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Telecom News

Sunrise: Lower Roaming Rates for Europe

May 21, 2019 - Ralf Beyeler

Switzerland’s second largest mobile service provider is lowering the prices of its data roaming bundles for Europe, the United States and Canada. Ralf Beyeler analyzes the new roaming bundles in this review.

With immediate effect, Sunrise customers can benefit from the following new roaming offers:

Data roaming bundle: 40 GB

Sunrise has launched a 40-gigabyte data roaming bundle for 19.90 Swiss francs. The bundle is valid for 1 month and is automatically renewed at the end of that term. The data roaming bundle is valid for most European countries, including popular vacation destinations like France, Italy, Spain and Greece.

Data roaming bundle: 2 GB

The 2-gigabyte data roaming bundle costs 14.90 francs – half of the former price for the same bundle. This bundle is also valid for 1 month. Unlike the 40-gigabyte bundle, this bundle can be used for data roaming in the United States and Canada in addition to most European countries.

Travel Days bundles

Both Travel Days bundles will continue to be available and the price remains unchanged. But Sunrise has increased the data allowance of the smaller bundle (valid 7 days) to 2 gigabytes and that of the larger bundle (valid 30 days) to 40 gigabytes. The smaller bundle costs 39 francs. The larger bundle costs 69 francs. In addition to data roaming, both Travel Days bundles also include roaming calls in their flat fee.

Data roaming bundles for prepaid users

Prepaid users can also benefit from more affordable data roaming, but only as a promotional offer. The new, temporary rates are only valid until the end of September 2019. For the duration of the promotional offer term, the smaller, 100-magabyte data roaming bundle costs 3.90 francs (instead of 9.90 francs). The larger, 2-gigabyte data roaming bundle costs 14.90 francs (instead of 29.90 francs). These bundles are valid for data roaming in many European countries, the United States and Canada.

Data roaming bundles for destinations outside of Europe

The new pricing only positively impacts roaming in many European countries, the United States and Canada. The Sunrise rates for roaming in all other countries remain unchanged. The cost of data roaming with Sunrise in countries like Thailand, South Africa and Australia remains unchanged. The cost of roaming in some European countries including Albania, Bosnia, Macedonia and Serbia also remains unchanged.

Verdict by moneyland.ch telecom expert Ralf Beyeler

The 40-gigabyte bundle is a very good option for sunrise users who travel abroad occasionally on vacation. Getting a mobile plan with included roaming allowances does not normally make financial sense for this type of user.

Sunrise competitors Swisscom and Salt are now under enormous pressure to reduce their pricing. Salt currently charges 18.90 francs for 1 gigabyte of data roaming. Swisscom charges 14.90 francs. Sunrise customers can now buy a 40-gigabyte data roaming bundle for a similar price.

It is worth noting that, once data bundle allowances have been used, data transfer speeds are throttled to a low 256 Kbps or 128 Kbps. But on the upside, Sunrise users can continue to use data roaming at no additional cost, albeit at low speeds.

What is surprising is that Sunrise has not lowered its pricing for data roaming outside of the usual spectrum of European countries, the United States and Canada. Swisscom, on the other hand, lowered the prices of its data roaming bundles for many countries around the world. A more customer-friendly approach on the part of Sunrise would have been to pass on the benefits obtained through its roaming agreements to customers traveling to other destinations as well.

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Expert Ralf Beyeler
Ralf Beyeler is the telecom expert at moneyland.ch and also covers other areas of personal finance.