International sim with USA number
 

Does this exist?

As far as I know, the person having a USA mobile phone, has to pay for receiving a call, right?

Calling a USA mobile phone number is almost free, see Voipcheap:
United States (Landline) FREE* FREE*
United States (Mobile) 0.010 0.012

I wouldn't mind having to pay for receiving a call (as long as the rate/min isn't too high). This way, anyone can call me for free, and I pay for receiving the call.

Just curious...

There are a couple of such options, but another idea:

Get a VoIP number of some sort...
...and forward it to your mobile.

The advantage of that is that you can get the best mobile provider for your situation (and change as desired) but you can always forward your US number to that. No one but you need know your actual mobile number.

Thanks for the 'forwarding a DID' idea, haven't tought about that (I'll give that a night of sleep to think about it), but...

I'm interested in the options you know about :-)

For the caller, there is no diff. between calling a U.S. or Canadian landline or a U.S. or Canadian cell. IOW, if you can call a U.S. landline free, you can call a U.S. cell phone free. There is absolutely no difference.
Overall cell rates in the U.S. (and Canada) are MUCH cheaper than in most other parts of the world. Eg. I have 3000 min./mo. for $50 - less than 2 cents/min. Prepaid is a lot more expensive 10 cents/min or more depending on how much you buy.

Yackie comes to mind.

There is a new Israeli-based one (the name escapes me) that also has inbound US numbers.

Reading the comments on this forum about Yackie doens't make me jump :-)
And their rates aren't really low.

I'm surprised why USA companies aren't offering anything. Almost every company is EU based.

Any other suggestions?

The US predominantly uses CDMA-based technologies (IS-95, 1xRTT, EvDO) that are incompatible with GSM. Only two major providers (T-Mobile and Cingular) use GSM at all. A few regional providers do as well.

Also, my impression is that Americans are less interested in international roaming products because relative to people from other parts of the world, they leave the country relatively little. Most Americans to whom I have spoken have never been to Canada, let alone Europe or Asia. Conversely, someone from Switzerland might go to France for lunch, because it might only be 40 km away, and Germany is only 70 km.

I think it would be great to get a more North American-based international SIM product, but to be frank, those of us here don't really need it - we already have affordable rates here. It's you guys who need it. And do you come much? :)

Yes, it's also about geography :). In Europe we have about 50 countries or country-like territories with their own GSM networks, thousands of kilometres of (often fancy-shaped) borders and free travel zone in most of them. It doesn't result only in possibilities of having lunch abroad but also cross-border commuting or domestic travelling across the territory of other country (e.g. about 10 direct trains a day from Vienna to Innsbruck via southern Germany).

You mean "affordable rates" for national USAge, right :)? As to international roaming, I think that you are ripped off by your operators just like we are :(.

As an American who just had to have more passport pages glued into his passport I resent the implication that we are all provincial Bafoons. Unfortunately, however, I have met some Americans who have led credence to this story. My wife was working on helping one of her organizations setup up a conference in Canada and some of the e-mails they received were a stitch. My favorite were the ones about whether they needed to only drink bottled water, avoid salads, and soft shelled fruits when dining in Toronto.

I forward a US number to my sim dejour and it works great. The problem comes when someone tries to send an SMS to that number.

There are idiots in every country, I assure you. :)

Seeing the American Idol contestant that thought Simon Cowell was from France didn't help Americans' case. :)

I assure you I know a lot of Americans who are very worldly and know a lot about other parts of the world. However, the vast majority of Americans to whom I have talked have never been to Canada. Conversely, the vast majority of Canadians to whom i have talked have been to the US several times, and that is what I base my comment upon.

Americans generally think they live in the greatest country in the world, and a large number feel there is no reason to leave, and act accordingly. I think I live in the greatest country in the world, but desire deeply to see the rest of it. I bet you're in the latter category. :)

Some interesting stats vaguely related to this drift:

Only 27% of US citizens have a passport. Of these a record 320,000 got them in the first 7 days of 2007 due to a new rule that was enforced on Jan 23rd requiring a passport for travel between the US and Canada.

On the flip side I wonder how many Europeans don't have a passport/national ID card?

Well petkow...you certainly do understand the big difference...in Europe you travel 20 or 30 km and you are in a different country and while the Schengen agreement has cut down on some of the paperwork at frontiers, they still sometimes do ask for identity cards or passports. The relative magnitudes of the border areas are completely different....a much smaller percentage of Americans live within 160 km. of the Canadian or Mexican borders then Canadians to the US border...in the United States if you live in say Atlanta, you are nowhere near an international border where a passport would be necessary. Not many Americans spend their summer breaks in Canada whereas many Canadians, many Canadians, think nothing of buying up property in Florida or Arizona and spending their winters there and although they never technically needed passports, after 9/11 American paranoia increased to such a degree that more and more border crossings especially of Canadians into the United States began checking more closely and it was easier to have a passport although as noted it was not required.

Too true Matha 531. It is a big difference.

I think they call them "Snowbirds"! ;-)

By the way, (in an effort to vaguely get back onto topic)... what are agreements like between the networks in the US and Canada? I know many of the US networks allow your 'free minutes'/airtime to be used for calling Canada, but I do not know if it is the same vice versa. Do any of these offer any deals on using your airtime for incoming when you are across the border? Maybe there is a 'snowbird special' tarrif! :-)

Most plans suck when it comes to roaming in the other country. That's why I have a couple of prepaid US phones. Lots of Americans who come here regularly have Canadian prepaid service too.

I found a little tiny regional provider in Montana (Sagebrush) that includes Canadian roaming at no charge in some of its higher-end plans, which was interesting.

Yes, but it's not only about number of people that live near borders, but also about their fancy shapes, as I have already said. Because of this fact, the fastest/cheapest/easiest routes for domestic trips in Europe involve crossing the territory of another country (e.g. Wien-Salzburg-Innsbruck via Germany). Using those transit routes forces travelling people who want to be in touch to use roaming sick rates or to restrict using their mobile phones to receiving SMS only. OTOH, the US has really "uncomplicated" borders. Even though Alaska is "detached" from mainland USA and the province of Ontario is a Canadia "wedge" :) how many Americans travel via land routes to Alaska or e.g. from Maine to Minnesota via Canada? Even if there were tens of thousands a day, then what they really needed, would be "US-Canadian" SIMs, not "global" ones....

There are a couple of plans with US carriers that allow you to roam in Canada for something like $4/month....if needed they can be checked out on the web sites of cingular and T Mobile USA. For the most part, people doing what you suggest would probably not be making that many calls and the US carriers do allow roaming in Canada albeit at higher prices (but I don't think outrageously so as I remember)..

But I do have one pet peeve about this...as you may or may not know...the US, Canada and some Caribean countries have all been designated as country code 1...leaving places such as Bermuda aside, you cannot tell by looking at a number whether it is in the USA or in Canada unless you are a walking encyclopedia of area codes so I see something advertised and to call 1 514 555 1212...aha I use my mobile phone to make the call to avoid US long distance charges since the entire USA is considered one dialing area on most 21st century mobile phone plans and aha...other than the accent (I am pretty good at recognizing Canadian accents and this example is not all that good as you will see in a second) but anyway at the end of the month I get a bill with an add on to my thousands of included minutes and free weekends and nights because the call was to Quebec (obviously I would have recognized the Quebec accent or the fact that under Quebec law the call has to be answered at first in French but by then it is too late)...all this is covered under something called the North American Numbering Plan (NANP) that once upon a time was administered by the Bell system but has long since passed into other hands....you don't know from outside North America when dialing the USA or Canada as both start with+1...I wonder how Canadians feel about this...once again big brother in the USA treats them as 2nd class citizens...if I were Canadian I would start a crusade to get my own country code...it would certainly make life easier for citizens of both countries (and perhaps the rest of the world although to the best of my knowledge calling rates to the USA and to Canada are almost identical everywhere).

This has caught me off guard in the past too! Let alone the US/Canada thing some telcos around the world even impose different rates to Alaska and Hawaii as well. I suppose every country with offshore territory has some of this though! In the UK we have the channel islands and the IOM which to a novice, look just like ordinary numbers, but then again you can get charged higher rates.

Point taken though... at least Canada and the US should be different country codes, after all what other separate countries (however small they are) share a country code? (Well OK the vatican has it's own +379 but I think it uses Italy's +39 in reality)

It wouldn't help things that much to give Canada a separate country code. I guess it would let you distinguish Canadian numbers, but the real reason to give us our own code is to free up area codes, since you are running out. However, we don't use that many area codes, maybe 20.

A better tack might be to add a digit to the area code and make all Canadian area codes start with the same number, e.g. 2... so area code 2416 would be Toronto, area code 2403 would be southern Alberta, area code 2204 would be Manitoba, area code 2450 would be suburban Montreal, etc. Existing US area codes might start with 3, e.g. 3212 for Manhattan in New York City. I suppose you could pedantically argue that that would make Canada in country code 12 and the US in country code 13, except that Americans would use domestic dialling sequences to reach Canada (e.g. 1-2403-555-1212) and not overseas sequences (e.g. 011-2403-555-1212).

I guess the better question is why American cellular companies charge for long distance to Canada? Some VoIP telephony providers, like Yahoo, charge less to call Canada than to call the US. Most providers charge precisely the same rate for both countries.

By the way, Quebecers aren't required to answer the phone in French. They can answer in Punjabi if they want. Many Quebecers, especially in Montréal, are anglophones.

Photojim...

Although the issue is not as strong as once it was, I do remember there were language laws passed in Quebec about 20 years ago requiring among other things that signs could be in both English and French but the French had to be larger, that businesses were required to greet customers in French but could then switch to English etc. I assumed this was true of answering the phone. Have these laws been repealed?

Incidentally, as a side note and of no particular importance, I noticed that stop signs in France and Germany now say STOP and not ARRET or HALT...I wonder if this affects the stop signs in Quebec?

24 countries and/or territories share country code "1." Country code 1 does not refer to a country but to all numbers covered by the North American Numbering Plan Authority ("NANPA"). The organization was founded in 1947 to provide for direct dial calls between various locations.

A similar, but competing system, was founded by the International Telecommunications Union ("ITU"). Everyone who is not a member of NANPA is a member of ITU (I'm sure that there has got be an exception somewhere, but I haven't heard of it). In order to create a sensible interconnection between ITU and NANPA numbers all NANPA countries were brought in under the Country Code category "1."

As a matter of trivia, Mexico used to be a member of NANPA but pulled out in 1991. Conversely, a number of American South Seas Protectorates have joined NANPA so it is is really broader than North America.

Stu

PS: Stop signs in Quebec still say "Arret."

Not repealed, but watered down. When the laws were initially passed, they had to be French only, in fact. The way you describe them is how the law reads today.

There has never been a requirement to answer the phone in French, though. Any company or organization that deals with francophone Quebecers will assuredly answer in French or bilingually, but there is no requirement for thus. If you don't care about alienating the French-speaking community, you can answer only in English if you wish. Bilingual or francophone answering is done for business reasons, not for legal ones.

"Stop" isn't entirely un-French - "stopper" is a casual word for "to stop" - but Quebec tends more strongly to use French words instead of francophied English ones. France has "le volleyball" and Quebec has "le ballon-panier", but strangely it's "le football" and "le baseball" in both.

get a isle of man 07624 card
Get a skype in number listed in the USA
Get a skype out account and forward all your calls to the 07624 isle of man number.

According to the skype dialing wizard (use google for a link) the cost are 1,7 cent per minute.

since most calls are free to receive (not usa altough) it only cost you 1,7 cent per minute to receive a call.

Skype offers skype-in numbers in many countries so you could also get a UK, France, German or whatever number.

I have just ordered my 07624 number and will try this next week using skype and call forwarding.

SkypeIn doesn't cost 1.7 cents to a UK mobile. It's more like 21.5 cents.

Calling to +447624 numbers with skype costs 1,7 cents

Which one of the IOM outfits still issues +447624 numbers?

Why shouldn't Skype also charge 1.7c to a +447924 number? Has anyone tried? Does anyone have a number I can try? I tried some random ones, they all failed.

By the way, it should be noted, that in many countries, the combo of US number, forwarding to Skype, then Skype forwarding to Manx, cell forwarding, what not, creates a bit of an annoying lag. It works, but, if someone is calling you from a marginal cell signal, it will be a really crappy, delayed connection.

Yes, it was nice paying only 1.7c a minute incoming while people were calling my US cell while I was in Dubai (forwarded to Skype, forwarded to Manx) , but, the lag made many of the calls unacceptable (for a business conference).

http://www.skype.com/products/skypeo...s/dialing.html

to check skype rates for anyone that does not believe the 1,7 cent rate.

I am buying a skype-in UK number this week and will see how that works.

I presume that if you have a us voip in number the signal has to go from the us to the uk through voip, than fowarded to manx through voip again.

I got my card from www.globalsimcard.co.uk mail them an ask for a 7624 number, they still have some in stock.
There are also others that still sell 07624 numbers.

Just be careful. That 1.7 cent rate can't last. There is no way that Skype can be completing calls to that number for anywhere close to that rate. It's obviously an error and Skype does have the right to correct errors without notice, so you could have a surprise if you count on it to persist.

as long as the 1.7 cent rate lasts i can use it.

According to some others this rate has been applied for the last year. So if skype have not found out now, maybe it takes them another year.

I just bought a uk skype-in numer 0208 and forward it to my 07624 number.

I used voipdiscount to call the uk number for free. So it's voip all the way. The quality is ok, no echo.

have the skype forwaring to my iom mobile working know.

I works very good. The only thing I noticed when calling my skype number that forwards to the iom number the callers heras the rining tone but only after 3 - 5 ring (15 seconds my mobile starts ringing)

For some people this could be to long and they would hangup.

I also have a skype-in number that forwards to this number which also works fine. This normally takes about 15 seconds before my phone starts ringing.

Wow! I would think 3 -5 rings is pretty long for a lot of people and they will probably hang up.

15%
 

less than 15% of the US population have passports. That says something, don't it?

Actually, I heard that stat, too. But, when I did a little Google research (which I think eliminates the need for higher education!) the actual range is not so exact, and kind of vague -- from about 15% to over 20% in some stats. Anyway, you think that's a low stat, but, when you think of how many billions of people are starving, as opposed to the not-so-many-more billions total people on the earth, THAT is an amazing stat.

PS -- I can't keep a passport for the 10 years. I have my latest 6 years, THREE inserts of extra pages, and, it is about to fall apart.

And salads should be avoided EVERYWHERE ... they suck - admit it, it's just filler!.. Toronto included ..

Back to SIMs .......

This is the answer skype gave me:

The call forwarding time depends on many factors:
If the number of users logged into Skype is more than 9 mln, call forwarding tends to be a bit delayed.
Also, call forwarding depends on the load of the carrier of the phone that the call is forwarded to.

So it seems as if skype does have capacity problems when more than 9 million users are logged in.

As said i have tested it several times now using call forwarding but it can take to long, 40 seconds was the record and around 10 seconds is the minimum.

The forwarding delays from Skype are nothing new, it's always been that way. I tried it out early last year http://www.prepaidgsm.net/forum/show...p?t=925&page=2
- it was just the same then. At the time Skype was running 3 - 4 million logged in users per day.

It was so slow I gave up and used alternatives. Ipkall.com to a sip account (which can then be forwarded) works fine (and can be set up with no monthly fees).

I do have several othe did numbers that can be forwarded but the bigest advantage of skype is that it just cost 1.7 cent per minute to call 07624 mobile. I did not find any other company that gives me these rates. 10 cents per minute to uk mobile seems to be a normal minimum.

If someone calls my skypename however the forwarding does not take a long time, 5-10 seconds, maximum

+44 7624 on SKYPE costs 0,85PLN (polish zloty) it'a about 0,20Euro
ITS PITY that skype icrease prices in short time :(