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Comment by SanjayMehta | Hacker News Reader

I've had visitors complain bitterly that they can't get a pre-paid SIM without providing identity and address proof while apparently they can back home wherever.

The concept that rules differ across nations should not be so hard to grasp.

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It's not ever a surprise that rules differ abroad, it's that rules can be surprisingly backwards i.e. they make the lives of people doing day to day things harder. That's when people remark on rules (and sometimes in the positive when things are easier than they're used to, but your example is not that).

Well, I was surprised as a German living abroad in the EU when I went to visit family in Germany and realized that my phone stopped working. My pre-paid card used to work in Germany for 10 years before that but Germany decided to switch it off. So now nobody can reach me whenever I'm in Germany. It's not entirely clear what the advantage of that is.

Since roaming isn't a thing anymore in the EU, why would you need a German sim card/phone number? And it is not "Germany" that decided that, but rather what ever provider you use.

I wouldn't, and it is decided by new German telecom regulation that went into force last year. The card I'm using in Portugal no longer works when I visit Germany, because it's a pre-paid card.

Thanks for explaining. I didn't have a pre paid card for as long as I can remember. Strabge so, my son's prepaid card works just fine in the EU outside of Germany...

Edit: Just realized, that's not a prepaid card anymore, so forget everything I said...

Why should the telecom company be obliged to keep your prepaid phone number active in perpetuity? Seems a very reasonable thing to terminate it after some period of inactivity

I'm talking about the Portuguese sim card I'm using in Portugal every day. The German system started to switch pre-paid cards from abroad off, nevermind that my phone number is registered with the Portuguese telecom and they know who I am.

It is not about "advantage" but the usual security theater:

https://www.computerbild.de/artikel/cb-News-Handy-Prepaid-Ka...

The header makes it pretty clear "Danger of terrorism! Lawmakers tighten restrictions on pre-paid SIMs". That is of course useless nonsense, but politicians can point at it and claim they did something. Also, something, something, stones, glass houses.

tbh i was a bit surprised the other day when I got a pre-paid SIM card the other day that we had to do a video-ident session to use it!

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