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Comment by imp0cat | Hacker News Reader

Last time I heard, prepaid data SIM cards were a thing, so I guess you could just get a second-hand one?

At least in Germany, you can, but it's still tied to an ID, so you'd need to find someone who's willing to sell it and potentially get in trouble. When you buy a prepaid SIM in the supermarkets, one of the first things you have to do when installing it in your phone is do some kind of ID verification, either with the digital functionality in your ID or via some app like Postident which will do a face and ID verification.

Someone should check whether the app can be bypassed by DNS, ICMP, etc.

You can either order them preregistered from ebay or your local slightly shady phone resale store. It's also likely possible (though i havent tried) to use eSim and global providers like airalo.com to get one without enforced controlled registration (unlikely that they check, specially if you register via proxy).

And lastly, especially if you live in west german you can just take a train to the netherlands and by a sim there, no registration required.

Cellphone networks are not required to support unlimited roaming within the EU, although there are some basic roaming requirements.

Prepaid data sims will not activate until you either talk to a store employee and show them your ID, or use a service online to videocall with somebody and show them your ID.

You can get prepaid data SIM (I think also regular but not 100%) without ID in at least some EU countries. And they work across the EU usually

They will work but you are at risk of the provider cutting you off for "abusing roaming" and I'm not sure if they can also sue you to recover their roaming costs. The EU cellphone network isn't integrated between different countries - roaming works the same as roaming from the EU to the USA, besides also having some consumer fairness laws.

Most of them do not even come with roaming plans. If you want roaming you need something like a >10€ recharge to activate a plan with roaming enabled.

I don't think this is true anymore. Since 2017 the "at home" roaming works in the EU. It's a bit funny around prepaid SIMs, but I'm almost certain that it's just a cap on the price of data around €2/gb. That sounds like a lot, but my carrier plan is honestly not far off that price. (£25/mo for 12GB data)

It is true, I am on such a prepaid SIM plan where I pay 5€ and get like 1000 minutes and 30Gb of data with it, plus bonuses. But it doesn't include roaming. There is a subscription plan starting at 7€/mo, also without roaming, however it provides less flexibility than prepaid. When I go abroad I change my plan to one that includes roaming and costs 15€/3 weeks. Other operators have prepaid roaming plans for 11€.

£25 for 12Gb of data would be ripoff here, unless it's roaming data.

> £25 for 12Gb of data would be ripoff here, unless it's roaming data.

EE [0] are one of the bigger carriers here, and the only ones with decent coverage where I live, this is their list of plans. You can get cheaper, but it often comes with limited speeds.

[0] https://ee.co.uk/mobile/sim-only-deals

Wow, that'a expensive. I checked my prepay plan and I'm actually getting 150Gb and 2000 minutes for 5€. No roaming though. But the EU will regulate that some day, like they did with bank wire fees.

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