...it is beginning to look like this is a much more serious issue, as others have noted, then just a small temporary technical problem. Most of these telcoms have pretty smart technical people who can usually quickly diagnose and correct a technical problem. Also, as a peripheral issue, it is interesting to note that UM has been unable to get its voicemail system up and running in the nearly two months it has been up......it really can't be, from a pure technical point of view, that difficult...I suspect something serious is indeed going on and the future of the international cards using Isle of Man might be in jeopardy.

So what about people who paid good money for these SIM's? I note that most places are still selling them and haven't really published much info about the outage!

Actually, I just looked through my email sent from prepaidgsm, and I still have the post that was removed. It was removed, so no need to repost it! It definitely does not look too good.

Regarding the question about "what about people who paid good money for these SIM's", I think we will be out of luck. The more reason why it's good to put the minimum as possible on these sims. I actually have 2 freeGlobalsims for my family with a total of about $70 in credit between them. Never topped them up. This is the initial credit they came with. So, if I lose it...such is life.

Other than Manx Telecom, is there a common company involved with all these roaming virtual providers, e.g. Callkey?

I just received this from the UM+ guys...

so... :-)

..got the same e mail but as noted in the other thread. if I can't personalize it by calling into the mailbox rather than having to dial in, at the rates they charge in the USA, that's a problem that I haven't had with previous UM cards; although I note that when they sent out the sim cards, they used a generic pin code for voicemail for all accounts...in the past your temporary password were the last 4 digits of the PUK code.

My GT-sim and 0044 (both 07624 10) stopped working on Friday also while I was in France.

Now I'm back in the Isle of Man, I find that they won't even log onto their home network (Manx Telecom).

But I can confirm that normal phones (and normal Manx Telecom mobiles) are working on the island, and the island is still here. :-)

CallKey Down?? OK FINE - but for good??
 

I'm new to this forum, so pardon my ignorance if i didn't read all the threads leading up to this, but from what I can see IOM products - in so many variations which i didn't know about til this week seem to be pretty much out of business.
I was attending gitex show in Dubai couple weeks ago and ran into three of such providers showcasing their products: CherryMobile, QiiQ and CallBlueGSM. I am new to this product/service and thought of such a product to be pretty decent and I am constantly in Europe and Middle East. I bought a SIM from CallBlue, even though their prices are ridiculous from Canada, almost $2 a minute to call U.K. I am almost glad I didn't buy one from Qiiq or cherry mobile as i would've been left complaining as i'm in Rome next week.
Now that I've been introduced to the wonderful world of so called "free" roaming, it seems to be more of a soap opera - ranging from dozens of callkey resellers looking for alternatives to so called "financial" problems.
Let's see how this unfolds..:whistling:

callkey
 

Tried emailing Callkey as they are the provider for the Manx numbers for roaming cards. This was the reply:
This mailbox is no longer in service - to report faults please contact your distributor directly.

From geosim's web site

Service Update
17:32 2nd Oct 2007
Received from service provider 17:15 BST.
"We are acutely aware that you are waiting for news and we have not been able to deliver this to you for a little while. There are intense activities going on to enable us to restore the system very quicky.....
There will be a further update later in the day."
________________________________________
Service update
14:27 2nd Oct. 2007
No further information has been received from the service provider regarding the service outage at this time.
GeoSIM is sourcing alternative services and will advise customers in due course of the proposed solution.
Thank you for your patience in this matter and sincere apologies for the inconvinience caused
__________________________________________________ ______
Service Update
08:48 2nd Oct 2007
At this time no further update has been received from the service provider regarding the current system outage. The last report from them was at 19:30 1st Oct advising there was no further information on when the system would be operational.
We are looking at various alternative options on resuming service for customers at this time.
__________________________________________________ ____________
Service Alert Update.
Received from Service Provider 12:02 Monday 1st October
"There is no update to the status of the system that we can give at this time - it is still not functioning for all SIM activities.
There will be a further update at 6pm BST today."

Not holding my breath!