sarah here today and in today's video i'm going  to be talking all about cell phones in switzerland

so this video is actually episode number five  in our series called switzerland basics so this  

series is dedicated to those of you watching that  are in the process of moving to switzerland or  

you're planning on moving to switzerland or  you're thinking about moving to switzerland  

and you want the real basic information in  today's video i'm going to be talking all about  

cell phones because obviously this is something  that is one of the first things that you need to  

get sorted out when you move here i know  whenever i make a move to a new country  

within the first 24 hours i'm making sure that  i get a cell phone plan all up and running  

and i know that when you're in the stress  of moving you can sometimes jump into quick  

decisions and then you can later regret it and  it can be kind of hard to change it sometimes  

or a real pain or expense to change it so i hope  with this video you can make a better uh educated  

cell phone decision when you first move here so  today's video is gonna be you guys in three parts  

first i'm going to be talking about the device  the hardware what you need to know about that  

second i'm going to be talking about plans and  the carriers and then at the end i'm going to  

mention what you should do if you are a tourist  in switzerland you're not moving here you're just  

traveling and i'll put in the time stamp here if  you just want to skip ahead to that part so part  

one the phone itself what do you need to know well  the main question most people ask themselves is  

i already have a phone can i bring it to  switzerland can i use it there is it going to work  

and of course this is the best thing you can do  if you already have a phone um i'm sure that you  

do if you're watching this video you're probably  watching it on a phone so it's silly for me to say  

um but if you have a cell phone already yes  you can bring it to switzerland and use it here  

but only if it is unlocked so if you live in  the united states and you have a plan with a t  

and in your contract it says that that cell phone  will only work with a t or only work with a t  

until you've been a customer for two years you  need to look into those details if you are not  

sure if your phone is unlocked or not please find  us out before you come to switzerland before you  

leave the country because if it is locked they  might your carrier might be able to help you but  

once you're overseas they're not going to be able  to help you a whole lot with getting your phone  

unlocked so figure out if your phone is locked or  not call your carrier ask them if they say it is  

locked figure out if there is a way that you can  get it unlocked you might have to pay a little bit  

of money to get it unlocked and sometimes that can  be worth it but look into that first so the next  

option if your phone is locked and your carrier  says it will not work in switzerland it only works  

on a t or sprint or whatever and uh you decide  then to say sell that phone and come here without  

a phone and you need to get a new one let me tell  you the best way to do that of course you can get  

cell phones directly from the cell phone carriers  but you guys you know i'm a budget girl i i try to  

be sustainable i try to you know be financially  responsible and that's why i'm definitely going  

to not recommend to you to go out and just buy  a brand new phone what i would recommend and  

again this is not sponsored but go to revendo.ch  this is a really really great company that sells  

second-hand uh cell phones they sell all sorts of  apple products samsung products basically like the  

the kind of electronics that people actually want  um they're a great company i bought two iphones  

from them one laptop and two apple watches  so i have a lot of experience as a customer  

paying customer of this company and i definitely  would recommend them so i have an iphone 7 plus  

only paid a couple hundred bucks for this and  it works amazingly well so i would recommend  

that you go online to revendo.ch or they also  have stores get yourself a phone they'll all  

be unlocked they'll all be ready to go and then  you can take that unlocked phone and go and find  

your plan okay third option you're like sarah  my phone is locked i can't use it i don't want a  

secondhand phone because i want the latest and the  greatest phone let me tell you what your option is  

of course you can straight up buy it from the cell  phone company you can walk in and pay your 1 000  

1000 swiss francs for your latest iphone you  can just buy it outright and then it will be  

unlocked or what most people tend to do is they  go to the cell phone carrier they pick out a phone  

nowadays i think you can put basically no money  or like one swiss franc down as a down payment and  

then they will divide up the price of the phone  and bill you for that with your cell phone bill  

so say you're paying 50 bucks a month for your  cell phone service they will then add the 50  

or 50 francs a month uh to it to pay off your  iphone if you don't pay it all in once and uh  

sorry the personal finance in nerd in me  just has to say that i wouldn't recommend  

this even though this is very popular because  say it takes you two years to pay off that 1000  

uh swiss franc iphone at the end of the two years  guys it's gonna be worth absolutely nowhere near  

what you paid for it that's called depreciation  that phone will have depreciated a whole lot  

and the most you'll be able to get for it is  like a couple hundred francs if you're lucky  

so just go directly and buy secondhand sorry  i gotta i gotta push a sustainability circular  

economy and saving money okay i'm gonna put  this down i'm like waving this phone around  

so the next thing you have your device  next thing to do is find a carrier so in  

switzerland you have three major carriers that  you will hear everybody talk about and they are  

salt sunrise and swisscom so in my personal  opinion it seems like most swiss people are  

heavily biased towards swisscom and if you tell  them that you don't want to go with swisscom  

a lot of people look at you like you're crazy  that's what happened to me anyways um but yeah  

those are the three main carriers and most swiss  people will probably tell you to go with swisscom  

but it is the most expensive one so those are the  three main carriers they will also be the more  

i guess normal price higher price carriers but  they do they do have a few budget carriers in  

switzerland as well you can get a cell phone from  aldi i think even from liesl from cope from negro  

there's a lot of smaller um other not smaller  companies but less popular cell phone carriers out  

there and actually most of these small companies  they buy access to the swisscom um cell phone  

tower network coverage so you're often getting the  exact same coverage just without the name brand  

so of course this part is pretty personal and  up to you how much you want to pay every single  

month what kind of plan you are looking for but my  personal recommendation guys would be to go for an  

unlimited everything plan these are pretty popular  in switzerland so that means you can get unlimited  

data calls and text messages for one flat fee and  i would really recommend this because although it  

might sound more budget friendly to get like  the 19 franc a month plan you're going gonna  

get nickeled and dimed if you go over on your  um wireless data or you go over on your phone  

calls and those bills can really add up so in my  personal experience here and i'm a girl who's done  

that i've done like the budget plan thinking i'm  gonna save money and then i end up getting a bill  

that is much higher than if i would have just gone  for the unlimited everything plan so you probably  

want to look at the unlimited everything plans and  these range from let me see here what do we say  

about 40 francs on the low end from aldi and  salt and about up to 65 on the high end from  

sun or from swisscom and sunrise so these are  unlimited everything within switzerland you can  

expect to pay anywhere between 40 francs and 65  francs but again that is only within switzerland  

this will add up if you want to add europe um the  rest of europe north america or other countries  

i have to point that out though that is one of the  downsides of switzerland since 2017 all europeans  

anyone in the eu or eea does not get charged data  roaming anymore so if you are german and you have  

a german cell phone plan and you go to france  you don't have to worry about paying more money  

because you're in france people in the eu really  get a nice perk there but here in switzerland we  

are not a part of any of those agreements so if  you have a swiss cell phone plan and you go to  

germany you can expect to be charged roaming at  my plan at sunrise it's one frank 90 per day for  

like a limited amount of data and phone calls but  that has really worked for us okay another thing  

you need to keep in mind when you're picking out  a cell phone plan is your age so in switzerland  

if you are under 30 you will be able to benefit  from a good amount of discounts most cell phone  

carriers do have a special price for people under  30 which is really nice because i know in a lot of  

places you have to be like a student to get  a discount or stuff like that but most of  

the carriers here will offer you a discount if  you're under 30 which is really nice so since i'm  

under 30 i do get a discount so i have a plan at  sunrise and i get 10 bucks off every single month  

the plan i have is unlimited everything normally  costs 65 francs but i only pay 55 which is really  

nice and i also get some other benefits so this  is something you can ask about what additional  

benefits come with signing up with them so for me  since i'm under 30 and i have a plan at sunrise  

i get for example 50 off my sbb half fare and  that's like a 90 franc value every single year  

which is really nice so that's the half fare that  gives you half off public transportation the cell  

phone company covers half of it and i can actually  then pay that um in my cell phone bill if i want  

it's like five or eight bucks a month not a lot  at all so those are basically my recommendations  

when you're picking out a plan make sure you see  if there are any discounts you can qualify for  

try to go for an unlimited everything so you don't  have any unexpected bills and the last thing that  

you really need to keep in mind especially if  you are new in switzerland you are an expat here  

you're just immigrating here please get yourself  a no contract plan you want to ask about contract  

terms you have to be really careful about  this because i've made this mistake before  

um and i didn't realize i had signed  like a three-year cell phone contract  

and then to get out of it it cost me almost  400 swiss francs to get out of this contract  

so again i'm going to keep talking about sunrise  because that's what we have but in my cell phone  

plan it is a no contract plan i can cancel at  any time so if i leave the country or another  

carrier comes out with a better price i can  switch very easily so i would recommend to  

you especially if you're new here because you  don't know if things are going to change if  

your situation is going to change and you might  have to leave you don't want to have to cancel a  

bunch of cell phone plans you know to the tune of  like 400 swiss francs per line so just be careful  

about contract terms ask for no contract if it's  possible so let's say you did your research about  

cell phone plans i would definitely recommend  that you look that up online and get all your  

information most of the carriers let  you just really simply pick your pan  

pick your plan and then you can just click  and they'll mail you a sim card and you can  

pop it in your unlocked uh phone or they'll mail  you the phone with the sim card very very easy  

to get started i would recommend that you do all  the signing up online just because in those stores  

sometimes it can take very long to get things done  you guys know how it is if you've ever been in a  

cell phone store it can be a little bit stressful  of an experience and often people want to upsell  

you and they want to encourage you to like add  a tv and add your internet and all that kind of  

stuff and you might end up getting up sold into  a plan so i definitely recommend go online i can  

recommend sunrise what we use they have a really  really easy sign up process again no contracts  

great discounts great perks and when it comes to  coverage i find that i haven't had any kind of  

issue even though swiss people will probably tell  me that sunrise doesn't have as good of coverage  

as swisscom i've never had an issue at all so  that's about it for if you are moving here that is  

all that you need to know i hope that helped you  understand what you can expect to pay and what you  

should look for but let's say you are visiting  switzerland for a week or a week and a half  

um what do you need to do to have a cell phone  to be connected it's obviously really important  

when you're traveling to be able to get online  to look things up to be able to make phone calls  

so the first thing that i would recommend is that  you look at your current cell phone carrier so say  

you have a t or verizon or whatever talk to them  and see if you can set up a plan before you come  

and visit europe or switzerland because if you  just come over here and start making calls and  

using internet data you can really get a very  high cell phone bill so definitely see if there's  

something that you can add on to your plan for  the week or for the month um before you come  

over here that's going to be your absolute best  bet and if your cell phone company doesn't have  

an option like that or it's too expensive bring  your phone and get a local sim card when you get  

here so you can just pop into any cell phone store  you can pop into sunrise you'll see sunrise stores  

everywhere salt stores or swisscom store and buy  yourself a prepaid sim card that has data on it  

and everything like that it's not going to be  like dirt cheap but i think it's a good option