One reason to keep an unlocked phone is to buy cheap ass SIM cards for each country you visit. You can get a pay as you go SIM from each country and never pay a roaming fee.

It is how us old dudes did it with our $25 candy-bar Nokia phones for years. Only now you can buy data too if you have an unlocked iPhone or android.

I unlocked my old iPhone before I PCS'd, then bought the 15 euro T-mobile pay as you go, which is really a plan without commitment. It charges you 8 euro a month, but with that you get unlimited T-mobile to T-mobile calls and texts, and 100 mb of text per month. Standard fees for calls to other phones, something like 15 - 30 euro cents, don't remember. I'm TDY a lot and most people I need to call or text have T-mobile. I don't surf the internet much on my phone, but check email, stocks, weather, translators, whatever as much as I want. I end up only paying about $25 (or 18 euro) average per month. Every 2 or 3 months I stop by any T-mobile store downtown, or the one in the BX and add another 50 euro which lasts till the next time. So for me it's a great deal.

Like most have said get your iphones (the ones with sim cards not the verizon ones) unlocked before you get here. We have the Tmoblie flat three pay as you go and it's good. Plus some providers don't work out in some villages which is good and bad if you have a work phone. I know they just switched from Tmobile to vodaphone on the blackberries and it doesn't work out in mine. Some folks just get new ones on base at the mobile store. As for Internet if you can get a village or town with Kabel Deutschland then your set. It vast cable and doesn't take for ever to get it hooked up. But there are other options for Internet if your in a small village. But like some have said there can be a limited number or ports in the village. If you end up going with a realitor they can and should help you out if you rent one of the properties they are listing.

One more going I was thinking about, watch your bill vigilantly.

Every so often some scam will come around and they've been known to go dipping into weird fees and scams on Servicemen with contracts.

The big one that went through a couple years ago they were selling your info to 3rd parties outside of Germany and those parties were sending you adds via text... Telekom was then fining you for whatever didn't count as free in their contract. It took JAG action to get the notification to knock that shit off for a few of our guys.

Edited March 28, 201411 yr by Lawman

Does anyone have recommendations for a good, reputable VPN to access Netflix or Hulu during my time here in Germany? I know little to nothing about VPNs other than my government issued laptop uses a Cisco Systems VPN Client to access military network drives and .mil websites. My family and I aren't into gaming but we would like to stream Netflix movies. Thanks in advance for the help!

Does anyone have recommendations for a good, reputable VPN to access Netflix or Hulu during my time here in Germany? I know little to nothing about VPNs other than my government issued laptop uses a Cisco Systems VPN Client to access military network drives and .mil websites. My family and I aren't into gaming but we would like to stream Netflix movies. Thanks in advance for the help!

We use unblock-us.com. It's 5 bucks a month and it allows you to stream Netflix, Hulu, amazon, pandora, all the network apps work just fine. All you do is just change the DNS settings, the only down side is you can only use it on one device. But you can change the settings in your home router and you can use multiple devices once they are connected to the router. They have easy to follow directions.

sending credit card info to this kind of software company is like using an ATM at a strip club. There are ways of getting this service for free. Hola isn't bad.

Edited September 10, 201411 yr by addict

Hidemyass

Sent from my iPad using Tapatalk

Currently using VPN Unlimited here in AFG to get porn *AHEM* Hulu and Netflix. Works well and is a very highly rated app on Iphone, Ipad and my Windoze laptop. $30 a year.

Does anyone have recommendations for a good, reputable VPN to access Netflix or Hulu during my time here in Germany? I know little to nothing about VPNs other than my government issued laptop uses a Cisco Systems VPN Client to access military network drives and .mil websites. My family and I aren't into gaming but we would like to stream Netflix movies. Thanks in advance for the help!

I use IronSocket.com $50 a year but has VPN and DNS service for about all countries. They used to be called HidemyNet

One review: https://www.vpnsecret.com/iron-socket-vpn-review/ They recommend paying with Bitcoin

Current UPT stud dropping on Friday and looking to put C-130Js to Ramstein #1. Does anyone have info on what the current ops tempo is like?