Well, it’s time to admit to Mrs. MP that time is running out…
Because we have to solve the “mobile phone” topic for our eldest child…
To be honest I’ve thought about it… for several years now, both of our two children (!) have been the last or second last in their class to not own a mobile phone.
Although mentalities are starting to change among parents, it drives me crazy that more than half of the under 10-year-olds all already own a mobile phone… and don’t even get me started on inactive parent control, where parents leave their kids alone to watch Squid Game (!!!) and other dope like TikTok alone in their room at night…
But anyway, I beg to differ :D
Criteria for choosing a Swiss mobile subscription for children and young people
This is the question that interests us in this article.
And above all, how much does such a mobile phone subscription even cost?! You know me ;)
What Mrs. MP and I want the mobile plan for most of all:
- That our teenager could call us outside the house
- Since we have WiFi at home:
- No need for SMS packages or anything else
- No need for an internet subscription
Oh yes, to clarify: he’s not allowed to use his cell phone at school. Only at home or when he’s out having fun with friends all afternoon, or other extracurricular activities.
Which mobile subscription is the best in Switzerland?
I looked at Swiss mobile subscriptions especially for “youths”, as well as cheap prepaid subscriptions.
And I also used Comparis with their “special plans for kids” comparator".
Here’s a quick overview of my search results:
Lebara Prepaid ⛔️
CHF 4.90 150 MB / 4 weeks.
We thought he could use this to call us on WhatsApp.
But knowing kids, he’d probably use all of that watching YouTube videos in an afternoon out… and as we don’t want him using the internet outside the house, that wasn’t helping either…
Gomo ⛔️
CHF 9.95 All unlimited (calls, SMS, and internet).
Uh, no, because it’s too expensive and there’s way too much in this youth mobile subscription :D
Das Abo Prepay ⛔️
Pay what you use. Unlimited calls to Salt & Das Abo networks. Paid calls to other networks. SMS for a fee. 100 MB / month.
We’re currently using Sunrise with the QoQa offer, so this doesn’t work for us.
And we don’t want him to suddenly have no credit to call us on the day there is an emergency…
Smart Prepaid Lidl ⛔️
CHF 0.15 to all networks in Switzerland. 4.90 CHF / 500 MB (valid for 30 days)
Same here, not good for us as a youth mobile package, as there’s a risk of running out of credit on the very day he wants to call us…
M-Budget Prepaid ⛔️
CHF 4 / 30d 40 min call time + 40 MB surfing limit.
Same problem as below with the Prepaid.
The further we got, the more we thought we’d have the same problem with every prepaid subscription…
Muchomobile, Coop Mobile, Yallo ⛔️
Just like the M-Budget, all are limited in Prepaid mode. Cool for an adult who can top-up his mobile plan on his own, but not cool as a youth mobile subscription.
Swisscom Prepaid… ✅
Finally, we came across the Swisscom Prepaid youth mobile subscription that didn’t look interesting at first…
CHF 5/month With unlimited internet access BUT with a bandwidth limited to 128kbit/sec. And also with unlimited SMS.
At first, I thought “Forget it, we don’t want unlimited internet…”
Then, after thinking more about it, I remembered the last time I’d gone over the limit on a mobile internet package, and how incredibly SLOWWW it was with a 128kbit/sec connection!
So I searched: “Is it possible to call per WhatsApp with 128kbit/sec bandwidth”?
The answer: yes!
So we chose this mobile subscription for our child, which was perfect for us.
No worries about prepaid, and our teenager ending up with no credit in the middle of the month.
No risk of going over the limit.
And no risk of him spending his afternoon outside watching YouTube, because of the 128kbit/sec bandwidth… 😅 well, we’re not fooled, he’s watching it on his buddies’ cell phones now, but it doesn’t matter.
Conclusion
I’d started out with the idea that we’d just get him a Prepaid. On the one hand, so that he’d be really limited, and on the other so that it would only cost us a few 1-2 CHF per month.
But when we talked it over with Mrs. MP, we quickly realized that it was likely to cause us even more problems than solutions, as it could eat up all the credit (even inadvertently with an app running in the background).
So we opted for this Swisscom kids mobile subscription (called Prepaid, isn’t that hilarious!). For CHF 5/month, it entails:
- Unlimited internet access, but limited to 128kbit/sec
- Perfect for Whatsapp calls and messages
- Unlimited SMS
And you, what kind of mobile subscription for children and young people did you get (what was the price and conditions)?
PS: I’d like to avoid the “should my child have a mobile phone”, and “at which age” debate in this article. Because that’s not the main purpose of this blog post
Header image credit: pexels.com
