Hello,

I wrote the mentioned Article at teltarif.de - Kommunikation ganz einfach and I own the UM +44/+1 SIM Card. If anybody is interested, drop me a private line (or e-mail) and I'll give you the +1 Number, to test it. As I'm based in Europe, I have no personal experience with roaming in the US or CDN yet.

The price list says:

located in the US or Europe, incoming calls on the UK-number: 0,00 EUR/per minute plus one time 0,19 EUR per call.

located in the US or Europe, incoming calls on the US-number: 0,19 EUR/per minute plus one time 0,19 EUR per call.


It's a UM+ Jersey number with a add on IMSI for the US including a SIM-Tool-Kit-Application to change the Identities if necessary.

When I make outgoing calls with the card it shows the UK-number.
If I'd be in the US, I could change the ID to show the US-number.

Guys, I repeat: according to Henning the US IMSI will be usable within the US only. Whatever international roaming agreements Immix have, they won't apply for 44/1. Outside the US (that includes Canada) you'll only get Jersey Telecom's roaming capabilities.

Sorry, I don't understand.
 

Sorry, I don't understand.

You must mean OUTGOING only. It should be quite clear that using the US SIM portion outside the US is not going to work. Since Canada is also "1", there might be some questions about Canada and possibly other "1" islands/areas. Immix is not going to register on any non-North American or non-US network unless there are roaming agreements.

If you do not mean only OUTGOING calls, your statement contradicts hrgajek's statement (claim):

"located in the US or Europe, incoming calls on the US-number: 0,19 EUR/per minute plus one time 0,19 EUR per call." ---- the "or Europe" portion is the contradiction.

Located in the US is clear. That is what Immix normally serves US market.

If hrgajek is correct, then, when in Europe, UM 44/1 must have some means of handing off or transferring the inbound call to the Immix # in the USA over to Europe.

And, as someone else has pointed out, in US, "0,19 EUR/per minute plus one time 0,19 EUR per call" is NOT attractive compared to most other US carriers. Since UM 44/1 requires a US #, what is the point? Just get an ATT or Tuyo or other SIM and use it. TRUE, that rate is cheaper than the current UM or UM+ rates in the US, but that is not saying much at all.

Stan

I think that's well possible, indeed probable, but not absolutely certain. It all depends on how Immix handles Rogers' network in Canada. It could treat it like a domestic roaming partner network, or it could treat it like an international network for roaming purposes. Canada and the US are both integrated into the North American Numbering Plan (NANP).

Few US prepaid providers currently provide international roaming, but those that do usually roam in Canada or Mexico, or both. In fact, I'm not aware of any that permit roaming in other countries.

T-Mobile USA, for example, roams seamlessly in Canada, although at a premium rate. There are no callbacks. You dial, and you get connected. This is the case on both postpaid and prepaid. This is quite different from the callbacks that are necessary when using most European prepaid services that permit Canadian roaming. (Strangely, Orange UK does permit direct dialing though. Then again, Orange is the last of the major UK prepaid providers to enable prepaid roaming in Canada - it was just turned on in 2008. Three still doesn't permit it.)

Incoming calls will always work for both numbers, no matter where and through which IMSI you roam.
When you're using the Jersey IMSI, calls (and hopefully SMS) to the US number will be forwarded to the Jersey number.
When you're using the US IMSI, calls (and hopefully SMS) to the Jersey number will be forwarded to the US number.

The fact the US IMSI comes from Immix does not necessarily mean, you'll get the same international roaming capabilites as Immix customers. From what I read, I assume, that the US IMSI will register only on US networks excluding Canada and the Carribean.
If I'm wrong and 44/1 customers do get the same roaming capabilites like Immix customers, that would mean the US IMSI would work also on these networks, which include O2 Ireland, Vodafone Ireland and VOXmobile Luxembourg.

Whether international roaming (i.e. outside the USA) will work with the Immix IMSI is not a technical question, e.g. of the numbering plan, but depends on what UM has decided from the economic point of view. Maybe letting a customer roam on Rogers is cheaper for Jersey Telecom than for Immix - then it would make sense to enable roaming on Rogers for the Jersey IMSI only. Another reason could be the price of outgoing calls - if 44/1 uses direct calling for the US IMSI, there could be enough margin for calls inside the US. But in Canada direct calling could result in higher costs than letting customers roam with the Jersey IMSI and realizing calls through callback.

You're right, it will be the economics.

I don't know what this Jersey SIM's rates in Canada are (if they are the same as UM+ or not), but the existing rates are prohibitively expensive. It cost me 5 euros to set up my voicemail, and I was less than 3 minutes.

T-Mobile roams in Canada at 69 US cents per minute; if the Immix IMSI permitted rates in that ballpark, that would be far more attractive than the Jersey IMSI's rates.

My point in reposting Immix's e-mail to me is that they don't know what the Canadian provider is going to charge them until they are billed by the Canadian provider. The quoted a rate between 0.32 and 1.6x. If they can't narrow down the rate, they can't allow prepaid roaming in Canada. That was why I posted it.

Well thats quite a normal but not satisfying answer. Our german providers also tell us usually "we charge the rate we get charged by the roaming operator +25% service surcharge". And its hard to find out which are the roaming operators rates.....

A short update on SMS:
SMS are not being forwarded, so when you're outside the USA, you won't receive any message sent to the US number. The same applies for messages sent to the Jersey number while staying in the USA.
So if you want to use SMS you will have to tell people when you enter/leave the US otherwise messages will be lost.

Funny isn't that what a dual sim should be about, not having to think about where you are to receive calls or messages. Calls is no problem but sms messages does seem to be a problem.

Many people do use sms these days so not being able to receive them makes the card less interesting if you sms a lot.

Question....message sent to me when my phone is off are stored and I can get them the next time I turn on the phone....so if I'm in the UK and have the UK part active, wouldn't if I switch to the USA number have the message in my inbox.....

Yes, but the SMS are not stored forever. Depending on the settings of the senders phone and the network messages live for 24hours - 7 days, then they are automatically deleted.

Chris

You can't switch to the US IMSI while you are outside of the US. If you're in Britain, you can use the Jersey IMSI only. Calls to the US number will be forwarded to the Jersey number, but not messages.

It would be really nice if they added the ability to forward SMSes and voicemail notifications to your e-mail account -- particularly with respect to the US messages.

Speaking of that, I wonder what happens with voicemails. Two boxes, none, one?

Hi,

the Call forwarding to the Vocie mail works in the Beta-Phase only with the UK Number (if switched off, if not responding, if busy). If someone calls the US number it rings for a long time (if the phone is logged in) and then you hear an announcement, that the phone is not available resp. you hear this announcement, if the phone has no network.

But in Germany the UM+ Network has a problem, as the SIM-Card does not log in to all available four networks. Mostly it takes the o2 Network, but you are not available there, because the o2-Network has technical problem with UK-based o2-SIM-Cards (like Jersey, Manx etc.) . I succeeded to log in in the E-Plus network, Vodafone and T-Mobile don't accept the UM+ at the moment.

I'm still hoping, they will fix this problem very soon, otherwise I would give up my Liechtenstein and my Jersey SIM cards and would switch to Switzerland (Original Swisscom Natel Easy). This is not the cheapest solution, but much more reliable...

I'm surprised to read this. Jersey isn't related to O2, and I've never noticed problems there with the others, indeed they seem to prefer O2.

If United Mobile pulls this off, I'll buy several of these SIMs as present. My partner and his wife carry Verizon Saga's (CDMA + quadband GSM) and travel the US extensively with a small amount of international travel. If they unlock their phone and replace the Verizon SIM with the United-Mobile SIM, it gives them a great backup when they are out of coverage on their home carrier. If United Mobile pulls off the US call forwarding, this will also be a bonus for them. They are from the "don't make it complicated crowd" and this will save them a fortune over Verizon's roaming rates.

Sounds intriguing if United Mobile gives out the sims either free or for a small charge to cover the sim card cost and shipping. Worth a try.
Hopefully they will have accurate billing for this; my +44 UM+ calls from the UK to US were mischarged as more expensive Russia to US calls in late 2007 and I had to contact customer service to have them credit the difference (it was interesting trying to convince them that I was across the street from Kensington Palace rather than the Kremlin). Right now I will depend on 2 US MVNO cards for calls placed in the US. For outside US would use Digicel in non-US Caribbean. For outside the US or Caribbean would use MaxRoam or in some instances UM+, Iridium or Skype. Less complicated than it sounds since I only travel outside the US a few times a year, and not many people need to be provided with the mobile number(s) where I can be reached.
Another possibility is to get a dual or tri sim multiband phone (thinking more of the GSM only phones rather than the GSM/CDMA hybrids) which have been dropping quite a bit in price lately. These are mostly made in China but are exported through various sales channels; some have interesting add-on features like FM radios/TV's/MP3 players).

I made a call from the island of Barbados to the US last march, and yackie billed me as calling from Cameroon, West Africa. The good thing is that I made about 4 calls in total all on the same date. The other calls all showed as calling from Barbados. When I called yackie that it would have been impossible for me to be in Cameroon and Barbados within a few hours. They did refund me and agreed that something was wrong with their billing.

Talking about dual sim phones, I do have one zoho V90 that I bought on dealExtreme for about $90 solely for that reason. Currently have my maxroam and UM+ sims in it.

I have a Digicel (Trinidad) SIM which is still active. I know it has reasonable roaming rates on other Digicel networks. Anywhere else?

It will work in the US and some other non-Digicel countries, but at rather high rates(best used sparingly or if nothing else works when roaming off Digicel).

Best used on Digicel Caribbean networks because of the DigiRoam preferred rates. A note that Digicel also has coverage in some Pacific island countries; might also have good rates there.

Not sure. But, as you mentioned, I know the digicel sims have very good roaming rates on other digicel networks throughout the Caribbean.

My wife used the SIM for four days in (the former British) Guyana and it worked great and pretty reasonable.

The Bahamas and Mexico are two places I still need to work on.

Which sim? The dual or the UM +44?