[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.