I was the subject of an article for doing precisely this in 2003 (apx) Wall Street Journal. I guess the Times is behind the curve.

bbob,

I read your earlier post about pbxes, but this is all somewhat new to me, and perhaps I did not understand it. I understood that the free version of pbxes will save money only on incoming calls. How does that help when outgoing rates change? It seems to me that when you pay 30 Euros for a card, and the company subsequently raises its rates, your choice is to pay those higher rates or stop using the card, which is the same thing since the cost of the card is then spread over fewer minutes. How will it help to switch to a different provider?

To me, the whole concept of "prepaid GSM" is beginning to look like a scam. What have you bought if the company can raise the price of minutes you have already purchased?

Prepaid SIM operators require no loyalty of us as customers. In exchange, they have no obligation of loyalty to us.

Prepaid operators that do not act fairly and consistently will not attract as many customers. Those that are fair and reasonable will attract more customers.

As with any product, vote with your dollars (or euros or pounds) and choose products in context with all the competitive options.

I hear the word "scam" bandied about as if every business in operation intends to defraud its customers. While a handful clearly do, most are honest. Changes in rates are due to economic necessity or market forces.

To avoid rate increases, use your minutes up. If you don't use many, use a provider that forces you to buy fewer prepaid minutes so that your risk is less. (Expect to pay more per minute, however.)

Fair enough, "scam" is too harsh. I can't speak about the intentions of these companies. However, I've been reading the comments in this forum, and there is very here little to inspire confidence in them. Many providers appear to be thinly capitalized, running on a shoestring, and operating from jurisdictions such as Isle of Man, Liechtenstein, Estonia, Jersey, Iceland or Monaco. Do they make their profit by taking advantage of some temporary regulatory anomaly available in those places? I don't claim to understand their business models, but their ability to operate seems extraordinarily subject to changes outside their control, witness the IoM providers or UM's +423 plan.

In this context, we are asked to "prepay" for a service the price of which can change without notice. I can't avoid rate increases by using my minutes up if the rate increases take place before the card even arrives in the mail. It's like paying in advance for ten pounds of potatoes, but then getting only seven because the price went up between the time of payment and the time of delivery. I'm not asking for loyalty; I'd just like to get what I paid for.

Why assume there could be regulatory anomalies in these places?

No, the territories are small and finite, which means their companies might be more disposed to listen to certain ideas to expand their markets, but which might not earn much attention in large companies with networks in many countries. Thus some of these have coverage on ferries aircraft and global SIMs, while Vodafone sells or buys a network in Sweden or India

I'm asking, not assuming. This area is new to me. Are you saying that the only reason prepaid providers operate out of small jurisdictions is that there are no small telecommunications carriers in Europe or the UK willing to do business with them?

MAXroam SIM received
 

This evening I received my MAXroam SIM.
Activation was not necessary. I could log in with username and password that I received 2 days after buying the sim online.

3G, Internet and MMS settings were all pointing to *.orange.co.il

I send an SMS to the UK number that I was assigned, the message did not arrive (as expected, it's a landline number).

I entered my simcard number here:
http://www.numberingplans.com/?page=analysis&sub=simnr

and got back this:
Network name Partner Communications Co. Ltd
Operator name
Country or global network Israel
MCC-MNC 425-01

Cheap ass as I am, I didn't try to make a testcall.
I did send an SMS to my Belgian Mobile (cost €0.30)
It arrived immediatly, and was from an IL number (+972 543 56 xxxx).
I then tried to send a message back to this number (cost €0.02 - thank you justvoip :-)). The messages did not arrive.

That's it for now.
Now I'm waiting for my iPhone to arrive :-)

So basically there is no way of receiving SMS? I was wondering why Pat just wouldn't answer any questions about SMS... though I asked the question on a fair few blogs! They appear to have not sorted that out yet!

This sounds like the same company "Orange il" that yackie first used. And, sms sent to the +972 number worked. So, may be they just have not ironed it out yet.

That's not what I'm saying.
I think that the number I saw was the number of the SMSC, and not my 'real' cell-number.

So I assume it possible, but not in this stage.

Pat told me that they are really doing overtime, that's why he haven't got the time to reply on the blogs/forums.