After some further testing I realize that after the OTA update my SIM now has three IMSIs, which can be selected manually through the STK menu:

• "Global"
  • IMSI prefix: 204-04 (Vodafone NL)
  • roams on Vodafone DE, O2 DE and (due to so-called steering of roaming) after the fourth attempt to manually select Telekom DE (formerly known as T-Mobile).
  • cannot roam on E-Plus DE
    
    
• "UK"
  • IMSI prefix: 234-26 (Lycamobile UK)
  • cannot roam on any German network - very likely restricted to O2 UK
    
    
• "Germany"
  • IMSI prefix: 262-43 (Lycamobile DE)
  • registers only on Vodafone DE (Lycamobile DE's home network)
    
    

You can see if roaming is actually completey blocked for a certain network by the immediate failure to register after selecting a network. If registration just takes ages and then fails, then this is very likely caused by steering of roaming, which is achieved by the HLR of your home network not responding to the location update procedure performed by your handset when trying to register on another network. Operators assume that a phone in automatic network selection mode will try to register three times on a network in case of timing out location updates and will then try the next network available. By this operators try to steer subscribers onto the preferred network.
However after the the fourth attempt to register the HLR will usually accept the location update as it is assumed that your handset is out of coverage of the preferred networks.

Hence you should also try with each of your SIM card's IMSIs to manually register on each British network four times.

I wonder why they don't market this product under the Lyca brand or at least with some reference to them (like "powered by Lycamobile"). After all those failed roaming discounters many customers (including me) have reservations against these kind of products, so mentioning the entity behind this offer would create some confidence.

P.S.: Of course if you use the "Global" IMSI your calls will not be billed by the cheaper tariffs ("International Rates in toggle mobile countries (with local number)") but instead by the "International Roaming" tariff. So in the UK you would pay £0.34/min for local calls instead of £0.03/min. Despite the higher tariff this is an interesting option in case you are in a coverage hole and need to place or receive calls.

my card will travel to france on monday, lets see how it will work in "real-world" conditions.
regarding your 11 pound topup on 10 pound payment - they advertise that you get a bonus for each online-topup.
The customer service called me several times last week cause there was a problem displaying the correct DID when calling on the german numbers (they cut off the country code and displayed e.g. +3012345 instead of +493012345). After some network trace they found the error and fixed it right away. I am very pleased with the customer service so far.

On Toggle's Facebook page, it says "£5 voucher is available anytime now, sale for £5 ;)), no expiry date". Does anyone know where you can buy a £5 top-up or voucher?

My SIM always shows the UK number during outbound calls. Shouldn't the German number be displayed as caller ID when placing a call from the toggle SIM using the German IMSI?

The agent told me that currently they always display the UK number as the card is mainly focused on UK customers. I asked if its possible to swap and he wanted to call back next week. Yes, they really do call back, wonderful helpdesk experiance :-)

All numbes on your SIM are reachable simultanously without additional cost

The owner of this Facebook page, which is run by some reseller who doesn't even have an online shop, has answered. He's selling those vouchers by email (toggle@hp-vn.com).

The more I think about this product, the more I like it. I wonder why they don't market it in further markets with a local number as primary one instead of the British one. I've recently checked some statistics to evaluate the potential for such a multi-SIM product in Germany and found that there are about 54k German residents commuting to work in Switzerland and 41k French residents commuting to work in Germany, who would be a great target.
The only thing I miss is data packs that are valid for all countries from which you have an IMSI. Toggle is obviously in the position to tear down the borders in the European mobile market caused by roaming fees and make Neelie Kroes' dream of a pan-European telecoms market come true.

My answer comes a bit late, but I assume that you need to use the APN depending on the used IMSI.

I don't know if data is actually available for the "Global" IMSI but you could try these settings:

• Global
  APN: live.vodafone.com
  username: vodafone
  password: vodafone
  
  
• Switzerland
  APN: data.lycamobile.ch
  username: lmch
  password: plus
  
  
• Germany
  APN: data.lycamobile.de
  username lmde
  password: plus
  
  
• UK
  APN: data.lycamobile.co.uk
  username: lmuk
  password: plus

Lyca obviously uses a consistent convention for its APN settings internationally, so you can guess them for the remaining countries or just google them.

Yes, i also think the card has a huge potentional - also regarding business. We are a french-german company and thus always cross bordering and relying on calling each other on the cellphones. So far costs a fortrune on our t-mobile D contracts. If the card works well we'll equip the most called people with a cheap 2nd phone to have a german # in france and the other way around.
Also international calling is much cheaper than on our t-mobile (well we have flatrate to EU landlines, but the rest of the rates are riddiculous)

Support confirmed today that currently only the UK number can be displayed on outgoing calls:

"Further to your email, please be informed that as per the current process the UK Toggle mobile number will displayed when you make calls and send text from your Toggle sim card. However the local number will not be displayed when make calls or send SMS.

We are making our best efforts to incorporate this facility as soon as possible and hopefully we can make it available in a near future. Please accept our apologies for any inconvenience this may have caused. "

I asked Toggle's customer services whether they could send me a nano-SIM, and they replied that they could. I was quite impressed with this after making my comment above. However, today I received a 2FF mini-SIM cut down to a 4FF nano-SIM, which is 13% too thick, therefore potentially voiding my iPhone 5's warranty as you have to really force a cut SIM card into an iPhone 5. I'm not so impressed now.

[QUOTE=NFH;42009]I notice that in the UK, Toggle is an MVNO on O2; /QUOTE]

23426 = lycamobile UK... i think it is a full-MVNO in UK...

In france local france number uses lycamobile MNO "bouygues télécom"

> roams on Vodafone DE, O2 DE and (due to so-called steering of roaming) after the fourth attempt to manually select Telekom DE (formerly known as T-Mobile).

seems vodafone has """troubles""" with gistorical MNOs ^^ same trouble in France with orange... not an hazard !!!
[/list][*]"UK"

• IMSI prefix: 234-26 (Lycamobile UK)
• cannot roam on any German network - very likely restricted to O2 UK
  
  of course... same in FRance, no access to bouygus telecom competitors
  
  

[*]"Germany"[list][*]IMSI prefix: 262-43 (Lycamobile DE)[*]registers only on Vodafone DE (Lycamobile DE's home network)

of course, your IMSI does the same as a lycamobile DE sim card ! they use their own full-MVNO tariffs...

> By this operators try to steer subscribers onto the preferred network.

cost of roaming are expensive i suppose... oups it is more realistic than a supposition ^^

@NFH
I'm surprised since this you are the first to report such issues with self-cut nanoSIMs. Those 60µm difference in thickness between nanoSIMs and its predecessors should be within production tolerances of the iPhone's SIM slot and SIM holder.
Anyway take a file or some sandpaper and let your SIM run over it for a couple of times.

I wouldn't say that roaming is that expensive, but given the low mobile termination fees in most toggle countries and the lack of roaming fees for inbound calls, Lyca definitely needs to keep an eye on roaming costs. Hence they will need to steer roaming traffic to those network on which they have the best wholesale conditions. Since roaming with the global IMSI is obviously bought from Vodafone NL (they actually supply the global IMSI), who in turn preferably use other Vodafone networks, it's not surprising that you cannot register on some network, at least not immediately.
I'm rather surprised that you can still use the global IMSI within a toggle country even if you have a national IMSI from the corresponding country. Once a subscriber has obtained a national IMSI by ordering a local number, roaming through the global IMSI should be blocked in that particular country in order to save costs.
With FreeTimeTelecom the global IMSI did not register in Germany, where they had a local IMSI from now defunct vistream/Telogic Germany. But I guess for toggle it's way more complicated because you would need to define allowed roaming networks for each subscriber individually based on each subscriber's activated local numbers/IMSIs and then you would need to permanently update Vodafone NL's HLR with these records.

@NFH
Have you tried registering on the British networks through the global IMSI?

I'd be delighted to try if you can explain how. I have registered a temporary Polish number.

I've just found out that the iPhone - at least unless jailbroken - does not provide access to the SIM Toolkit (STK), but on any other phone you should find this item somewhere in the menu (old Nokias just call it "Services") or among the apps (Android). Once you start the STK, you will see a first item called "toggle". After selecting "toggle" in the next menu level you may chose between manual and automatic IMSI selection. There you would need to select manual IMSI selection, which will reveal a list of activate IMSIs for your SIM card. In your case it should list "Global", "UK" and "Poland". Here you would select "Global" and then perform a manual network search after which you would try to register on each of the listed networks. If your registration fails for a certain network retry it four times to rule out that it's just the steering mechanism which prevents you from registering.

I've tried in an old HTC HD2, and even with the global IMSI selected, it still won't register on other UK networks.

Our card is excessively used in france at the moment and performs very well. Our guy there already saved more than 100 Euro compared to our normal t-mobile business contracts. Calls are very reliable and voice quality is good too. Data was not tested as the handset doesnt support it...

> Since roaming with the global IMSI is obviously bought from Vodafone NL (they actually supply the global IMSI), who in turn preferably use other Vodafone networks, it's not surprising that you cannot register on some network, at least not immediately.

i'm not agree... i have a delightmobile based on KPN NL... i always have access
to the #1, #1 and #3 FR netwiorks.

i know vodafone is affilied in some parts with SFR France but it is not a good reason !

That makes sense. Since all toggle SIMs have a British IMSI and so can access O2 UK they have probably disabled roaming with the global IMSI in the UK. For the other countries it's more complicated because you would need to bar roaming based on each customer's set of IMSIs, which may be too complex at this time.

The fact that KPN perhaps doesn't steer its roaming customers to a certain French network, doesn't mean that Vodafone NL gets the same wholesale prices on all French networks.

Vodafone owned a 44% stake in SFR until 2011 when they sold it to Vivendi who are the sole owner now. But I could bet that they are still partnering with Vodafone like other independant MNOs do (e.g. Mobilkom Austria, Swisscom), especially for roaming wholesale. That's why SFR is surely Vodafone NL's and so toggle's (at least while using the global IMSI) cheapest roaming partner in France and thus their preferred network.

Correction: the iPhone does support the SIM Toolkit, which can be found under Home > Settings > Phone > SIM Applications.

the STK is often well hidden. I have a crappy Sony Ericcson phone here where the STK is sorted in "Fun and Games"... Oh well...

[QUOTE=inquisitor;42059]I wouldn't say that roaming is that expensive, but given the low mobile termination fees in most toggle countries and the lack of roaming fees for inbound calls, Lyca definitely needs to keep an eye on roaming costs."

No necessarily Inquisitor - if Lycamobile has volume traffic deals with cellcos in various countries, then the Toggle traffic will help to raise the volume at minimal cost to them.

Also, don't forget that this traffic is cream as far as the local cellcos are concerned, since they will generate their OWN MTR revenues from at last some of the traffic.

Toggle is very much a low-cost value-added service for all concerned IMHO.

+Steve

Lyca does not have own roaming agreements but buys roaming service for countries outside of their MVNO footprint from Vodafone. Actually toggle SIM cards use a Dutch Vodafone IMSI once you use it in a non-toggle country and Vodafone of course have the lowest cost when they use their own networks.

Thanks Inquisitor - yes, the parentage of the Toggle service does seem a little mixed, especially here in the UK, where Toggle uses O2 as its MVNO partner, yet Lycamobile use Vodafone!

+Steve :)

I am in the US now, where the Toggle SIM has free incoming calls. Very unusual for a roaming SIM to have free incoming in the US.

I am going to Spain next week, so I set up the Spanish DID. I tested and the calls come through to me here in the US at no charge on both the UK and Spanish number.

I am wondering if whilst in Spain I will be able to still receive calls on the UK number, even with the Spanish IMSI on the SIM (the UK number is cheaper to call.)

I also note that while a Spanish Lyca SIM has a per call connection fee, the Toggle SIM appears to have no such fee.

LYCAMOBILE groupe lycatel has opened now a MVNO in USA... actually they offer free inbound roaming fees but in a couple of weeks you will have a
USA DID number....

Yes, you will be able to receive calls on the British number at no extra charge, thus for free.

Lyca charges call setup fees in most countries, while toggle doesn't yet.

Interestingly, the rates on the Dutch Toggle card are mostly higher - even with the conversion. Looks like calls in the Netherlands have a 9 cent setup fee, and when in the other Toggle countries calls are 12 cents per minute (despite the wording of the site that says you pay only the Dutch rate in the Toggle countries.)

Using Toggle Abroad - Toggle

Hello

Anyone tried data?

Is there a list of calls available?

Regards

Any update on adding Italy? seems it's been a couple months at this point...

I've just tried to set a call forwarding from several German postpaid SIM cards (Telekom, congstar, Vodafone) to my German toggle number. Unfortunately all calls to those forwarded numbers fail once the forwarding has been set (there's no error message, the call just ends).
I wonder if this is a flaw or if toggle actually blocks inbound forwarded calls to avoid excessive use of free inbound roaming calls.

toggle blocks inbound forwarded calls during roaming
 

Just received the following email according to which toggle actually blocks forwarded inbound calls during roaming:They could at least terminate those blocked calls into the voicemail system or play some message instead of just hanging up.

But of course this blockage is only possible as long as forwarded calls are signalized as such on SS7 level (Forward Indicator Bit (FIB) set). If you forward calls using your own VoIP equipment, toggle won't be able to detect forwarded calls.

Hi inquisitor,

I've just experienced the same with my swiss incoming number on togglemobile uk. As soon as I set call forward from any of my swiss mobile phones to the swiss togglemobile number, a busy tone occure.

Using callforwarding from my freecall.com voip account to the original UK togglemobile number just works fine (at the moment)

BK

I hadn't noticed those posts earlier

I've just tested diversion to the UK Toggle number, which works fine with 5 different UK providers, with the number of the calling phone shown each time

Perhaps I'm not counted as roaming, and I should also test this abroad

Is it better buying a Toggle sim from the UK or NL website?

How much a local number costs?

The Dutch one was a wee cheaper until recently because they charged the same nominal rates but in Euros instead of Pounds, however they have recently introduced a call setup fee of € 0.09 per call for the Dutch one, which currently makes it more expensive than its British derivate. But I guess it won't take long until they introduce the setup fee for the British SIM, too.

Ok, thank you. As per the local numbers, how much they cost?

If you want to keep your local number for longer than 30 days you will be charged €5 / £5 p.a.
The free alternative would be to request a new local number every 30 days.

Hi Forum,

great to see so many experts gathered in one place. :) I have some questions and would be happy if someone could shed light:

• Is it possible to set call diverts from togglemobile to elsewhere? (Do the NL / UK card behave the same?)
  
• Is it possible to deactivate the mailbox?
  
• Last but not least I guess the NL-website (not a problem on the UK site) has a major glitch in its pricing: All prices (example NL to NL) are given as "0.03 ct/min" - whereas I guess they want to say either "0.03 €/min" or "3 c/min", in any case not what´s actually written there, because it would be a minor fraction of a cent.

Regards,
Christian