Andy, yes there are several other ones but a better question would be how reliable are these other ones or what is the financial backup of these companies.

There are some companies that just rebrand another sim so how strong are they and when they rebrand someone elses service we should relly be looking at the reliability of the source.

Take callblue, I read here allready some complaint from the past on how they treat customers and this applies to many other. I still have a globalsimcard.co.uk and they have some nice info on their website but so far no replacement for a non working sim. so how serious can you take these companies ?

Sure it would also depend on if you use the card 2 or 3 times a year than reliability might not be as important compared to someone using it daily. I use mine dialy and people have my mobile +44 number. I just don't want a situation where I have to give everyone a new number every year of half year.

So reliability is a keyword but also who is behind a company to backup the company financially. When I look at that there are not many companies I would consider to buy a card from.

Ooops, I misunderstood your list because I was quite sleepy when typing :-).

Anyway, I guess you mean by "forwarded" the fact that the "real" SIM number is "hidden" but the SIM can be reached by calling a +44 number (named "DID" or whatever) provided by the seller of the SIM, right? Then, I think you should also add to the list of UK-numbered international SIMs Maxroam, Yackie and probably CelTrek :-).

Callkey Sim Cards
 

I just got an e-mail that my Manx Sim from globalsimcard.co.uk can be reactivated. Stay tuned.

Stu

i have 3 sim from FreeGlobal sim , do you think they will work too .

You need to discuss that with them

They use the same numbers +44 , and there website is gone ;)

Yes. But they are a totally different. They are just a reseller just like globalsim. I was a customer too.

Or pop the SIM in your phone and see what happens.

My old (callkey) Manx sim does not work

I'm physically in the isle of Man at the moment.

Just tried my old Manx sims (gt-sim, callkey, ekit). None will register on any network. Not even on their home network, Manx Telecom.

Seems very unlikely they will ever reactivate now.

Just heard in the last couple of days from geosim...they claim if you request (I did), the old Isle of Man sim card will be re-activated with the same number and same credit level within 7 days....we'll see but no reason to doubt them, they've been pretty up front most of time about the situation.

You need to talk the various suppliers

For example ekit have been replacing SIMs with their own supply since the problem first occurred, as by then they had a separate arrangement with Manx. You'd get a different number, in 079244, which works.

The ex-Callkey operation has been taken over. I'd imagine that discussions between resellers and the new owners would involve which SIMs will be switched back on. Some resellers have gone elsewhere, though they may come back either for existing or new accounts; people should contact their particular supplier. Meanwhile Geosim have stayed loyal to the chances of this working again, and what they are saying sounds plausible in the circumstances.

Callkey is back online ...

You can now log in to your SIM back office and check your balance and call records which has not been possible for about 3 months.

The Geosim www.globalsimcard.co.uk site has been posting regular updates on the service alert page http://www.globalsimcard.co.uk/Service_alert.php

Nice to see it's back online but will it stay online. In order to use these cards there should be a bit more background information on the people that took over callkey.
As there must be a reason for callkey to go out of business, what has changed now, what is the financial backup and why will it stay in business now. I don't think users are waiting for antoher outage on the service.

That said when using these cards also as incoming number it just does not work when the service is out for 3 months than back online. After the number did not work I gave customers my new UM+ number and now 3 month's later the number works again and it does not work to tell customers or friend wait you can use my old number again now.

There are more and more mvno and the more there are the more difficult it is to choose. I have said it several times. It would be good to make a list saying who is behind which card and which company backs it up.

The new owner has not yet been named in public, but maybe it will happen soon, or you could discuss it with your supplier as I've suggested before.

Callkey is back
 

This link was posted somewhere else in the forum. Moderators, you can remove if it's not needed in a separate thread.

I guess it's still up to each of the reselleers to re-activate the sims they sold. Unless callkey may choose to replace all the sims on their network regardless of who the reseller was.

http://www.edubourse.com/finance/act...php?actu=36027

callkey - Keeping your old number !
 

Sim cards will go live for a period of 2 months.

Its will then be down to each customer when your sim card is live to contact there sim card suppler to notify them you wish to keep the service.

After this 2 month grace period, any sim card that has not been re-registered will be disconnected.

If your sim card suppler/distributor has ceased trading or moved to a new roaming network but you wish to keep your old Manx +447624 or +447924 number. It will be possible for customers to keep your old number working.
(Number only - Not Credit!)

www.easyroam.co.uk

About two weeks ago, geosim, one of the Manx resellers, sent an e mail saying the cards would be reinstated if requested...I did so, requested reinstatement, received acknowledgement that it had been received and was told that in 5 to 7 days the card would be functioning again.....well it's two weeks later and the card still does not register on any gsm network in the USA.

When? If? Who knows.

I asked about this and got a message that there were some more delays but everything should be ok next week.

Well we waited some month's so an extra week, or 2 or maybe ... doesn't really matter anymore.

That really does sum it up - after all this time, users have moved on. Global sims had their window of opportunity - and blew it.

The global sims were always a niche market. But their unreliability and problems like callkey have reduced the early adopter market. The reduction in roaming costs generally is reducing the future mass market. Anything successful can be stomped on by increasing the call costs to the number range they use (e.g. Liectenstein mobile). VOIP/SIP technology is making it easy for anybody to set up cost-effective redirects and inbound numbers, callbacks, etc.

Falling price advantage, poor reputation, shrinking market - doesn't look like the sort of business that has much future. The tiny niche left travels a lot, needs a single number, doesn't want to deal with setting up their own redirects, doesn't care about quality, and is very price sensitive (so not a loyal customer). Good luck to whoever has brought callkey, they'll need it.

As well as the people have bought part of this operation, clearly the other new entrants don't share this pessimism

Actually, I might disagree a bit with some of the things that are said although not violently so.

Yes callkey has been unreliable...then we had a few years ago the situation with Ryan Air....but the Estonian cards have been fairly reliable, the Icelandic card has been fairly reliable (although how they have failed to deal with the situation in not having a roaming partner in Switzerland remains mind boggling and beyond my poor power to comprehend), United Mobile from the start has been very reliable....the only problem with these cards, and it has been a problem, has been the higher termination fees that somehow have been applied to them (being the cynic I have always been, I can see the hand of the major telcoms in this who didn't like the competition)...ever since UM+ has gotten rolling, I have found their service reliable.

Now some of us, such as myself, are not technologically gifted...I don't know from betamax or setting up my own network or whatever...I have to rely on the only thing I can do....punch a sim card from its holder, open up the back of the phone, figure out how to remove the battery and find the sim card holder and figure out how to remove one and replace it...that's the extent of my technical ability....I have used the international cards coupled with the ability to use cbw and enlinea to be able to make cheap calls during my frequent visits to Europe...perhaps if the eu really has its way, the cost of roaming in Europe will be reduced to what the Commissioner wanted namely 0 to receive calls and that will essentially be it for the need for international cards.

But as I said, I agree a blank statement that all the carriers have been unreliable is quite accurate.

pessimism or realism.

Roaming prices for nomral carries are dropping within the EU, that's a fact and to give you an example the dutch, belgium and luxembourgh politics are allready talking about making the benelux 1 zone for cellphone traffic, so no roaming anymore. It's a begin and it's just waiting till it's happens to the rest of europe. This is besides normal carriers of mvno allready reducing roaming prices.

The callkey thing has shown that reliability is a key because when business users have a phone number they want to keep it and be sure that it continues to work. We all know not only about callkey but some other problems, yackie and more in the past.

And sure the new entrants will see it different but what has changed with callkey that now all of a sudden it would make money in future.

Go aks investors that invest their money in different companies, 1 or 2 good investments will give cover the loss of the 6-8 bad investments they made. Personally I don't see callkey as of of those 1 or 2 good investements. also because there is more and more competition in this field now making it more difficult. And what RT said, users have moved on not willing to wait 3 month for a solution, they found there own solution, so yes they could use callkey as a backup.

Ah...but we all want a bargain and as cheap as possible as easy as possible....up till about a year and a half ago, my own ld carrier had a charge of 10¢/minute to Liechtenstein with a termination fee of 1¢/minute (US currency)....so I merrily was able to have calls forwarded from my home number to me anywhere in Europe and it cost me 11¢/minute...along with using cbw and enlinea, I was paying pennies a minute to call....what could be better......(I know, by doing this I am contributing to the problem as the comapny is not making very much off me, but there were others around paying the full amount)...and when things began to change, especially the fees for calls to Liechtenstein mobiles, it went from 11¢ to 55¢ literally overnight as did enlinea and cbw, well I was most upset to put it mildly. You know you get used to a good thing.

Right now, even when in the UK using their ridiculously low priced T Mobile UK on yourcallworld (who can complain about 3p/minute to call from the UK to the USA)...to receive calls forwarded off my ld carrier I am still paying about 28¢/minute (I never was happy with voicestick and then they began charging a monthly fee)....and although the eu roaming rates are very good, I still have to factor in what I use it for the most namely the forwarding of calls so even though I might pay only 19p/minute to use T Mobile UK in France, I have to add to that the 28¢/minute the ld carrier charges me to forward from my home number to the UK number (ouoch)...total much too high at 66¢/minute...perhaps when roaming rates are totally eliminated in the eu, it will be reasonably priced.

Until then, sigh, I long for the good old days of a year or two ago (O9, BTW with enlinea which provides a US toll free number is okay but the quality of the calls is awful and we all know the Swiss problem).

To clarify: it isn't the whole callkey operation that has been bought, but parts of it. And the company in question already has other services that would seem interesting when integrated together.

What the f**k
 

Why do I get calls from this number...??...my girlfriend calls me from the middle east and i get this number...is this some kind of a internet server number...??...someone please help me... :(

Hoy Necro-Thread Batman! :eek: