I am pretty sure that outside of North America, you pay 19c/min surcharge to receive calls on your +1 number.

Well that I agree was clearly indicated on the original ekit passport dual sim card.....but in reading all the material on ebay regarding the US simple card which also has a +44 number, there is no indication of that, none whatsoever.

Go to ebay...put in a search for ekit sim card and click on any of the offers with the US flag on it.....read through all the material and please show me where it says there is a 19¢ charge to receive calls in the UK or any of the other countries in that first list...it clearly says callin gthe USA/Canada from these countries is $0.49...nothing about a surcharge and it says free to receive....it doesn't say anywhere it's only free to receive if the call is made to the +44 number...there is absolutely nothing about the 19¢, at least not that I can find....this is as opposed to the original ekit card from telestial which first came out two months ago where it clearly indicated a 19¢ surcharge.

Of course, I might be missing something......

I suppose I am not sure I would trust the the Ebay listing as is. This is the info from Ekit's page:
ekit, SIMple Calling Plus SIM card

It says Free to receive calls in over 50 countries ON YOUR GLOBAL NUMBER so that is the +44 number. And it does mention the 19c/min.

That seems the way it should be.......

The company would go bankrupt quickly if it allowed free inbound calls on the +1 number. The only way to make that profitable is to have a monthly fee to cover the airtime usage.

Why?......

So far, I am impressed with eKit. The US number seems to passes caller-id fairly well. The UK one doesn't seem to work as well.

Because I assume the physical number is overseas (+44?). It costs lots of money to terminate a call on a mobile number virtually anyway in the world outside US/Canada.
If Ekit is providing a U.S. physical number, then they would have to pay the carrier who handles the call in the country you are in overseas.
Of course I might be all wrong<G>

...mike

Most countries' mobile numbers have a higher termination rate (e.g. UK landlines ~2-3 cents Canadian for me to call; UK mobiles 17-50 cents for me to call). The caller is paying a higher rate because a large part of the rate difference goes to the mobile network provider to pay for the airtime. The mobile phone owner does not pay because the caller is paying.

On a US or Canadian number, the termination rate is the same as for a landline so there is no differential to pay to the mobile provider. The mobile phone owner pays because the caller is not paying.

Someone has to pay for incoming calls. In most countries in the world the caller pays. In Canada and the US, as well as a few other countries, the callee pays.