The landline systems in most European countries are way better than in the US. As a result of intensive investments after reunification especially Germany has one of the most advanced telecommunication systems in the world. 100% of German switches are digital and as you can see below we have the highest ISDN penetration in the world and also ADSL is available to 92% of German households (most of the remaining 8% can't get ADSL as they are conencted through optic fibres):
http://www.ecin.de/imperia/md/images...mehr-dsl/1.gif
Switzerland, Austria, the Benelux countries and Northern Europe have comparable developed landline networks.
In the US only the highly populated areas have modern landline infrastructure - in other areas the system is ramshackle. That's why cable internet is so wide spread in the US.
So maybe in Southern and Eastern Europe people use mobile phones because of the lacking landline availabilty, but certainly not in the Northern countries.
However we should get back to topic. ;-)

Another test in Poland. As of today UM+ (outgoing calls) doesn't work with Era - the callback connection is broken after one second ringing or no ringing occurs at all. After the failed callback, the first the message "Calling" followed by number dialed dispalys for a few second and the whole thing ends with "Service unavailable" message and a single "OK" option to close that message.

Caller ID is rather unstable both ways and more often it doesn't display.

Edit:
SMSes from Era to UM+ don't go through. I said before that they went OK but I realised that I had forgotten to test the Era->UM+
case. So the conclusion is that UM+ roaming on Era network works for incoming calls/SMSes only :(

My UM+ SIM, which is currently in France, is unreachable, too, allthough it's booked into a local network.

I called cs to register my sim properly. They did and said that everythink should be ok. But it is not. The sim registers fine (like before), But most routes to call do not connect (tried local phone companies, betamax etc). When I try to dial, I do not receive the call back but the destination number rings (tried on my home phone)!

Just back from 10 days in Paris - customer services eventually unravelled the SIM authentication issue. I'd suggest all users of UM+ call customer services to activate their new SIM and avoid using the Web interface - it clearly doesn't work reliably.

Outbound calls worked as with the standard SIM. Inbound calls were patchy, and seemed to work best after the phone had been switched on for 30 minutes or so - presumably the French switches were able to update the Jersey Telecom switches to the fact that the phone was switched on.

Unhappy with the way we've been used as guinea pigs with the new service. UM have lost a lot of brownie points in my book because of this. A very stupid act on their part IMHO...

The service works and is reasonably priced, but there are other better and more reliable services out there in the 2007 GSM world...

Pull your socks up United Mobile!

Steve :/

That's probably the reason why they allowed free upgrade to the new sim for current UM customers, an most importantly, they allowed us to keep the +423 number too...to fall back on I guess.

Just wanted to share my experience. I activated via website and my sim seems to be working okay. Did not transfer entire balance over - +423 is still active too.

Caller ID works outbound every time so far, but inbound calls only show caller ID about 50% of the time.

SMS works perfectly out and in - however, the SMS settings (message center number for example) was not picked up automatically off the sim - it has to be put in manually each time you put the sim in a phone. Most other cards have that information on the card, and the correct setup information is automatically applied.

Of course, I still get the "reorder" sound if I call to UM+ with the phone off ... doooo doo ... doooo doo...

True, but it would have been nice if UM had warned us about the shortcomings of the UM+ SIM - I took the UM+ SIM to Paris, but left the old UM SIM at home.

I've just done a rough analysis of my UM+ usage in Paris and compared it to my O2 contract roaming bill and found that, with inbound roaming calls costing 22 euro cents a mnute and outbound costing 50 euro cents a minute, it's clearly a lot cheaper (i.e. free) to use UM+ for inbound roaming, and 20 per cent cheaper for outbound roaming.

BUT - it's a lot more convenient to use my O2 mobile when roaming for calls, especially as my number is well known to all my friends and family.

And that's a big but, especially given UM+'s crappy inbound service when the phone is switched off or out of range.

The difference is around £50.00 for 10 days in Paris and (I calculate) £30.00 using UM+.

Is it really worth the hassle, I ask myself...

It doesn't sound like it for you. I'm going to Dubai and to Turkey in ten days. Using TMobile US's roaming roaming rates, I'd be paying $US1.99 a minute to use my phone in both countries.

In Dubai, with UM+ my rates are free inbound and 40 cents a minute outbound. With the state phone company and a prepaid SIM, I get free inbound and 60 cents a minute (prime) 36 cents a minute off prime (or to one favourite number). If I had to buy a new SIM, I'd be paying US$50 for the new SIM. In Turkey, I get the same offer and there is no way that I could get a prepaid SIM until roughly four to five days into my week trip.

I'm concerned about what I am hearing here about the reliability of the SIM, but even if I pick up the call forwarding from the US to the SIM I am significantly ahead. Given what is happening in the UK with roaming rates, I might make the same choice that you are, but it seems like if you take one step out of the EU, you are screwed.

Just curious what is 02 doing with roaming in Switzerland?

I'll be there September 10 with my O2 prepaid SIM, so if no one tells you by then, I'll let you know.

I ordered a UM+ SIM yesterday - hopefully it arrives in time (I was too cheap to pay for express shipping, and it isn't fatal if I don't get it) so I can test it there too.