Have you set it to Australia manually in the SIM Toolkit? Automatic mode sometimes doesn't work.

Is this the first time you are using data in Australia?

Because this also happened to me the first time I used data, and then it never happened again later on.

I also remember someone else posting about the same issue on Toggle's twitter. Support answered that this sometimes happens the first time (I don't remember why), if you contact them they will refund the charge.

Please post back to tell us how it went.

edit: just saw your edit ;)

Yes, sorry this is the first time I'm actually using data on the toggle sim at all. My credit first went down by 1 pound but then went back up to charge about only about 10p.

I have also manually set the country IMSI to Australia and it gets full signal so that seems to work well.

Thanks for the help people, looks like everything is working fine :). However I will check my credit again a bit later on to see if anything has changed.

Remember: Roaming is always on outside UK
 

Remember: Roaming indicator is always on outside UK.
This is the way it is.

Sorry, I haven't been aware of this. I live in Austria and with the just launched new contract offers, most operators took Switzerland out of the EU-Countries and almost tripled the prices for incoming and outgoing calls.

Since I live in Austria (200m from the border to Switzerland) and work in Switzerland, toggle is THE choice for me, as they have free incoming calls and outgoing rates at the moment are insanely low, even compared with the most expensive monthly all inclusive minutes offers of all swiss providers.

BK

USA Testing
 

Just added a US number to my SIM, used it in the US and found the following:

It does indeed charge 3p per minute for outgoing calls (test call to US number), and no charge for incoming number.

When you call someone in the US, the called party sees the US caller ID. This is different from the behavior I have experienced in Europe, where the +44 number is always shown.

You can receive SMS sent to the US number.

I did not try forwarding a US cellphone to see if the call would go through, however, I could forward my Google Voice number to the US toggle number and the call went through.

I had to manually set the SIM to the US IMSI, when I turned it on in automatic mode it went to the global roaming IMSI.

I hope I'm wrong, but I think this will have to change. In the US calls to mobiles are the same cost as calls to landlines because the mobile phone owner pays for the incoming calls (either individually or through a plan.) I don't see that there is a revenue stream to pay for what is essentially free international roaming and no monthly or per call charges for calls to a US number.

Interesting, thanks for the feeback.

How much does lycamobile US charge for incoming calls?

The only information I could find on their web site: "Get a prepaid monthly Plan with USA and International talk, text and data from only $16/month. Or recharge and pay only 2c/minute, 4c/text and 6c/MB with Pay As You Go"

They aren't saying anything regarding incoming calls and Lyca seems to be even cheaper than Toggle. Furthermore, considering the above Lyca rates are in US cents whereas Toggle is charging in £, this would make Toggle more expensive by about 2c/min for calls, 9c/min SMS and 14c/MB data.

Lyca must be earning something with their low rates. So, Toggle seems to be getting a comfortable margin on top of that.

What network[s] is it using?
 

What network[s] is it using?

Toggle Mobile uses T-Mobile for me in the US.

Lycamobile in the US charges the same for incoming calls as outgoing calls.

Really? In the Lyca US thread everyone seemed to be saying they weren't charging for incoming calls.

But ok, if you are sure about this, we have:

• Lyca charges 2c/min incoming and outgoing.
• Toggle charges almost 5c/min (3p = 4.7c) outgoing and 0 incoming

So assuming they have no other arrangements in the US, if Toggle is using the same Lyca platform they are still viable if they have 2x more incoming calls than outgoing calls in the US.

Question: how much are the other US prepaid competitors charging?

How is data being charged in the US?

I double-checked before I posted - I called myself on my Lyca US SIM from another phone and my balance decremented by 2 cents.

Your analysis omits that when one calls someone on Lyca US the call ends in the US. One can call the Toggle US number and the call is forwarded at no charge to you in whichever Toggle country you are located.

The 2 cent rate is much cheaper than anyone else. Most of the prepaid competitors sell either bundles or unlimited plans. Lyca is the cheapest thing around for light use.

Good info, thanks.

I didn't omit this in my mind. :)

Yes, the only way I see this working is if they have the Toggle countries interconnected with VOIP, which is what I think they are doing. This is the advantage of the international Lyca network.

Incoming free -> VOIP -> free termination on their network in the toggle countries.

For an MVNO there is never free termination in the underlying radio access network.

Some of them are offering totally free calling on their underlying networks.

For example, Coop Mobile prepaid pay as you go in Switzerland on the Orange network has had completely free calling to Coop Mobile as well as to Orange numbers for many years.

Even with 0 credit you can call Coop Mobile and Orange numbers for free, and you don't need to recharge for 1 or 2 years until the number gets disconnected. With 0 credit you also receive incoming calls and SMS.

So, as long as you are calling only the Orange network which is the 2nd largest network in Switzerland, your calls are completely free with your 0 credit prepaid SIM.

Lyca Switzerland first also used the Orange network, but last year (?) they changed the network to Swisscom, so they must be getting an even better deal with Swisscom than what they had with Orange.

Anyway Toggle incoming is free on the underlying networks used by Lyca. I don't know how much it costs Lyca to terminate the calls on all of their underlying networks, but it must be very low for them to have a valid business model with their free inter-Lyca calls and with Toggle.

Does anybody have any idea what happens after the month has passed and I don't want the local number for 5 pounds. Will the local IMSI also stop working or just the local number, but I will still enjoy local rates and use the UK phone number?

The local number is tied to your IMSI.

If you don't keep your local number you can't use the local IMSI anymore.

So, when your number expires you go back to the roaming rates (= you still enjoy free incoming in the Toggle countries).

What you can do however, is order a new free number every 30 days if you want to keep the local rates without paying the 5£.

But IMO if you are traveling regularly to a Toggle country it's much more convenient (and cheap too) to get the local number for 5£ per year.

Figured that. Thanks for clarifying it.

Btw, did you actually try to receive a call on the USA number, and see if it was billed for?

US numbers are not available on Toggle NL...

My initial feedback on Toggle Mobile:

I arrived in Amsterdam and was there for about an hour. And then flew to Copenhagen.

I used the SIM Toolkit Menu to set it manually to the country I am in. As a note on Android 4.3 (and maybe earlier) you need to assign a PIN to your SIM card in order for the SIM Toolkit Menu to show up in your program list.

Making calls has worked just fine.

Data did not work out of the box in the Netherlands or Denmark. But once I configured the APN information on my Android Nexus 4 it worked just fine.

• APN: data.lycamobile.co.uk
• Username: lmuk
• Password: plus

Calls to my US Toggle # are very unreliable. The phone will show a ring and then stop ringing or not even ring in my testing. But calling my Denmark # works just fine. I noticed this before I left the US also. So I have ended up switching Google Voice to call Localphone.com which forwards to my Denmark number at a cost of 2.9 cents/minute. We have two Toggle Mobile cards and they both are experiencing this issue (one iPhone and one Android).

Toggle seems to be only for customers who care about every detail themselves.

A friend with a ToggleNL card had €14 credit. Next €10 for the monthly data package were substracted, leaving €4. Then a German number was due for being prolonged on the same day (€5).

Without warning/notice or anything the number was irrevocably cancelled.

I find it a tragedy to see how Toggle(Lyca) manages to downgrade their otherwise superior product into a state which leaves it close to useless.

They manage the difficult part (=setting something like this up), but then fail miserably when trying to turn this into a reliable, usable product.

Especially bad that Ms Kroes announced the "end of all roaming costs" by next year, since no-one will invest into a competitive (+usable/reliable) product next to Toggle, since all EU-SIMs should be similar by mid next year.

IMHO this is a tragedy.

Everything seems fine with my US number in different EU countries.

Did you tell support about your issues, so that they can improve the service?


Thanks for your feedback.

I always get an SMS 3 days before a number is about to expire. So I have 3 days to refill my credit if needed.

Didn't he get the SMS? I hope he told support about this issue.

It's good enough for me, but I think they should keep the deactivated number for you so that you can reclaim it within 30 days (or at least 10 days).

If we all complain to support perhaps they will improve this.

They are sending an SMS 3 days before number deactivation and also send an SMS when the number is activated. I see no problem there, other than having a grace period which would be good to have.

I haven't used the UK data packages though and I agree that they should if the aren't sending an SMS for those (many other providers don't send an SMS before either, only to inform you of the charge).

What did support tell him?

I would prefer notifications about my toggle SIM to be also sent out by email as I only use it while travelling, so text messages won't reach me most of the time. The option to re-activate a local number for a couple of days after deactivation would also be great. Even greater would be if the fee for keeping our local numbers would be deducted immediately so there is no danger of one's credit to fall below the required amount and so to lose the number as it obviously happend to Chris.

I did contact them. They got back to me and said it was fixed. I tried it later on that same day and had the same issue. But today I tried it and my phone did ring. So at the moment it seems to be working.

I just used toggle in the UK. Coincidentally there was a "top-up-and-get-3-Gigs-free-data" campaign, so that suited my travel plan prefectly.

Drawback: I tried to tether my laptop to the mobile, and that didn´t work. No tethering, no VPN. I had to fall back to an old UK-SIM I happened to have handy.

Strangely websites that opened on the browser in my phone did not open on the tethered laptop, while very few pages (gmail, for example) did work.

On virginmobile everything worked, so it can´t have been Cameron´s new UK-censorship filter.

Anyone an idea what that could´ve been? Am I missing something?

Have you tried setting up a VPN on the mobile, and tethering afterwards?

This should circumvent any filtering and tethering blocks.

Furthermore, have you tried contacting support to ask if they are blocking tethering or if the problem is on their side?

News from Toggle's twitter, September 16:

• "Belgium will have local rates and also a local number hopefully this week or the following."
• Data bundles outside UK: "We've been promised to have it available very soon but we still don't have any official date."
• Italy, Portugal and Canada: "They all planned but it may take some time. Belgium comes next then maybe Italy. We will get there! ;)"

A new tariff SMS arrived tonight on my UK Toggle-Mobile card (Swiss Nr.):

Your toggle mobile local is 41xxxxxxxx. Calls and Texts are free to receive in Switzerland and pay no more than 9p/min to make calls and send texts to toggle mobile countries. Browse internet just for 15p/MB

Anyone got that as well?

BK

I tried the VPN on both mobile and laptop - to no avail.
The same VPN worked through virginmobile (on both laptop and mobile), so no doubts about the setup.

APN must have been correct since toggle gave me access to the internet over the phone.

Tethering in general must have equally worked, since some pages (google) opened via tethering on the laptop, even on toggle.

It is as if only some (most) pages + vpn were blocked.

Had it been more than a weekend I would´ve contacted customer support, like this I didn´t have the time. It´d be interesting to know before another potential trip though...

Same here. They are very erratic with their info-SMSes, and what is written in these SMSes doesn´t always correspond with what they really do.

I maintain: It´s a pitty that Lyca seems to manage the complicated bits in setting up such a great service/idea, but fail miserably at packaging into a really beneficial/reliable offer.

Italy probably depends on the "evolution" from ESP MVNO to Full MVNO of Lycamobile Italy. Their prefix will be 3501 (it is already available to them, as well as their MNC, 222 35).

Minimum top-up is now 20 pounds (GBP)
 

I went to add some credit to my Toggle Mobile account today and it didn't display the 10 GBP option any more. The smallest amount to top-up was 20 pounds. :( I did get 22 pounds of credit though for a payment of 20 pounds and I paid using Paypal.

I saw that, too. Last time I recharged was 7 days ago (Friday13th), and the 10 pounds option was still available.

Lyca keeps refusing my othrerwise operational credit cards when trying to pay directly, so I am forced to go through Paypal's outrageous fx-rates. The 10% bonus barely compensates for that, so it´s only fair.

Their Customer Service and Forward Facing People are Really Bad...
 

When the service works, it's great. When it doesn't god help you.

I gave my step-daughter a Toggle SIM. She was recently using it in France with no problem. She went onto the website and added a Dutch number, and flew to Amsterdam. Data would not work (and she had the APN correct because it worked in Paris.) I had her make a test call to me, I saw it billed at 3p per minute, so I knew the SIM had properly "latched" and she was not roaming.

I sent an email to customer service, and got a form email which said they have escalated the issue and given it high priority, but nothing specific.

My step-daughter also called customer service. She was informed by the person on the phone that data only works in the UK. When she informed the Toggle person that she had just used data in France, the person was surprised and said he would have to look into it.

She gave up and bought a Dutch Lebara SIM.

Has your step-daughter verified APN settings after switching to the Dutch IMSI? Most modern smartphones handle APN settings SIM-specifically. Once you change SIMs APN settings will be reset or auto-adjusted and if you change IMSIs of your toggle SIM (i.e. enter another toggle county) your phone does assume that your SIM has been changed and APN settings will be changed. So you need to enter toggle's APN settings for each toggle country you got a local number/IMSI from.

Data in The Netherlands is down since Lyca's switch from Vodafone to KPN network. Also SMS was down but is supposed to be fixed now.

I had similar problems with large providers when they were starting new services/countries, so that is not something special. The problem is that Toggle is changing things quite often.

During the Paypal checkout you can change the currency back to £ if you want (click to change the payment option). This way you credit card will be charged for the original amount in £.

Until they are ready to sell their SIM cards to americans to use in the USA, I think I will wait to get one. It seems they are still testing.