can cost very different amounts. One minute of telephony can even cost several euros. However, it is capped within the EU. As already mentioned, Liechtenstein is included in the EU zone. So at least here you are relatively safe from high costs. The EU Roaming Regulation does not apply to Switzerland, so it is best to use an additional package or a tariff with international calls.

Tip: Since international calls are usually very expensive, it makes more sense to switch to Internet telephony and use WhatsApp or Skype, for example. This will only use up your normal data volume.

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Rates with international telephony

With the tariff comparison on tarife.at you can search specifically for tariffs with international calls. If you look under “Mobile phone tariffs”, you will find the tab “International calls”. As soon as you activate this, you can set how many minutes and text messages your tariff should include.

You can check how much international telephony is included directly in the tariff description. If you click on the blue bar with “Details”, you can see in the “Included” tab how many international units are included in the rate and where they apply.

How do I find the cheapest and best cell phone contract as a cross-border commuter?

With tarife.at you are sure to find the best cell phone tariff. With this comparison portal, you can compare 350 cell phone tariffs from 30 providers in no time at all. As a cross-border commuter to Switzerland, make sure that your contract includes a roaming data package and a roaming package for telephony from Switzerland. We have currently seen this with Drei, Bob and VOLmobil.

At Drei we can recommend the FeelLikeHome tariff and at VOLmobil the Grenzenlos Dahoam tariffs.

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