A Flatrate is a method of paying for telephone calls or for internet usage.
Generally a flatrate will mean that all calls to a particular network or destination are included in a fixed monthly price. Similarly, all internet usage may be included in that price.
Some flatrates do, however, have restrictions on them such as a maximum amount of minutes or Gigabytes that can be used in any one month.
Generally a combined telephone and internet flatrate will cost between 30EUR and 50EUR, although if you are only staying in Germany short-term then you should check the conditions carefully as most providers will want you to take out a 2-year contract.
To hear a simple explanation and a short discussion in German, listen to the podcast:
[audio:http://www.germanwordsexplained.com/mp3/2008-06-05_flatrate.mp3]
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