Elisa is Finland’s largest wireless operator both in terms of customers and coverage. Since landing in Helsinki back in July 2007, they’ve happily been my operator of choice. Their consumer facing brand used to be called Kolumbus, but they rebranded it to Saunalahti a few years ago for reasons I still don’t understand. Anyway, if you’re using their service as a prepaid customer, like I am, then you’ve been stuck with full size SIM cards. If you want to use a Lumia 800 or iPhone 4 with Saunalahti, then get ready to invest in your own SIM card cutter, that or you should start sharpening your kitchen scissors. And don’t even think about asking Saunalahti to give you another SIM card, since prepaid numbers don’t have the same number portability rules as postpaid numbers. This week however, things have finally changed; you can now buy prepaid microSIM cards. Pricing for text messages and minutes remain the same as on full size SIM cards, 0.066 EUR per SMS or MMS sent, 0.066 EUR per outgoing minute, but data is priced differently. On a regular size prepaid SIM card you get unlimited data for 1.90 EUR/day, no speed cap. With the prepaid microSIM card it’s 0.66 EUR/day, no speed cap. That’s not fair!
To be perfectly honest you can get the cheaper rates with a full size SIM if you read the instruction manual. Send a text message to a certain number with a certain short code and you’ll get a month of unlimited data for 19.80 EUR, though you’ll be capped at 1 megabit per second down. These new microSIM cards have no speed limit as far as I’m aware, and 0.66 EUR x 30 days = 19.80 EUR per month, so you actually get better service.
If anyone from Elisa is reading this, I’m pretty pissed off at you. Also, I’m furious that prepaid users don’t have access to Elisa’s 4G LTE network. One needs to sign a 12 month or 24 month contract to get 4G LTE, and I’m just not cool with that.