Switzerland’s second-largest mobile service provider Sunrise is changing its pricing for data roaming and roaming bundles as from June 8, 2020.
The changes explained here affect mobile roaming in most European countries and other countries like Turkey, the US, Canada and Puerto Rico.
These changes are being made to data roaming bundles:
- Sunrise no longer offers a 2-gigabyte roaming data bundle for 14.90 Swiss francs.
- Sunrise now offers a 3-gigabyte roaming data bundle for 19.90 francs.
- The 40-gigabyte data roaming bundle from Sunrise now costs 29.90 francs – 10 francs more than it did before.
The data bundles expire after 30 days after activation.
The travel days roaming bundles from Sunrise include unlimited call and SMS roaming for a flat fee in addition to data roaming.
- The travel days 7 bundle now includes 3 gigabytes of roaming data in place of the previous 2 gigabytes. The price remains unchanged at 39.90 francs. The bundle expires 7 days after activation.
- The travel days 30 bundle now costs 59.90 francs – 10 francs less than it did before. The bundle includes 40 gigabytes of data roaming and expires 30 days after activation.
Fees for roaming in some countries have been drastically reduced. Sunrise now offers a 100-megabyte roaming data bundle covering mobile roaming in Bolivia, Cuba, Mauritius, Réunion and some other countries for 49.90 francs.
Previously Sunrise did not offer any data bundles for these countries and charged users standard roaming rates. At 15,600 francs per 1 gigabyte of roaming data, using standard roaming rates for these countries is significantly more expensive than buying the new Sunrise roaming data bundle.
Comparison with other service providers
For phone users who only use smaller amounts of roaming data and only within Europe, Sunrise is more expensive than some other providers in many cases. Its smallest roaming data bundle costs 20 francs, while Swisscom and Salt offer data roaming bundles from around 5 francs (200-megabyte bundle from Swisscom, 100-megabyte bundle from Salt.
Mobile users who only travel to other European countries for a few days at a time may find the standard Sunrise roaming rate of 1.90 francs per day (with 100 megabytes included) interesting.
Sunrise does score with regards to data roaming for heavy users. Only Yallo and Lebara are the only other service providers which offer 40-gigabyte roaming data bundles. At 30 francs per bundle, Sunrise charges around 5 francs less than Yallo and Lebara.
Neither Swisscom nor Salt offer a data roaming bundle that large. Swisscom’s biggest data roaming bundle is 3 gigabytes and Salt’s is 5 gigabytes. Both of these are more expensive than the largest Sunrise bundle in spite of providing just a fraction of the roaming data included in the Sunrise bundle.
Large data roaming bundles are customer friendly
“Sunrise has taken a customer-friendly approach by offering a large data roaming bundle,” states moneyland.ch telecom expert Ralf Beyeler. Many mobile service providers take a different approach by offering mobile plans which include mobile roaming allowances. The problem with that approach is that plan holders pay for monthly roaming allowances via their plans’ flat fees, but the vast majority do not travel outside of the country every month. Roaming bundles are a more suitable solution for average vacationers who only travel abroad occasionally.
Verdict by moneyland.ch telecom expert Ralf Beyeler
“The comparison clearly shows that Sunrise offers the best data roaming bundle for heavy users,” says Ralf Beyeler of independent online comparison service moneyland.ch.
The Sunrise bundle which includes call roaming for a flat fee is also exceptional. No other service provider offers a similar bundle. Note that the 7-day bundle is significantly more expensive than the 30-day bundle. These bundles only pay off for mobile users who make a fair number of roaming calls.
More on this topic:
Compare mobile plans including roaming with the interactive Swiss mobile plan comparison
Find the best deal on mobile roaming with the interactive Swiss roaming calculator
