pseudoswede

I will create a wiki with available options. Please contribute.

I purchased the Telenor Fast card for SEK200 the other day. Very easy process--except Talkatone totally freaked out on me and put my phone into constant airplane mode immediately. After I uninstalled it, everything worked great--even after I reinstalled Talkatone.

GUWonder

Does unlimited domestic calls include unlimited domestic calling to all Swedish mobile phone numbers too?

pseudoswede

Looks like it?

GUWonder

Indeed, it does look like it includes free calling to Swedish mobile phone numbers too. That could save me a good chunk of money. [The difference between what I pay for calls to Swedish landline numbers (i.e. dirt cheap calls) and what I pay for calls to Swedish mobile phone numbers is huge.]

pseudoswede

Added Halebop to the Wiki. I don't quite understand why anyone would choose either of the first two plans, but the Rubbet is a nice deal.

GUWonder

Using your Telenor prepaid plan, did you happen to try to call some other companies' Swedish mobile numbers (which may involve having to ask the call recipient what company they use) to verify that your balance remains steady after the call?

I am not absolutely sure if the mobile subscriber numbers reference includes all Swedish mobile phone numbers or just Telenor mobile plan subscribers, but it seems like it ought to include that all too.

Emma65

Have added 3Global to the wiki

Emma65

Yes it does. I am local and use Telenor for day to day and 3Global to make international calls. I carry two phones, basically. Telenor is fairly expensive to call international (but really good on roaming) and 3 is GREAT (if you have global) to call international but diabolical shite when it comes to roaming. Hence why I have two phones.

GUWonder

Thanks.

With data, I would hope to pretty much avoid paying Telenor for international call rates. I usually enable my VOIP apps to get around mobile phone company's international calling rates.

Do any of these providers block VOIP type apps (if not using VPN) or throttle speeds to make VOIP apps impractical? Telenor seems like it doesn't block VOIP as it worked for pseudoswede.

I am thinking of going for the Comviq/Tele2 deal that includes 3GB data, but I used to find their network more spotty in Sweden than Telenor's network. Can we perhaps get maps linked that compare coverage area/strength?

Reason077

Here's my experience buying a SIM in Sweden last week. I was looking for a nano-SIM for my iPhone 5, but ended up settling for a micro-SIM for my girlfriend's iPhone 4S.

First attempt: Telenor store. Had nano-SIMs in stock, and could activate on a prepay plan. However, Telenor will not sell a SIM card without a Swedish personal number. My GF is a Swedish citizen but apparently she has an impossible personal number - the birthdate part of her personal number is not a valid date (a typo in her passport?!), which was to the great amusement of all the Telenor staff in the store. So no valid personal number = no SIM card at Telenor

(aside: Isn't Sweden's reliance on using personal numbers for all kinds of mundane things a bit discriminatory against other EU citizens travelling in Sweden? The EU should investigate this!)

Second attempt: Phone House store. No nano-SIMs available in store, can only be ordered online (which, of course, requires a personal number). However a friendly employee who spoke good english sold us a Comviq prepay micro-SIM card for 99kr, plus a top-up to the "Kompis 195" (195 kr) plan. In hindsight, he oversold us a bit because he made no mention of the cheaper "Kompis Surf 70" (70 kr) plan would would have been adequate for our needs. I guess Phone House employees get paid on commission!

Unfortunately, Comviq SIM cards don't seem to configure properly, for data, on iPhones out-of-the-box. Upon activation the iPhone automatically sets the APN to internet.tele2.se which does not work properly. After 2 very frustrating days of very poor data connectivity (email/notifications/iMessages would work, sort of, but the data connection would stall on any attempt to load a web page), we got on a WiFi connection and figured out that the APN setting needs to be manually changed to data.comviq.se - after doing this, it worked great.

The Phone House guy helped us activate the phone but it would have been nice if he'd known to check the APN setting, too as it would have saved us a lot of frustration!

Comviq seemed to have pretty good reception and data speeds. Great 3G signal around Stockholm and all major highways. Dropped down to EDGE in some of the smaller towns in Skĺne.

pseudoswede

Very strange. I'm an American citizen. I whipped out my Visa card and had a Telenor SIM card within minutes.

You should see how frustrating it is when Swedish citizens born outside the country (like my kids) trying to get a samordningsnummer (a personal number for Swedish citizens born and living outside of Sweden, and for foreigners who need to do business or own property within Sweden) and trying to get a passport.

If the fifth digit of your girlfriend's personal number is off by 6, then that means she also has a samordningsnummer. Many non-government systems cannot handle that.

Reason077

It may have been that this restriction only applies to nano-SIMs. Regular SIMs come in special pre-pay packs, but it seemed like their nano-SIMs had to be first registered in their system and then assigned to a pre-paid plan. Still, it's very frustrating that you can't do this without a personal number!

Hopefully as more manufacturers adopt nano-SIM, this will be less of a problem in future...

Ah, yes, that's exactly what it is. She was born outside of Sweden but has Swedish citizenship by way of a Swedish parent. The guys at the Telenor store had apparently never seen such a thing before and were convinced there must be a mistake in her passport!

thijsseh

For data only (iPad), I can recommend '3'. Available at '3' shops and at Phone House. Excellent coverage. Cant quite remember the rates but not expensive (certainly for Scandinavia). The started pack is especially good value. They have a 50GB for a month plan, which means almost unlimited data. We used one iPad as a personal hotspot and ran all our data needs of it. The only problem is that their website is only in Swedish. So we went to a store to top up at the end of the month.

Pronto1024

I need a prepaid SIM that will work in both Sweden and France for about a month. Any suggestions?

Marschel

A sim card from Three UK.