Wow, thanks, that actually works. :)

What a pitty - with daily crossings such long outages are unacceptable. I´ll test how it goes, and if unreliable I´ll instruct the person in question to manually select. I hope it won´t be necessary. Will report back after I get a chance to test it in the CH/D border area.

Thanks again, rgds, Christian

Today I received and activated my Toggle NL sim, but my Nexus S (with CM 10.1 - with STK support) can't register on any network. I've coverage from all the 4 "italian" carriers...

Did you go to the STK and select the "roaming" profile?

If this doesn´t work, I suggest the following procedure, which already saved me:

Go to the STK and select any country except "roaming" or "automatic" (I´m aware Italy isn´t offered). When having selected any IMSI, try to manually connect to any available network. This should not work with an error ~ "no access to network".

Next, reselect "roaming" via STK, and then manually select any network that you want, or choose automatic network select. It should now work (again).

Good luck,
Christian

Uhm, if I click on "toggle" from the STK menu, nothing happens. I'm going to try on my HP Veer.

After a minute or so of network searching, my Veer got signal on vodafone IT automatically.

Thank you Chris :)

fantastico - I was already writing something else, which now seems superflous.

Why did you go for Toggle NL? They have €prices, but the 9c/connect isn´t just as attactive. That´s why I´ll mainly use my UK-card.

Rgds, Christian

(STK doesn't work on the Veer, too :()

I've chosen Toggle NL only for the currency. I'm aware of the 9c/call, but I wanted to find out if it applies also outside NL (as it isn't reported elsewhere than NL tariffs).

Another advantage of the UK card over the NL card is the lack of VAT on roaming outside the EU VAT area. The UK opted to exempt non-EU roaming from UK VAT under Article 9(3)(a) of Council Directive 77/388 ("the Sixth VAT Directive") so that it could charge UK VAT to visitors from outside the EU VAT area who are roaming in the UK.

However, I believe that Toggle has not yet implemented this correctly and might be charging UK VAT on non-European roaming in breach of Article 19 of the Value Added Tax (Place of Supply of Services) Order 1992. This is evident from its prices for roaming in Iceland for example, where Regulation (EU) No 531/2012 caps the price of an outgoing call at €0.29 x 0.8293 = £0.240497 per minute, yet Toggle charges £0.29/min, i.e. 20% more which equates to UK VAT.

Ok, now I get signal also on my Nexus S. The STK still doesn't work, however.

On my Samsung Galaxy Nexus i9250 the STK only showed after setting a PIN for the SIM card. Although I doubt it, maybe that´s a problem with other handsets as well?

The STK on my Nexus is shown after I activate and de-activate the airplane mode. After that I can see the STK menu with one option: "toggle". When I click on toggle it seems to load the next menu for a nano-second, but then I'm prompted to the same menu with the same option "toggle"... :(

Just so you folk with no STK on your expensive phones know: It does not show up on my cheap phone either. A BLU tri-SIM I got for $27.

Wonderful. I can't receive SMSs sent from my NL toggle to my main italian number. I think I'll get an UK toggle... (at least they have micro-sims - my main phone is an Xperia Z)

I don't think they have. When I ordered a nano-SIM, they sent me a 2FF mini-SIM which they had cut by hand.

Ouch. The SMS routing problem remains. I can't send SMS to numbers with H3G native prefixes (+39 392 - +39 392). I think also that they don't send SMS to numbers with native MVNO prefixes (+39 37x), and I'll test that. As a first step I'm going to write them an email asking to fix this problem (but I don't think they will do). As a second step I'm going to look for a sim cutter (maybe in the same email I'll ask them for a micro-SIM)... :D

Thank you for your warning.

EDIT: yes, it's confirmed. No SMS on prefixes of H3G and every MVNO.

EDIT 1: On my Bip Mobile sim (+39 373) an SMS arrived now, with a delay of more than an hour. So SMS service seems totally unreliable. On my main number still nothing.

Bear in mind that the menu can show up in strange places. On my Sony Ericsson Z750a (non-smartphone), it shows up under the entertainment menu.

Yes it can. I just checked ALL the obscure menus to double check.
No luck. One would think this kind of thing would get solved over the years.
But no.

Thanks for that. On my old Sony Ericsson K600i (from 2006), it likewise shows up under the entertainment menu (with the icon of a games console controller).

Phone always indicates roaming
 

I have a fairly basic Samsung GT-E1190 mobile which, even when in the UK, permanently displays the roaming symbol on the screen.

Even if I enter the Toggle menu and select "Manual > UK" it still displays the roaming symbol.

I called ToggleMobile and they said to just leave it in Automatic and it would work correctly.

My question is how do I know whether it has selected the local UK number or if it is actually roaming and going to create excessive call charges?

Make a short test call. If they charge too much call Toggle and complain and figure out the issue. Get them to refund any overage. This solves the issue sooner rather than later.

our toggle card is currently in ireland and works like a charm. Also good to know: calls to any of the assigned numbers works very well with Finrea VoIP accounts (in our case voipjumper.com for 3 us-cent/min to the german toggle number)...

@linknet
The roaming indicator will never disappear from your display unless you do not have a Dutch IMSI/local number and you are in the Netherlands using the Roaming IMSI.

The reason for this is the following:
Each network on this planet has at least one unique ID consisting of a mobile country code (MCC) and mobile network code (MNC). E.g. in the UK O2 use 234-10 and 234-11 for their network.
Also each SIM card holds a data field called Home Public Land Mobile Network (HPLMN) where the MCC/MNC of the issuing operator is stored.

What your phone does is simply comparing the MCC/MNC of the current network with that one stored in the HPLMN field in your SIM card. If both numbers match then the phone assumes that you are on your home network, while if they mismatch it displays the roaming icon.

Now if you use the British IMSI the HPLMN field will be set to 234-26, the MCC/MNC-tuple of lycamobile, the company behind toggle. As an "full MVNO" lycamobile do operate their own core network but do not have a radio access network. Instead they let their customers use the O2 network in the UK, which identifies as 234-10 or 234-11. Since the HPLMN field of the British IMSI and the MCC/MNC of the O2 network mismatch, your phone will even show the roaming icon while you are in the UK.

If you use the Roaming IMSI which actually comes from Vodafone Netherlands the HPLMN field will be set to Vodafone NL's MCC/MNC (204-04) and your phone will consequently consider any other network than Vodafone NL as roaming network. Hence the Netherlands are the only country where your phone would not "roam" in a technical sense. This would change as soon as you activated a Dutch IMSI/local number for your SIM card because then you would still use the Dutch Vodafone network but the Dutch IMSI would change the HPLMN to 204-09 (lycamobile Netherlands) so again there would be a mismatch of HPLMN and the current network's MCC/MNC-tuple.

I have seen some Android phones that obviously know which networks all the MVNOs use for domestic coverage and hence suppress the roaming indication in the SIM card's home country, but especially older and cheaper phones like your Samsung do not offer such advanced network detection. Therefore you will often see SIM cards from so-called full MVNOs who use their own MCC/MNC-tuples to be "roaming" on their native networks.

EDIT: Just discovered here that 3GPP standards now allow for a Equivalent HPLMN list on SIM cards which can specify more than one network as home network. The question remains if toggle makes use of this feature and which phones extract and use this information from the SIM Card.

After all this lengthy explanation I have a simple answer for you: While you are in the UK you must be using the British IMSI because the Roaming IMSI is blocked for roaming on British networks.
Btw toggle appear to also block roaming for other countries as soon as you obtain a local IMSI/local number.

Thanks for taking the trouble to provide a detailed explanation, now that I understand the reason for the roaming icon being displayed I can just ignore it.

On your other point about the Roaming IMSI being blocked, do I understand that to mean that if you have an IMSI/local number for the country which you are in, and you are connected to a local network, then roaming is automatically blocked, or in other words, you are automatically charged the local rates and cannot be charged roaming rates since this facility is blocked.

Yes. At least that's what has been observed for Germany, where I cannot register with the Roaming IMSI on any network anymore since I've activated a German IMSI. Earlier I was able to register with the Roaming IMSI on 3 out of the 4 German networks (all except for E-Plus). And for the UK roaming with the Roaming IMSI is blocked out of the box as toggle SIMs obviously come with a British IMSI pre-activated.
I assume that they do the same for the other toggle countries. Maybe someone can confirm or confute this for other countries.

Any indication whether Toggle will eventually include the U.S. now that Lyca is up and running there?

would be a good question to raise to their support...

I read on their Twitter that they will soon launch data bundles for all the 12 countries they are in. Don't know if it'll be a "unique" bundle or if we have to activate a bundle for each country we visit.

Yesterday they have also impliedly confirmed rumours by retweeting a link to this article, according to which toggle will very soon offer American local numbers (and hopefully IMSIs, too) as well as data bundles for all toggle countries.
I wonder if data bundles will be valid internationally or just for a single country as the British ones currently.

As I think I have mentioned elsewhere, if they have US numbers, they will have to change their system a bit.

I doubt they will allow free incoming calls for the US numbers, given that in the US it is called party pays, not calling party pays.

They will probably charge 2c/min for incoming calls via a US number, as that's what Lycamobile US charges. If you receive calls via the UK number while in the US, it will no doubt be free.

After the recent reduction of mobile termination rates in the UK (now just £0.0069/min) I wouldn't count on incoming calls to the British number to remain free of charge in the US.

And, I doubt they would charge calls to the US number at 2c/min for roaming in Europe or the other free incoming countries.

Inquisitor, as discussed earlier, may services charge higher fees for calls to Lyca, e.g., Localphone.

Do you know if the regulated termination rates that you refer to apply to VOIP and other services, or only to calls originating from mobile networks?

When it comes to UK mobile termination, rate caps only apply at the wholesale level. No regulation is in place at the retail level.

I understand that. But, a price differential at the retail level usually suggests that there is also a differential at the wholesale level.

It's just latency in the marketplace. Your short term solution would be to port a number from O2/Vodafone/Orange over to your Lyca/Toggle or Telna/Piranha SIM(s) and the problem is gone.

Going back to wholesale termination, calls to one of the Telna/Piranha numbering ranges (+44-7418-5xxxxxx) is $0.21/minute with Google Voice (as quoted by davidtheprof in another topic) while a low volume wholesale TDM grade interconnect to the same range is US$0.0162.

It's more of an academic question for me - as much easier than porting in another UK number is simply to activate a French number which Localphone bills at 3.9 US cents per minute.

I am aware that their are other companies that do not charge extra for calls to Lyca - for example, Voipyo, a Betamax company, charges .5 Euro cents per minute. However, they do not offer DIDs with easy forwarding, and even if I set up a forward with my Asterisk it would not carry the CID information.

However, I still have to assume it is not latency/inertia in the marketplace. I wrote to Localphone about the Lyca rates, and they reduced them a bit.

My working hypothesis is that the regulated mobile termination rates only apply to certain types of call (perhaps mobile only) and that some of the carriers can route their calls to be eligible for the regulated rates (or appear to eligible for the rates), and some cannot.

That´s possible, I do just that.

Go to Betamax´s application (cannot be done through the website:(), tools --> options. Here you set "forward" "always" to the desired mobile#.

Now have Asterisk redirect calls to username@sip.provider.com

Result: CID is passed through :)

On another note, actually a question: Why doesn´t Toggle allow porting numbers from multiple countries onto one SIM? As far as I understand any given mobile# is associated to an IMSI. As such this should, in principle, be possible. What´s the holdup here?

Next thing that leaves me wondering big time: Why do they "threaten" to disconnect SIMs which haven´t been used for (only) 3 months? Wouldn´t it be more customer-friendly AND more business-oriented to charge a non-usage fee, as long as there´s credit (which might even get topped up through auto-recharge)?

My last wish, Data packages for each/all IMSIs seems to be in the making :)

However, without MNP and the fear of disconnection, I find the offer far from professional. As such I´ll keep using this as a supplementary "nice to have" gadget, rather than turning this into my one-and-only main card.

Betamax retail brands are outbound CID locked - you can either use pre-registered outbound CIDs or no CID, there's no option for per call outbound CID. Even some of their semi-wholesale brands, such as Siptraffic are inconsistent when it comes to CID.

Look around for a provider with either TDM or quality IP interconnects and your CID will work fine.

Here's the Ofcom regulated prices page: http://media.ofcom.org.uk/analysts/regulated-prices/

For these rates to apply, you need wholesalers with direct local interconnect. Those using third party or international interconnects will obviously be higher.