o2 My Europe Extra - Interesting Possibility
 

Up until now I've been using a Callkey IOM card around Europe which for me always had the major drawback of no caller ID and sometimes unreliable incoming calls. I just noticed o2 have launched an offer called "My Europe Extra" which is available to contract but also prepay for £10 extra a month. They offer free incoming calls in most of Europe (up to 1000 mins a month) and outgoing calls for 25p/min. (http://www.o2.co.uk/international/tr.../myeuropeextra)

However, to reduce this outgoing 25p/min charge even further I was thinking of the very interesting possibility to use this setup in combination with one of the Finarea companies that offers really good callback rates (http://www.returncall.co.uk). I assume an o2 mobile will transmit caller ID (unlike the callkey) so this could potentially be an excellent setup - outgoing calls to UK landlines for 2p/min or UK Mobiles for 9p/min while roaming seems pretty good.

I'm over in Belgium at the moment but when I visit Edinburgh at the weekend I think I'll bring my o2 prepay sim out of retirement :-). Has anybody tried this o2 My Europe Extra yet?

I haven't used My Europe Extra yet, but have used ReturnCall on my 3 WePay SIM (getting 5p/min credit for incoming calls).

ReturnCall was discussed a bit back in January, when petkow wondered if it would be possible with a CallKey SIM, which we concluded not, for caller ID and short code sms reasons.

http://www.prepaidgsm.net/forum/showthread.php?t=1569

I suggested instead that Orange or O2 contract customers might subscribe and forward to the IoM SIM.

My Europe Extra was launched a bit a few days after that discussion, and I forgot to go back and add it to that thread as an idea

Since then, I've suggested exactly what you say a few times as a possibility with prepay O2, and I'm a little surprised it hasn't drawn more attention. In fact I mentioned ReturnCall again only yesterday, as an alternative on the thread about Voipcheap sms callback, which I'm just going to edit a bit.

Starting cost for a month in Europe would be free SIM, £10 for My Europe Extra, and £5 subscription to ReturnCall, perhaps with another optional £5 sms sent (see below)

To begin with, the RC callback was quite flakey some of the time, and now it is a bit variable in timing. The callback might take 5 seconds, 40 seconds, or just occasionally never (~5% of attempts). So you have to be patient and not try again for over a minute, or you can end up with voicemail due to 2 incoming calls; or switch off VM I suppose.


Adding a bit more complication, it is possible to use a callthrough access number as the second leg of the call, as ReturnCall forwards the caller ID, and make an onward call more cheaply.

This even works if that access number is one of the Finarea/Betamax ones, with their rates for many countries from 1 cent or penny, so on setting up an account with them, eg Voipcheap, about 40 countries can be reached for 3 pence or under, rather than the 5p RC tariff.

Another interesting number for the second leg might be the 0870 number of PlanetTalkFree, for which the RC tariff is 5p, and can be used as callthrough for plenty of other destinations, including several European mobiles on weekdays. I've only done this once or twice. PlanetTalkFree does sometimes take nearly a minute to connect, so this wouldn't be worth it for short calls.

I've kept an eye on RC for some time, expecting that the tariffs would eventually go up, but on the tariff correction of Skype to CallKey, I'm likely to subscribe my O2 to RC soon.

I wouldn't treat it as the only option though, and maybe the new sms callback of Voipcheap is a potential second string, and also usable for callthrough with RC ...

Or Voipbuster Vyke or Voxalot callback ...


If Finarea were to start similar products in other countries, then O2 Germany has a similar option for €8 a month, posted by Gryphone

http://www.prepaidgsm.net/forum/show...7&postcount=10

I agree with Andy . Betamax have now landline access numbers with Voipcheap.com or Voipdiscount.com Actually there are a quite a few countries you can call for free. I would also say that you can buy airtime for O2 card off the Ebay with discount of 30 or more percent, which makes this set-up even cheaper.

Hey Andy, well I should have known you'd be one step ahead of me! The idea of the WePay sim had never crossed my mind...even better than free when there is 3p/min leftover from calls! Excellent!

Well, I also am surprised this combination hasn't drawn more interest before. The major advantage of this setup is reliability for at the least receiving calls. Because it's done directly with o2 the reliability issues, that callkey or even UM can occasionally suffer from (in my experience), should be eliminated. There have been a few times, especially in Poland, I've sat there wondering why nobody had called me all day. After investigation I found that my Callkey number seemed like it was ringing to the caller but wasn't ringing at my end. Other times with UM I've found it just didn't ring through at all and of course with me being based in the UK having a UK number makes UM lose to Callkey at least for me.

For outgoing, I've used returncall a bit when I'm back in the UK and it did seem pretty reliable and the caller ID being passed is a great advantage. However, Finarea cheapo calling to UK mobiles can on a small number of occasions be unreliable (>5% I'd say too) so for those occasions that returncall, voipcheap and whatever brand Finarea invent tomorrow fail the backup could be many other options: just as an example Voipfone web or SMS callback are expensive (14p/min) but I've found super reliable for UK mobiles. Even direct dialling on the o2 for the 25p/min isn't too bad for the rare occasion Finarea lets you down.

I checked out the German one the other day actually too but the limit of 100 incoming minutes vs. the o2 UK with 1000 mins kills it for me. Also, having a UK number allows the expansive amount of callback services and for me personally goes with my home country. I'd assume this package is rolled out to all countries o2 (Telefonica Spain isn't it now?) operates in so these might be worth checking out too.

Meir: Excellent idea for the topups from ebay! I hadn't thought of that one! When I get back to the UK next week I'll search some out and load up one of the free o2 sims sitting around in my house.

Now if only I could fine something to replace the Wind Mega No Limit for my now rather high data bills!!! Maybe o2 would like to launch unlimited European data :-)

It isn't all bonus, as the earned WePay credit is only applied up to equal the value of the next cash top-up, but still, when the next RC premium text is charged you can say its effective cost is halved. Thus £10 sent to 3 then on to RC is worth 1000 minutes to landlines or 222 to mobiles.

A potential drawback of using RC with O2 when roaming is that I've occasionally had call charges for trigger numbers from a couple of countries' networks (Slovakia and Lithuania). My O2 bill a couple of years ago showed a 2 second call with per minute billing.

So don't go overboard in a new country without checking after the first couple of calls. If it does, I'm figuring a way to use a second callback service to send the caller ID to it, but then, if JustVoip is used for forwarding to a UK or IoM SIM, that might just as well be used instead

O2 in Czech Republic has My Europe offer for postpaids only valid for limited number countries, but 120 minutes a day limit. But they promised to come up with something new before summer holidays.

ReturnCall
 

I have a few questions related to the ReturnCall? Is it possible to top up RC account from overseas( I have never tried this one)? May I top up more than fiver? Let say to send them two or more top up messages, so my balance will be 10 pounds or more?

A good question. A while ago the question was asked if shortcode SMS works whilst roaming. I have never tried it, but I can't see why it would not work. I am away next week, so I will try it and report back to here. In any case, with short code SMS you always pay the normal network charge of an SMS to start off with, and I assume which if roaming you also pay this, but it is just a bit higher. That is independant of their 'return' SMS service. You are really then paying for the SMS recieved, and how are they to now where you are.

In terms of double topup, I can't see this being a problem (works on all their other services), but bear in mind ReturnCall autmatically send you a £5 top up SMS when your credit goes to near 0 anyhow:

"(*Once you run out of returncall credit, you will automatically receive a 5 pound recharge. To unsubscribe from this service please text RETURN OFF to short number 81223)"

Incidently, though this is technically a forum for prepaid services, I just thought I would mention the following:

o2 (UK) are now using "MyEurope Extra" as a freebie to entice postpaid contract customers to stay with o2, once their postpay contracts have expired. This was offered to me for free for one year yesterday which I was fairly happy about. (i.e.no £10 monthly fee). I have had a low cost/low useage UK o2 contract for a year, and had actually been thinking of leaving. As a retention, they are now using various "sweetners", including this brilliant roaming package. Very much looking forward to this in conjunction with Retuncall for my next few trips.

Three questions:
1. Has anyone got to the bottom of the 25p minimum charge on MyEurope Extra. I think this was discussed once before here, but does this apply to incoming calls too?

2. On http://www.returncall.co.uk/rates.php it lists United Kingdom [national Rate] at 5p/min. Does this include include UK 0870 numbers? If so... a whole world of international dialthroughs emerge.
[Edit: Just seen this answered by Andy above... so yes is the answer... Excellent!! Just why are UK 0845's charged at 9p/min?]

3. Does the Returncall 9p/min rate to mobiles allow UK 07744/07755 numbers? Again if so see point 2.

I'm currently roaming in Ireland and asked O2 to enable MyEurope Extra on my account for the next month as I'll also be travelling to Spain and France within the next 30 days. I hope in a few days the calls I've made/received today will show up on my online bill and I'll know if there is a 25p charge for incoming calls... I hope not, received quite a few today!

I have been told that short-code sms work across borders, but found that one sent from German Vodafone to top up a German Voipcheap account did not work, just charging me the price of an ordinary roaming message.

Talking of which, sms callback from Voipcheap is another option, which I did use several times last week. (I haven't subscribed my O2 to RC yet, only 3.)

About petkow's queries, I think that the RC 5p 0870 rate must be a mistake, but then I never expected the 2p rate for landlines to last either. Most Finarea/Betamax brands don't like 07744/07755, including RC (rings with no answer); in fact 18185 is the only one I know. You might use a choice of forwarded numbers as the second keg though.

Further to my earlier post, it the 25p per call does not apply to incoming calls when the MyEurope extra bolt on is applied - the itemisation has appeared on my online bill and all incoming calls have been billed as 0.00 - this is good news!

Whats more, text messages sent whilst roaming appear on my bill as included in my line rental, and havent been billed 25p as specified in the terms of the bolt on. Will need to keep an eye on this on my next trip.

sorry if this is a bit off-topic for non-UK readers

O2 UK contract still uses inclusive text messages when abroad, coming off the allowance at the rate of 4 for 1. It also appears a bit oddly on another part of the bill, in the roaming section as a 4 second free call, sometimes to the destination number, sometimes the O2 message centre.

These costless messages make Voipcheap sms callback another attractive option as a backup for RC, 2 x 8c + vat to/from UK mobiles, and temptingly a bit easier to set up the call

If you go over your allowance, you will be charged roaming sms rates, so if this is likely, look into mobile Java clients that send via wap/grps - and so far, my 100k monthly data allowance has still been used while roaming, eg when setting up Voxalot or Voipbuster callback (under 2k per trigger or sms)


I've wondered from time to time if the inclusive text bolt-on on O2 Pay&Go would also work in the same 4 for 1 way when roaming, but never tried or read about it. It seems a bit less likely but might be worth a shot for someone with the opportunity to try, or perhaps someone here knows ...

Andy, do you know if this is only for texts back to the UK or for any destination? (or does it include only the country you are roaming in?)

It might be worth just one try, or maybe asking, but I'd guess that it's only for UK-bound messages.

I just looked closely at the my Europe terms and conditions...

I think I'm reading it right but apparently the free reception of calls while in the countries involved will only occur if the call originates within the eu. Damn (or am I misreading it?)

Well, I finally got this all setup. One thing to point out for the few of you that will do this: if you're going to port a mobile number over to o2 prepaid then make sure this is done before you activate myeuropeextra as you lose it when the number port occurs and it takes almost a week for o2 to sort it out!

Anyway, now I'm operational I've tested most aspects of this setup on the following networks/countries and it works perfectly - calls to the returncall trigger number are not charged as well:

Belgium: Proximus (returncall topup shortcode works too!) - Base works fine as well but Mobistar has occasional caller ID & authorisation issues
Germany: T-mobile, o2
Netherlands: KPN Mobile

(I'm particularly glad the phone works fine on another network apart from o2 in Germany as I find their coverage to be terrible in some places!)

Caller ID works perfectly and calls received from anywhere (NOT just the EU) are not charged for. SMS is charged at the 25p rate but I've been using SMSbug on my other data phone for any SMS I send. The one thing I've learnt using o2 is they don't support delivery reports on SMS in the standard way which is a small disadvantage to me making the web method even better :-) The other small disadvantage is o2 prepaid doesn't support call waiting so especially when using this in combo with returncall it's best to completely turn off the voicemail in my opinion. Now this week I'm going to see if the inclusive GPRS browsing allowance of 5MB (I think this is included for the 1st month) also works abroad.

For the topups I've bought 2x £20 topups from sellers on ebay for £14 each as per a suggestion before. I paid via Paypal and had the voucher codes within a couple of hours. I was then able to call the standard topup number (for free) and apply the £20 credit immediately. To further reduce the costs I'm going to signup for a thing called o2 rewards which I think gives 10% extra credit for free in 3 months time :-)

Finally, for outgoing calls, as per a previous suggestion I've also tried using voipcheap's geographical UK callthru number in conjunction with returncall to make calls to places returncall charges more than the 2p/min UK rate for. I've also tried setting up the Caller ID as a callthru number on my pbxes setup then by calling my UK voip number I get a dialtone and can once again access any of my other voip providers for the same 2p/min. This also works and if I have a particularly long call to make I will do this but for most of the time the returncall rate is perfectly acceptable. As mentioned before there is also the possibility of using SMS trigger callbacks for any moments returncall isn't playing ball but as it seems to work fine (for the moment) I've yet to test this.

Overall I'm very pleased with this new setup! It's much better than using the IoM sim or UM as I've done in the past and for me the best bit is it seems to be super reliable. Hopefully it will stay this way!

PS: For anybody with a UK address you can get o2 sims for free at the moment via the following link:

http://freesimo2.o2.co.uk/

EDIT: GPRS usage is not inclusive and is actually super expensive! :-(

If they would only set up another credit method in parallel, it would be possible to use this with IoM numbers as well, though it needs a way to send RC the caller ID

Another destination to call via RC might be a UK DID pointed at a JustVoip or Voipcheap account that is also forwarded, though with some choices of destination this can mean some unanswered calls become chargeable if there is a further call forward ...

Returncall seemed to have now upped UK geo. calls by 50% from 2p/min to 3p/min! (although the website does not state this!) Can anyone else confirm this?

In the last few days I have been using the above mentioned combo extensively throughout Europe. (Germany, France and Spain). Initially I was worried that if roaming on another network (other than on one that is associated with o2), I would be charged for incoming so I kept doing a manual search for o2 whilst I was in Germany. As Ticex rightly mentions, o2 coverage there is inferior to T-Mobile. I lucklily discovered a few days later that it makes no difference, as incoming calls are free on either.

The only think I was annoyed with is the delay between recieving the topup message and the funds being applied to my RC account. I got into an annoying situation where I was cut off in a call due to lack of funds. I then topped up via short code SMS (which I too can confirm work well anywhere). After this I had to wait for several minutes until the funds appeared. I then make the call again, only to find I get a further auto-topup message. This resulted in a double topup.

Second stealthy price increase in a little more than a week! I just heard that calls to UK geographic lines are now 4p/min with Returncall. (Again no mention on the website).

Just been away for a lengthy trip and sad to report that this company are now charging 6p/min to UK landlines. Their website still says 2p!!! (though there have been several increases since then) Rates to other destinations are also up! Time to get someone else once my current credit runs dry!