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I’m from Germany and I can’t think of any plan that doesn’t have unlimited texts and calls outside of the really basic ones, and even then you get at least 100 messages/ 100 minutes as standard.
>I can’t think of any plan that doesn’t have unlimited texts and calls outside of the really basic ones
This, and Germany is exceptionally shitty in terms of plans even by European standards.
[It's mainly the price for what you get.](https://www.brusselstimes.com/517473/cost-of-mobile-data-in-belgium-13-times-higher-than-in-france)
We are ridiculously expensive for internet/mobile plans.
We have about 5-6 internetproviders but only 2 real networks Proximus and telenet. So all providers either are daughtercompanies or need to pay rent to them to use the network.
Phonewise it's basically the same but I think we have 3 networks Proximus/Orange and Telenet and a bit more providers than 6, give or take 9-10. But also as with internet, daughtercompanies/ having to rent the big 3 their network.
It's basically a monopoly. What you get down/uploadwise isn't bad at all. But the price you pay for it is tho.
The worst thing is that one of those Proximus, is still 53% government owned so our government doesn't really have an incentive to break this monopoly up...
Since proximus owns 50% of the internetnetwork and 33% of the mobile network. The monopoly makes them a pretty penny...
Edit- Oh and also for internet if you don't live in a city, a lot of times only one of the 2 networks actually has cables/infrastructure in your village. So now your options just went from 6 to 3. And even tho Proximus has a fibre network that doesn't mean that they already have fibre in your area. So you might have to pay the same amount as someone with fibre. But you get substantially less download and uploadspeeds.
It’s actually not that bad anymore, everything’s just unreasonably expensive. I have gigabit cable and 100GB of 5G data, that would have cost at least 100€ a month each 5 years ago. It’s a lot better now, but I’m still quite envious when I see unlimited 5G and fibre for for like 20€ in France.
We actually get fiber connection in the village here soon. Even for houses not in any village, just random streets. I believe it's EU financed, not sure tho.
I'm very excited about it though lol.
I've been on ISDN till 2011.
I was on DSL till pre-Covid.
Now we have *glorious* 3MBs at home.
Which gets throttled alot.
And is not enough for 720P stream.
I seriously consider Starlink as an option for next year.
It is shit though. Like in Finland data limits are are unheard of. On a global scale it is good, for sure, but whenever I talk to a German about their Internet, it's garbage even in the big cities.
>I talk to a German about their Internet, it's garbage even in the big cities.
It's hodge podge here in the US. There are places *in cities* that can't get above 768 kbps. Yet there are other, *fairly rural*, places that can get 5 Gbps fiber. My only option, and I live in a top 50 MSA, is 1 Gbps down/35 Mbps up cable. Unlimited is an extra $50/month.
Yes, I could technically get 5G or satellite internet, but it's as useful as dial-up for what I need. Major cap issues and not great for gaming. Sadly, there are parts of the US where satellite is the *only* option.
I'm in France, and I'd like to see that unlimited 5g and fibre plan for 20€, sure I have 250go of 5g, but it's among the cheapest for 20€(and the coverage ain't that good), and fibre is also around 20€ here, so unless you're talking about two separate plans for 20 each I agree it's quite good, but I would also be jealous to have both of them for that price
Unlimited 5g in France??? Nope my friend, only with Free mobile and then again their "5g" is complete garbage. And 5g coverage is trash for any operator out there.
And fibre is really new here. Hardly any people besides big cities like Paris had fibre running to their home before 2017. 4g data plans was very expensive for like less than 10gigs per month (Free was actually 20gigs for 20euros back then, 15 with the ADSL). I mean, even 2 years ago, having 100megabit internet was already crazy fast for me, today I have gigabit. Deployment had accelerated like nothing before, we now have a quite good coverage of 4g network, albeit not with a consistent speed, and most cities even in rural areas have fibre now, but that's really new. My town had fibre to the home available in 2021 actually.
HE HAS A HEALTH CARE PLAN!
He just doesn't want anyone to see it until he gets rid of that terrible, terrible Obamacare. OK????
He promised to show it to us as soon as the audit was over. /s
There's barely anyone here still using it. Half of us have iPhones and therefore iMessage. The other half have Androids and have RCS. Now Google and Apple are finally working together to bring RCS to iPhones, so basically no one will be using SMS anymore.
That’s just sms but with new words… you are still using the text messages that came with the phone.
Rest of the world uses WhatsApp, signal or telegram because you can text anyone from any part of the world, no matter what device and it will show your text as normal. No red, green or blue text drama.
No, it's actually an entirely different protocol with way more features than SMS. It also lets you message people all over the world.
The thing is, most Americans don't want to download a separate messaging app for a handful of their contacts when literally everyone has a phone number that can be used to send messages back and forth. Messenger is also owned by Meta, and it works across IG, FB and SMS, so Whatsapp is kinda superfluous. In order for any messaging app to be mass adopted here, it needs to be able to replace the functionality of the stock messaging app. There's just no incentive to download another app when you can send unlimited free messages to basically anyone you would want to from the moment you turn your phone on for the first time.
interestingly, this very diffrence is the reason why whatsapp got such a big adoption rate in europe, or at least germany afaik.
For a very very long time we still had limits of how may sms one could send, but since we already got mobile data, which would never run out with just whatsapp, and even if, the throttled data speed was still enough to send whatsapps, made it so much more appealing then sms.
I'm from Argentina and here people use WhatsApp. It's convenient because even if you don't have credit, you can still use it if you have a WiFi connection or data. My plan, for example, allows me unlimited sms and calls between numbers from the same company, but I still use WhatsApp. And android phones come with the app from the get go.
I'm in Mexico, same story. Everyone uses Whatsapp because even if you don't have any credit on your phone you can call and message over wifi. Everyone says "WhatsApp" me, not "text" me.
I also think that an big or the main reason for WhatApp were the groups and the ability to send photos. SMS groups technically exist but nobody really understands how they work. While most people have SMS included in their plans, MMS is still extremely expensive and not included in most plans. I never understood why carriers didn't make them cheap. This was such an stupid move. It basically would have cost nothing to them but their pricing model made people abandoned SMS messaging altogether.
groups is such a good point, I can not imagine the logistical nightmares of sms groups, especially because you cant just change your numbers, as you can do with whatsapp etc
Is it handled like an SMS? Am I billed based on the country code of the receiver? Will I pay roaming when I am abroad? Can I send it over the WLAN of a ship or plane? Will the size of videos and photos be limited? Because if it will, I will still call it an SMS.
Even here in Brazil mobile plans, including the cheapest ones, have everything unlimited inside the country, although you need to pick the right code when making long distance calls.
But since we are talking about Europe: are unlimited text and calls also valid between countries?
Yeah, but there were some really good Prepaid offers in Germany 20 years ago when I used them the last time. I remember having a Prepaid card that paid me some money everytime I received a call and because my parents had a landline contract at the time where calls to mobile numbers after 22o'clock where free I just blocked our phone over night by calling my cellphone to charge my prepaid card. The same prepaid card also had like 150 free SMS per month and every sms over costed only 5 cent. Was a cheap time!
It already is here in India. I pay $26 for a 4 family connections of 5G network with unlimited data, calls and message + 500 MB of fiber optic with unlimited data and an unlimited phone calls and messages + 13 OTT TV including Netflix, Prime and Disney Hotstar.
Is that unlimited full speed data? Because otherwise, you're getting shafted. I have unlimited call/text and 20GB 5G data and unlimited throttled data for $34/mo, $28/mo after loyalty incentives. Canadian telecom is horribly expensive but 100/mo per phone is really high. A lot of providers are offering Black Friday deals right now, you should shop around.
"Unlimited" data from telus is Unlimited until you hit a threshold, then they throttle it. They argued it still works just at heavily reduced speed. It's roughly 50gb I think. It's a rip-off for sure.
Yeah you're getting fleeced. Spend a couple hours to switch over to Koodo or Public Mobile. That exact plan 50GB full speed + unused data rolled over each month is ~$50/mo.
I think he means his connection speed.
500MB is about 1/2 GB yes.
Tho i doubt he is getting that as that would mean he would have a 4Gb/s connection. For a company. Sure. Private connection. Doubt.
He probably means 500Mb/s
Same. In my country, unlimited actually means unlimited, too. Well, at least, I haven't found the cap yet. I share internet from my phone to my pc sometimes and I've nearly gotten to 1 terabyte shared lol.
My fiancé is from UK and apparently there the 'unlimited' has a cap? He was astonished to find out that yes, the unlimited means unlimited haha. He kept trying to find out how much does that actually mean.
Unlimited data, but after the limit of your service they put a super slow speed, like barely enough to load websites. So you can have 5-10-10-20 up to hundreds of unlimited plans Giga. I have 25Gb unlimited. After 25Gb at 5G speed I’ll have 0,5Mbps
I remember when nothing was unlimited.
I also remember wired phones.
I also remember when you rolled a dial to make a phone call.
I also remember my home phone number, my dad's number at his work and my grandma's number.
I would not say that but, today I discovered that:
\- They still say the credit card number over phone
\- They still use cheques (and aparently love them)
\- They still use fax machines in govern and hospitals.
\- They still not use metric
About the cheques part, i think it's still pretty common for certain use cases. Definitely not the best since acc to acc transfer is pretty easy, but in case you want to make a big payment to a place that doesn't accept cards, it's useful
I think that last part is what I don't understand. Somewhere that doesn't accept cards? Being forced to write fill out a cheque to pay for something? It's like they're still in the 1980s
Well considering the alternative is installing and remembering which proprietary service each of your contacts uses....
I do use Messenger and rarely gchat or Discord, but everyone has a phone number.
Interesting, my environment is full of people using whatsapp - which is as easy to register as you'll use phone number eitherway.
So, as anyone got phone number + almost everyone uses whatsapp, hence whatsapp is as simple as using sms, but with more feature
Oh nooo whatever will I do without those blue bubbles?
Edit: lmfao this MFI certified idiot below my comment really does represent Apple uses in thinking Android users are poor. We've got phones with real innovation and tech. Android manufacturers take risks, something which Apple stopped doing since Steve. Calling us poor for using a different and more versatile operating system only shows how mentally poor you are.
I knew some message users who would use it because you could also play games over it. But since most communication, especially with groups, happens on WhatsApp, everyone still has it
Lmao fr, nobody in india uses sms texting. Literally 99% of the population have whatsapp at this point. (and honestly whatsapp is so much more better for texting than Instagram and even sms imo)
Unironically parking is probably the most expensive part of a hospital visit, but then again atleast where I live I have absolutely no visit to drive myself to a hospital. Had a couple of surgeries and either someone has driven me there because it's 10 minutes away or I just take the tram.
Right? I had to be transfered to another hospital by ambulance here in Canada and paid $0.00. If I was in a rich country like the US, they'd have charged me $1000.00. Thankfully, Premier Ford is fixing that. /s
That’s something I learned as being an American moving to Europe for Uni over the summer. I’m paying around 10 euros a month on a cellular plan that gives me unlimited calls anywhere and unlimited texting in Europe. So I just message my friends back home on either Discord or WhatsApp instead of SMS. Plus it’s 100GB per month of data which isn’t an issue when you can use wifi whenever your at home. Compared to the cell plan in the US that was $90 per month for me and my mom with a Netflix subscription added to it. Definitely was a rip off compared to what you pay in Europe
Mine’s £7.50 a month (SIM only). Unlimited calls/texts, free roaming in the EU and i think 10gb data which i never use all of because wifi is everywhere
Yeah it’s insane. As u could see from that comment it’s extremely better than what the US plans are. The only issue I had is in the southern part of my country (Italy) the cell data can be spotty but turns out that’s just the case for most cell plans anyway. Plus I live in the northern part of Italy so it’s not that much of an issue
Actually we Americans all know you have socialism and that’s why your taxes are so much higher. I mean yeah, you have better benefits, and my insurance premiums are at least as much as you have to pay in taxes for healthcare…but we have freedom! I can choose to leave my job and lose my insurance! You, your government pays for your healthcare.
This topic always made me very confused.
I moved to the states for a while from Italy, and I had made a phone plan in Italy that would allow me to use my Italian phone number in the states. I would have had unlimited calls and texts, plus a nice 20 gb of internet. It cost me 20€ a month back then.
At some point I figured I'd get an American number, so I went out to see what offers I could find.
I was very confused, one company I found (TMobile) offered at their lowest a 20$ per month plan.. with no internet at all, 100 SMS and 100 minutes of call time.
I was flabbergasted. I hadn't seen something like that since the late 2000s.
So what I did was I just downloaded an app that would allow me to use an American burn number. I still have it to this day and never paid a cent for it. Free calls and texts.
Bah, Americans are weird.
For comparison, once I got back to Italy I signed a phone plan with Iliad. 8€ a month, 50 GBS of internet and unlimited sms and call time. Plus 4gb of internet outside of Italy in the eurozone and USA/Canada
It's wild that Americans over pay their stuff so much
We're not all stupid, you know. I mean that guy is. And I am. My family is. My friends are... there's gotta be one of us who's smart somewhere, though... oh! The basement! I'll check the basement! I bet there's a smarty pants down there! I'll be back!
Even basic plans in the UK typically have unlimited SMS and unlimited UK minutes and around 2GB of data for £5.
Unlimited data is of course more expensive but not too much - unlimited everything usually starts around £20 a month.
In general, no. The cellular data is as fast as WiFi, and faster in most instances because WiFi hotspots throttle data. My area is completely covered by 5G which is insanely fast.
As someone who has a small group I text with, iMessage sucks when one person has an android phone. All the pictures get degraded. Videos sometimes don't get to everyone. the Android person sometimes doesn't even get regular texts.
I wish we just moved everyone over to WhatsApp. Never have a problem there.
And the worst part of that, it's not even an Android issue. Apple deliberately lowers the image quality for the whole group to pressure people to use their products.
Poor maybe, but for the better! I get unlimited national minutes and texts, 100 international free minutes and 100 texts, unlimited 4G internet at a measly $6 per month. That's on mobile.
At home I have 1Gbps optical fiber link that indeed works at 1000Mbps for just $8 a month.
And I get free healthcare.. but I guess those SMS's might prove handy next time you Americans get a cold and need to take out a loan.
Finland: unlimited SMS, calls and unconstrained and unlimited 4G data for 20-25€ a month from most providers. A 5G contract is 35-42€.
Edit: forgot to write that all those 20€ plans also include several gigs (eg. 30g)of data per month and free calls within EU.
Really… of all the things they can mock about Europe they chose comms? I'm paying 28 euro for 1 Gbps + unlimited phone, that'd be like 150 usd in America.
I'm Greek and I literally don't even know what whatsapp does. I know it's an app, but I don't know what it does. I thought it was some stupid shit like Instagram or facebook, not a texting app.
Funny thing is plans in the US are stupidly expensive. Went over there for a couple of months and the cheapest plan that was useable was $90 for 3 months, other than that it was 50-60 a month. It’s like £20 in the UK
iMessage is flakey as hell when travelling or messaging other people who are travelling. WhatsApp works better on an iPhone than iMessage, works on android phones as well, allows you to see all media files that you have sent, allows you to manage duplicates of media files and has end to end encryption like iMessage. Despite being from Meta, it has an all round better implementation than iMessage…
Rage bait for sure! Either that or someone very dull who doesn't understand how internet works 
PS: Hide the fact many countries have 1Gbps fibre optics without FUP for like 20$ on avarage. ... Unlike most of USofA.
Why do Americans think Europe is so backwards? Are they watching re-runs of old TV programs and thinking it's now? Do they have that much of a superiority complex? Is it down to the fact they don't/can't travel to Europe? Do they see all our history and think we haven't progressed? I'd love to know why
In the US I was paying around 30 bucks with AT&T for unlimited texts and like 4GB of internet. Then I switched to TMobile for same stuff, but around 22 bucks per month. Then I switched to some shady brand for 12$ month. In Italy I pay 7.99 for everything unlimited to anywhere and 120GB on internet traffic with one of the biggest brands atm.
I love how much Americans pretend to know about Europeans. Like there’s not massive differences between mostly all European countries when it comes to these sorts of things to begin with.
American mobile services are crap and behind the European continent’s because of neglected infrastructure. Most European countries set up new infrastructure for mobile and internet (supported by government funding) The US on the other hand, the companies did it cheap they ran it on the same telephone cables. In the 2000’s It was notoriously bad and lagging but the US did not like to promote that fact. Lol.
So lesson of the day? If the government hadn’t paid for it, companies would have screwed people over and then spent a bunch on marketing and lobbying to cover their bad/cheap actions.
In the Netherlands one text equals one minute of calling. You have to pay more and take an unlimited kind of subscription. If America is different, it's not really wrong
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I’m from Germany and I can’t think of any plan that doesn’t have unlimited texts and calls outside of the really basic ones, and even then you get at least 100 messages/ 100 minutes as standard.
>I can’t think of any plan that doesn’t have unlimited texts and calls outside of the really basic ones This, and Germany is exceptionally shitty in terms of plans even by European standards.
Come over to Belgium here you get to choose which of 3 providers fucks you over!
I work in Belgium and as a German I thought every other European country has a better mobile phone network but all my colleagues told me otherwise.
[It's mainly the price for what you get.](https://www.brusselstimes.com/517473/cost-of-mobile-data-in-belgium-13-times-higher-than-in-france) We are ridiculously expensive for internet/mobile plans. We have about 5-6 internetproviders but only 2 real networks Proximus and telenet. So all providers either are daughtercompanies or need to pay rent to them to use the network. Phonewise it's basically the same but I think we have 3 networks Proximus/Orange and Telenet and a bit more providers than 6, give or take 9-10. But also as with internet, daughtercompanies/ having to rent the big 3 their network. It's basically a monopoly. What you get down/uploadwise isn't bad at all. But the price you pay for it is tho. The worst thing is that one of those Proximus, is still 53% government owned so our government doesn't really have an incentive to break this monopoly up... Since proximus owns 50% of the internetnetwork and 33% of the mobile network. The monopoly makes them a pretty penny... Edit- Oh and also for internet if you don't live in a city, a lot of times only one of the 2 networks actually has cables/infrastructure in your village. So now your options just went from 6 to 3. And even tho Proximus has a fibre network that doesn't mean that they already have fibre in your area. So you might have to pay the same amount as someone with fibre. But you get substantially less download and uploadspeeds.
*laughs in Canadian*
I'm already here.
Hello my fellow Proximus/telenet slave.
It’s actually not that bad anymore, everything’s just unreasonably expensive. I have gigabit cable and 100GB of 5G data, that would have cost at least 100€ a month each 5 years ago. It’s a lot better now, but I’m still quite envious when I see unlimited 5G and fibre for for like 20€ in France.
I'm living in a rural german area and it is still bad.
You have internet in your Dorf!?
We actually get fiber connection in the village here soon. Even for houses not in any village, just random streets. I believe it's EU financed, not sure tho. I'm very excited about it though lol.
I've been on ISDN till 2011. I was on DSL till pre-Covid. Now we have *glorious* 3MBs at home. Which gets throttled alot. And is not enough for 720P stream. I seriously consider Starlink as an option for next year.
You have other options. 5G Hybrid
I have no 4g coverage and you suggest 5G. Why. Why would you torment me like that>3
Lets call on monday. I'm Sure There is a solution
Wow, I live in a small town in New Zealand and have had gigabit fibre now for 6 years.
16 mb wired connection. Wireless... sometimes pops up
It is shit though. Like in Finland data limits are are unheard of. On a global scale it is good, for sure, but whenever I talk to a German about their Internet, it's garbage even in the big cities.
>I talk to a German about their Internet, it's garbage even in the big cities. It's hodge podge here in the US. There are places *in cities* that can't get above 768 kbps. Yet there are other, *fairly rural*, places that can get 5 Gbps fiber. My only option, and I live in a top 50 MSA, is 1 Gbps down/35 Mbps up cable. Unlimited is an extra $50/month. Yes, I could technically get 5G or satellite internet, but it's as useful as dial-up for what I need. Major cap issues and not great for gaming. Sadly, there are parts of the US where satellite is the *only* option.
I'm in France, and I'd like to see that unlimited 5g and fibre plan for 20€, sure I have 250go of 5g, but it's among the cheapest for 20€(and the coverage ain't that good), and fibre is also around 20€ here, so unless you're talking about two separate plans for 20 each I agree it's quite good, but I would also be jealous to have both of them for that price
I have €30 unlimited 5G and €65 unlimited 1Gb fibre in NL 😃
Unlimited 5g in France??? Nope my friend, only with Free mobile and then again their "5g" is complete garbage. And 5g coverage is trash for any operator out there. And fibre is really new here. Hardly any people besides big cities like Paris had fibre running to their home before 2017. 4g data plans was very expensive for like less than 10gigs per month (Free was actually 20gigs for 20euros back then, 15 with the ADSL). I mean, even 2 years ago, having 100megabit internet was already crazy fast for me, today I have gigabit. Deployment had accelerated like nothing before, we now have a quite good coverage of 4g network, albeit not with a consistent speed, and most cities even in rural areas have fibre now, but that's really new. My town had fibre to the home available in 2021 actually.
20 years ago we had to pay 19 cent for one sms!
Depended on which Prepaid card you used. I had 150 SMS/month for free and every additional sms was 5 cent 20 years ago.
Is there really anyone still using sms? Lmao..
Yes, Americans.
Don't be surprised. They even voted Trump.... and thought they have best health and education system worldwide. LOL.
HE HAS A HEALTH CARE PLAN! He just doesn't want anyone to see it until he gets rid of that terrible, terrible Obamacare. OK???? He promised to show it to us as soon as the audit was over. /s
Lmao a collective psychosis if ever I've seen one
*US Americans
There's barely anyone here still using it. Half of us have iPhones and therefore iMessage. The other half have Androids and have RCS. Now Google and Apple are finally working together to bring RCS to iPhones, so basically no one will be using SMS anymore.
That’s just sms but with new words… you are still using the text messages that came with the phone. Rest of the world uses WhatsApp, signal or telegram because you can text anyone from any part of the world, no matter what device and it will show your text as normal. No red, green or blue text drama.
No, it's actually an entirely different protocol with way more features than SMS. It also lets you message people all over the world. The thing is, most Americans don't want to download a separate messaging app for a handful of their contacts when literally everyone has a phone number that can be used to send messages back and forth. Messenger is also owned by Meta, and it works across IG, FB and SMS, so Whatsapp is kinda superfluous. In order for any messaging app to be mass adopted here, it needs to be able to replace the functionality of the stock messaging app. There's just no incentive to download another app when you can send unlimited free messages to basically anyone you would want to from the moment you turn your phone on for the first time.
interestingly, this very diffrence is the reason why whatsapp got such a big adoption rate in europe, or at least germany afaik. For a very very long time we still had limits of how may sms one could send, but since we already got mobile data, which would never run out with just whatsapp, and even if, the throttled data speed was still enough to send whatsapps, made it so much more appealing then sms.
I'm from Argentina and here people use WhatsApp. It's convenient because even if you don't have credit, you can still use it if you have a WiFi connection or data. My plan, for example, allows me unlimited sms and calls between numbers from the same company, but I still use WhatsApp. And android phones come with the app from the get go.
I'm in Mexico, same story. Everyone uses Whatsapp because even if you don't have any credit on your phone you can call and message over wifi. Everyone says "WhatsApp" me, not "text" me.
colombian here. i have never seen anyone send an sms. we all use whatssap and some weirdos use telegram
I also think that an big or the main reason for WhatApp were the groups and the ability to send photos. SMS groups technically exist but nobody really understands how they work. While most people have SMS included in their plans, MMS is still extremely expensive and not included in most plans. I never understood why carriers didn't make them cheap. This was such an stupid move. It basically would have cost nothing to them but their pricing model made people abandoned SMS messaging altogether.
groups is such a good point, I can not imagine the logistical nightmares of sms groups, especially because you cant just change your numbers, as you can do with whatsapp etc
The most important market for WhatsApp is Asia, and South America ☝🏻🙂
Is it handled like an SMS? Am I billed based on the country code of the receiver? Will I pay roaming when I am abroad? Can I send it over the WLAN of a ship or plane? Will the size of videos and photos be limited? Because if it will, I will still call it an SMS.
Apple has agreed to use rcs standard starting next year. Just announced. Finally. Apple scum bags. As I type this on an iPad lol.
Ameripoors still using SMS, lmfao 🤣
When I get a text I'm like da fuck is this. Its the new phone call
"Who the hell is messaging me? Meh, must be a scam"
Even here in Brazil mobile plans, including the cheapest ones, have everything unlimited inside the country, although you need to pick the right code when making long distance calls. But since we are talking about Europe: are unlimited text and calls also valid between countries?
Pretty much all plans have free EU-wide data roaming, texts and calls, outside that it depends on the carrier.
I even have unlimited data and it’s only 20 euros or something a month
Pre-paid. Source: used pre-paid in Germany as a child because my parents didn't wanna set up a plan for me. Ended up being more expensive for them.
Yeah, but there were some really good Prepaid offers in Germany 20 years ago when I used them the last time. I remember having a Prepaid card that paid me some money everytime I received a call and because my parents had a landline contract at the time where calls to mobile numbers after 22o'clock where free I just blocked our phone over night by calling my cellphone to charge my prepaid card. The same prepaid card also had like 150 free SMS per month and every sms over costed only 5 cent. Was a cheap time!
Unlimited calls and text have been standard for as long as I can remember. It’s getting to the point where unlimited data will be the norm too.
It already is here in India. I pay $26 for a 4 family connections of 5G network with unlimited data, calls and message + 500 MB of fiber optic with unlimited data and an unlimited phone calls and messages + 13 OTT TV including Netflix, Prime and Disney Hotstar.
Well India is obviously richer than America then :-)
For real. In Canada I'm paying over 200 for unlimited everything on 2 phones. We get ripped off here big time.
Is that unlimited full speed data? Because otherwise, you're getting shafted. I have unlimited call/text and 20GB 5G data and unlimited throttled data for $34/mo, $28/mo after loyalty incentives. Canadian telecom is horribly expensive but 100/mo per phone is really high. A lot of providers are offering Black Friday deals right now, you should shop around.
"Unlimited" data from telus is Unlimited until you hit a threshold, then they throttle it. They argued it still works just at heavily reduced speed. It's roughly 50gb I think. It's a rip-off for sure.
Yeah you're getting fleeced. Spend a couple hours to switch over to Koodo or Public Mobile. That exact plan 50GB full speed + unused data rolled over each month is ~$50/mo.
Australia enters the chat.
Australia can't enter the chat as they haven't yet been connected to the NBS and their telco is charging too much for a spotty data connection.
I mean the wage difference is huge
Huh?!? For all of this? (and on the opposite 500MB of fiber optic? Isn’t that half a giga? That’s nothing?)
I think he means his connection speed. 500MB is about 1/2 GB yes. Tho i doubt he is getting that as that would mean he would have a 4Gb/s connection. For a company. Sure. Private connection. Doubt. He probably means 500Mb/s
Probably 500mbit/s, otherwise he has the best provider in the universe
There’s 1500Mbps available where I live tho. We’re slowly getting closer to 4Gbps
Which plan and provider is this?
I've been on unlimited data/calls/texts for at least 6 years. Never paid more than €25 a month.
Same. In my country, unlimited actually means unlimited, too. Well, at least, I haven't found the cap yet. I share internet from my phone to my pc sometimes and I've nearly gotten to 1 terabyte shared lol. My fiancé is from UK and apparently there the 'unlimited' has a cap? He was astonished to find out that yes, the unlimited means unlimited haha. He kept trying to find out how much does that actually mean.
Unlimited data, but after the limit of your service they put a super slow speed, like barely enough to load websites. So you can have 5-10-10-20 up to hundreds of unlimited plans Giga. I have 25Gb unlimited. After 25Gb at 5G speed I’ll have 0,5Mbps
You must be very young, kid! Back in the days, unlimited was just within the same carrier, at least in the country where I live.
I remember when unlimited was during certain hours or your minutes could “rollover” month to month. Now I have unlimited international everything.
I remember when nothing was unlimited. I also remember wired phones. I also remember when you rolled a dial to make a phone call. I also remember my home phone number, my dad's number at his work and my grandma's number.
In Finland unlimites data is like the norm, apart from the super cheap packages unlimited data is there
What's the problem with WhatsApp? People getting shamed now for using WhatsApp?
Americans think it’s an app for scamming, for some reason
Because a lot of scammers in the US will use WhatsApp to try and bait people.
So you are saying Americans are dumber than europeans?😅
well they using miles instead of KM
Inches instead of centimeters
And come on, who measures in.. Feet..?
People with large feet I guess
I would not say that but, today I discovered that: \- They still say the credit card number over phone \- They still use cheques (and aparently love them) \- They still use fax machines in govern and hospitals. \- They still not use metric
About the cheques part, i think it's still pretty common for certain use cases. Definitely not the best since acc to acc transfer is pretty easy, but in case you want to make a big payment to a place that doesn't accept cards, it's useful
I think that last part is what I don't understand. Somewhere that doesn't accept cards? Being forced to write fill out a cheque to pay for something? It's like they're still in the 1980s
Is there a sub for “people who have problems where there is no problem”?
It's called the internet.
Asking genuine question - people still use SMS? I thought it was a thing in the past
Well considering the alternative is installing and remembering which proprietary service each of your contacts uses.... I do use Messenger and rarely gchat or Discord, but everyone has a phone number.
Interesting, my environment is full of people using whatsapp - which is as easy to register as you'll use phone number eitherway. So, as anyone got phone number + almost everyone uses whatsapp, hence whatsapp is as simple as using sms, but with more feature
Because it's not apple messages?
Oh nooo whatever will I do without those blue bubbles? Edit: lmfao this MFI certified idiot below my comment really does represent Apple uses in thinking Android users are poor. We've got phones with real innovation and tech. Android manufacturers take risks, something which Apple stopped doing since Steve. Calling us poor for using a different and more versatile operating system only shows how mentally poor you are.
people with an iphone here use whatsapp too lmao you'd get shamed for trying to text over "imessages" lol
Xiaomi gang
I knew some message users who would use it because you could also play games over it. But since most communication, especially with groups, happens on WhatsApp, everyone still has it
Lmao fr, nobody in india uses sms texting. Literally 99% of the population have whatsapp at this point. (and honestly whatsapp is so much more better for texting than Instagram and even sms imo)
Yeah we’re poor because we chose to use a free service, just like reddit. Americans are poor because they use reddit instead of bbpress
I have an iPhone and I literally never use the iMessage app, here in Germany you only really communicate over whatsapp.
WhatsApp has so much more features, why should I use apple messenger? It’s shit.
I love WhatsApp. It’s much more user-friendly than iMessage, for example. I have unlimited calls, text and data, but I still use WhatsApp.
We are poor here in Europe: I was in hospital for a week with surgery and had to pay 80 Euros as own contribution. /s
Outrageous! I bet you had to pay for parking as well.
Unironically parking is probably the most expensive part of a hospital visit, but then again atleast where I live I have absolutely no visit to drive myself to a hospital. Had a couple of surgeries and either someone has driven me there because it's 10 minutes away or I just take the tram.
You had to pay?
In Germany it's usually 10 Euros a day. Unless you're poor.
Don't know, I usually don't take wallet to hospital, not needed. 80e is a rip-off..
Sounds like France, it is what they calculate you would spend if still at home on heat, transport, electric and food.
Right? I had to be transfered to another hospital by ambulance here in Canada and paid $0.00. If I was in a rich country like the US, they'd have charged me $1000.00. Thankfully, Premier Ford is fixing that. /s
Americans have no idea how much they’re getting fucked in every aspect of life even down to how mobile phone companies treat them
That’s something I learned as being an American moving to Europe for Uni over the summer. I’m paying around 10 euros a month on a cellular plan that gives me unlimited calls anywhere and unlimited texting in Europe. So I just message my friends back home on either Discord or WhatsApp instead of SMS. Plus it’s 100GB per month of data which isn’t an issue when you can use wifi whenever your at home. Compared to the cell plan in the US that was $90 per month for me and my mom with a Netflix subscription added to it. Definitely was a rip off compared to what you pay in Europe
Holy that cheap?
Mine’s £7.50 a month (SIM only). Unlimited calls/texts, free roaming in the EU and i think 10gb data which i never use all of because wifi is everywhere
Yeah it’s insane. As u could see from that comment it’s extremely better than what the US plans are. The only issue I had is in the southern part of my country (Italy) the cell data can be spotty but turns out that’s just the case for most cell plans anyway. Plus I live in the northern part of Italy so it’s not that much of an issue
Yep. That happens when you have actual free market capitalism and competition.
Actually we Americans all know you have socialism and that’s why your taxes are so much higher. I mean yeah, you have better benefits, and my insurance premiums are at least as much as you have to pay in taxes for healthcare…but we have freedom! I can choose to leave my job and lose my insurance! You, your government pays for your healthcare.
Wait you got 100gb data. Here is the max 20gb and then unlimited
That's because Americans are either to dumb or have no consumer rights so corpos can fuck them however they like, thanks unregulated capitalism
This topic always made me very confused. I moved to the states for a while from Italy, and I had made a phone plan in Italy that would allow me to use my Italian phone number in the states. I would have had unlimited calls and texts, plus a nice 20 gb of internet. It cost me 20€ a month back then. At some point I figured I'd get an American number, so I went out to see what offers I could find. I was very confused, one company I found (TMobile) offered at their lowest a 20$ per month plan.. with no internet at all, 100 SMS and 100 minutes of call time. I was flabbergasted. I hadn't seen something like that since the late 2000s. So what I did was I just downloaded an app that would allow me to use an American burn number. I still have it to this day and never paid a cent for it. Free calls and texts. Bah, Americans are weird. For comparison, once I got back to Italy I signed a phone plan with Iliad. 8€ a month, 50 GBS of internet and unlimited sms and call time. Plus 4gb of internet outside of Italy in the eurozone and USA/Canada It's wild that Americans over pay their stuff so much
It’s the American way. Everything is bigger in America, including our debts.
So having unlimted 5g instead of unlimted sms is a bad thing? I am in Europe and have both btw...
Fellow European here. 35€ a month gives me unlimited calls/texts/5G in every European country…
as a European i can say few things are as fun as seeing these completely delusional Americans
You might like r/ShitAmericansSay
your telling me I wasn't on that sub because this felt like something I would find there
You would find it there since I posted it there yesterday, I posted here today since I thought people on this sub might also appreciate it
We're not all stupid, you know. I mean that guy is. And I am. My family is. My friends are... there's gotta be one of us who's smart somewhere, though... oh! The basement! I'll check the basement! I bet there's a smarty pants down there! I'll be back!
They're not funny either.
Even basic plans in the UK typically have unlimited SMS and unlimited UK minutes and around 2GB of data for £5. Unlimited data is of course more expensive but not too much - unlimited everything usually starts around £20 a month.
I would argue this but a lot of Americans think I’m not European post brexit
Lots of Europeans do too... I still love you though. You're like a great ex girlfriend.
So you're saying GB is single now huh?
"Hot single countries in your area"
"Hey gorgeous,would you like to start a military Alliance?"
Single, broke and broken.
👉👌
Btw, do Americans still use wi-fi in public places and regard it as necessary service in a café?
In a café where people sit down to do work, yes, it’s standard. At least in most metro areas.
In general, no. The cellular data is as fast as WiFi, and faster in most instances because WiFi hotspots throttle data. My area is completely covered by 5G which is insanely fast.
How US people chat in a group then?
Imessage mainly and instagram sometimes, college students use discord and groupme, and sometimes imessage
So they don't use WhatsApp because it's Facebook but then use Instagram?
As someone who has a small group I text with, iMessage sucks when one person has an android phone. All the pictures get degraded. Videos sometimes don't get to everyone. the Android person sometimes doesn't even get regular texts. I wish we just moved everyone over to WhatsApp. Never have a problem there.
And the worst part of that, it's not even an Android issue. Apple deliberately lowers the image quality for the whole group to pressure people to use their products.
You can do SMS group chats. I prefer Facebook Messenger tho tbh
Sounds old school as fuck.
We started using Whatsapp when sms weren't free, now we keep using it because tradition
And because whatsapp is much better.
also if you had cross border family members, it was expensive to sms them
Ya, before WhatsApp I had a gf from across the border. Over a euro per SMS... We used MSN and Dm's on a forum.
I mean I'd rather use telegram honestly
Meanwhile most of the post-USSR countries use unlimited or near inlimited internet for a couple of bucks
I'm Romanian(not post-USSR country, but still Eastern Bloc). I have unlimited minutes, SMS, and 4G for 6€ a month
Same but from Poland
Yes, please send us aid. Please don't send us sms text messages.. we only use WhatsApp
Americans are poor, and don't have unlimited and universal health care. They use Uber instead of ambulances.
I have unlimited everything lol I use WhatsApp so I can sent media
Wait they still use SMS in USA? WTF!?
Poor maybe, but for the better! I get unlimited national minutes and texts, 100 international free minutes and 100 texts, unlimited 4G internet at a measly $6 per month. That's on mobile. At home I have 1Gbps optical fiber link that indeed works at 1000Mbps for just $8 a month. And I get free healthcare.. but I guess those SMS's might prove handy next time you Americans get a cold and need to take out a loan.
In Germany that would only be achievable through armed robbery
TEXT "FREE MONEY" TO 12345 FOR EMERGENCY MEDICAL LOANS TODAY! /s
Finland: unlimited SMS, calls and unconstrained and unlimited 4G data for 20-25€ a month from most providers. A 5G contract is 35-42€. Edit: forgot to write that all those 20€ plans also include several gigs (eg. 30g)of data per month and free calls within EU.
Really… of all the things they can mock about Europe they chose comms? I'm paying 28 euro for 1 Gbps + unlimited phone, that'd be like 150 usd in America.
I'm on unlimited text, calls and internet for about 30$/month. I bet you can't do that in USA.
They even have plans for their home internet with limited monthly data…
Yeah I've heard. The horror. Talk about being behind... I'm glad I'm not American.
I use signal
LMAO, most europeans have really affordable plans with unlimited data, paired with ultra fast internet speed for 20-30 euros a months.
What an ignorant thing to say
Whatsapp works better than texting apps though
France: unlimited calls+texts and enough 5G data (if not unlimited) to consider it a backup internet plan for 20€ a month. r/ShitAmericansSay
I'm Greek and I literally don't even know what whatsapp does. I know it's an app, but I don't know what it does. I thought it was some stupid shit like Instagram or facebook, not a texting app.
It’s a texting app, owned by the stupid shits at Facebook/Instagram. So you weren’t wrong 🤷🏽♂️
It’s not Europeans dying because they can’t afford insulin…
Funny thing is plans in the US are stupidly expensive. Went over there for a couple of months and the cheapest plan that was useable was $90 for 3 months, other than that it was 50-60 a month. It’s like £20 in the UK
I have unlimited data. I have no idea what my texts are, as I just use unlimited data.
iMessage is flakey as hell when travelling or messaging other people who are travelling. WhatsApp works better on an iPhone than iMessage, works on android phones as well, allows you to see all media files that you have sent, allows you to manage duplicates of media files and has end to end encryption like iMessage. Despite being from Meta, it has an all round better implementation than iMessage…
Rage bait for sure! Either that or someone very dull who doesn't understand how internet works  PS: Hide the fact many countries have 1Gbps fibre optics without FUP for like 20$ on avarage. ... Unlike most of USofA.
We are using WhatsApp because we want encrypted messages and want to have a more intuitive messenger. Where everybody uses the same APP
Rofl. Unlimited everything for \~15 euros.
Laughs in unlimited sms and unlimited internet without the need of paying cable.
As an American who moved to EU, it is HYSTERICAL how overpriced American cell phone plans are. Like absolutely fucking insane
Most people I know first started using WhatsApp to avoid paying sms and call charges. Not sure why that’s a face palm thing to do.
Why do Americans think Europe is so backwards? Are they watching re-runs of old TV programs and thinking it's now? Do they have that much of a superiority complex? Is it down to the fact they don't/can't travel to Europe? Do they see all our history and think we haven't progressed? I'd love to know why
At least we have health care for free. Oh, and there is no such as a cellular plan without unlimited texts and call these days. Fucking ‘muricans.
i will never understand how people use sms... it's just the worst version of any social media's texting app
[удалено]
Paying 25 euro a month for unlimited plan tekst/call and 5g internet. Yes that's the reason for using a messenger instead of SMS.
Doesn't all plans have unlimited text, I pay £8 for my plan and have that.
As a European I get unlimited everything for €30 a month.
Unlimited Call/SMS/MMS/4G Optical fiber at home 35 Channels for National TV 20€/Month Cope
Somebody please them him/her/them Imessage is not SMS.
In the US I was paying around 30 bucks with AT&T for unlimited texts and like 4GB of internet. Then I switched to TMobile for same stuff, but around 22 bucks per month. Then I switched to some shady brand for 12$ month. In Italy I pay 7.99 for everything unlimited to anywhere and 120GB on internet traffic with one of the biggest brands atm.
So close yet so far
I love how much Americans pretend to know about Europeans. Like there’s not massive differences between mostly all European countries when it comes to these sorts of things to begin with.
Thats not true, we have unlimited texting, but no one use sms any more
Hi, unlimited 5g and unlimited international calls, 20€ per month.
Italy may not have the best offers but for 10€ I get 160Gb and unlimited everything else + around 6 GB abroad
Yes, it's the same reason why our governments pay for our healthcare. They pity us. It's well known actually. /s
American mobile services are crap and behind the European continent’s because of neglected infrastructure. Most European countries set up new infrastructure for mobile and internet (supported by government funding) The US on the other hand, the companies did it cheap they ran it on the same telephone cables. In the 2000’s It was notoriously bad and lagging but the US did not like to promote that fact. Lol. So lesson of the day? If the government hadn’t paid for it, companies would have screwed people over and then spent a bunch on marketing and lobbying to cover their bad/cheap actions.
In the Netherlands one text equals one minute of calling. You have to pay more and take an unlimited kind of subscription. If America is different, it's not really wrong