09 Mobile good nowadays ?
 

Dear Forum Members,

Many thanks for all your tips & comments. I have in past used a lot of tips to reduce my call charges when travelling for business & private.

With the recent rate increases at Callbackworld for calls to liechtenstein mobile phone (United Mobile) numbers, I would like to change to another international SIM card.

I have noticed that Callbackworld have fantastic rates to call Icelandic mobiles, e.g. 09Mobile.

However, I have also seen on this forum that 09Mobile had a lot of problems in the past.

I wonder whether You, the Forum members, can give me an update on:
- whether 09Mobile works well with Callbackworld or Enlinea
- the call quality of 09Mobile with these two
- the reliability of 09Mobile's coverage in the different countries
- your general experience with 09Mobile

Last, I have read on this forum that TravelSim does not seem to work with Callbackworld. Do you have any additional comments on this ?

Many thanks for all your help. I really appreciate it.

Biu26

I used O9 extensively while in Germany, France and the UK in June and a friend of mine used my O9 sim just during this past week in Italy, Greece and Croatia.

For the most part, it worked well. I prefer using enlinea as the triggering call gives a busy signal and there is no danger of being charged for a call. I had a bit of trouble with CBW in that they use a ringing trigger and several times, even though I disconnected awaiting the callback, the ring led to a quick request for a pin because of cbw's use of foreign (non USA) triggering numbers and it drained my credit on O9 to the point I had to trigger calls using another sim (and enlinea with the busy signal). Since then I have discovered on the cbw my account web site you can set this trigger to a busy signal but enlinea worked fine.

Enlina and cbw tend to work as well or as poorly as each other as apparently they used the same isp to actually complete the calls.

Having said that, enlinea this past July with my friend using my sim in Italy, Greece and Croatia worked adequately..sometimes of course as we have grown to know the callback doesn't cmoplete, other times it ends up in voicemail (we ended up with about 50 calls in vocemail, all the female voice sayng please enter phone number followed by the number sign key now....never go into voicemail anyway. On my end, when a call comes in I can hear a slight delay, I'll answer a question and it takes a bit for the party on the other end to respond...nothing much worse then you often see on television when a commentator interviews some reporter at a remote locatin...voice quality was a bit uneven but for the most part legible.

Rates were as advertised and the toll free service (I have an enlinea toll free number that I can direct to wherever I want) worked well as did cbw pin2dest...the quality of the call on my end (calling the Iceland number) was very good; better than when he called me but I don't know what was going on on his end.

Of course one of the big flaws with O9 is a lack of coverage in Switzerland...this has still not been rectified to the best of my knowledge...just can't understand why there is no O9 service in Switzerland..but other than that (and it is a big problem unfortunately) coverage was good.

Finally, interestingly enough, in a test before sending my friend off with the Icelandic card, I did consider the Estonian travel sim I had. I was able to set the toll free number on enlinea and pin2dest to work but my experience in June was I never got a callback on either cbw or travelsim when trying to use the Estonian card.

Incidentally as you may know, termination fees to the Icelandic and Estonian sim cards are very very high indeed with almost all US carriers, just as high as Liechtenstein is now. The use of the toll free services such as kall8 and voicestick are bad also. However, the toll free services on enlinea and pn2dest on cbw do provide low enough rates to make receiving calls on o9 and travelsim okay via callforwarding (although pin2dest doesn't work off of my mobile's callforwarding...when I try to set it with the delay to enter the pin it doesn't accept the number but the pure toll free numbers do work).....callers will be very reluctant to call you using the naitive icelandic or estonian numbers especially when they see their ld bills!

Recently i used the 09-Mobile card in Mexico together with CBW and it worked very well. Only thing was that i had to use the SIM-Menu to dial out. The voice quality over CBW was ok, sometimes a bit static together with the voice. Direct received calls were crystal clear.

Today i recharged the card via the hotline and was surprised that they even had a perfect accent free german speaker there ;-)

Chris

Many thanks for your advice & experiences, MATHA531 and dg7feq.

Biu26

you're welcome.
I can add that my parents are on safari tour in Kruger national Park south africa right now and 09 works very well there too...

Chris

I found out that the voice quality on CBW Pin2Dest to 09 is not that good. Sounds quite high compressed. When i called my parents on the 09 card yesterday i switched to a direct carrier and it was a lot more clear and with less delay. But the rate is out of competition...

Chris

I could not use the 09 card in Peru and Colombia last month.

When someone tries to call CBW Pin2Dest to my 09 number from Canada callers end up with voice mail. It worked 3 months ago but not anymore.

My 09 number cannot be reached thru landlines and all the major cellphone providers in Canada with the exception of FIDO.

I could be reached in Canada with SKYPE two months ago but not anymore.

When it worked call quality for incoming calls was very good but mediocre for calling out to Europe.

Wolf

One of my concerns for O9 is that they seem stuck on top-dead-center. Their website never changes. The "My Account" section always says "Available Soon". In this case "soon" must be measured in geologic time.

LOL! At least they are a whole lot of steps ahead of yackie!

Yeah.. the 09 website is always years behind ;-)

By the way: My parents just called from Swaziland on Swazi MTN network - even though Swaziland is not on the 09 coverage list and rate calculator. Seemed to be free incoming as well when i called them back... Not 100% sure as there is no call list on their website - well the circle closes down here again....

Chris

Swaziland appears on the rate calculator, with free incoming calls.....

I could swear it was not there when i looked the last time. sheesh... am i getting old or did they update the rate sheet?

Chris

They might have updated the calculator then.

I noticed that SMS works very reliable on the 09-card now.
I just found this press release which might explain why:
http://www.tyntec.com/en/news-presse/09mobile.php

Chris

Very Nice! I sent SMS from 09 to my AT&T cell, came through in seconds. However cannot send from AT&T cell to 09, comes up as error invalid number. How ironic, AT&T can't recognize 09's number!

the service didn't work at all in South America
 

Just to say that I've spent last summer 2 months working in Quito,Ecuador and couldn't connect to any Ecuatorian network during the 2 months,after 10 or 15 calls to customer support,saying that they fixed it or that was my mobile's fault (working with vodafone spain without problems during the 2 months), I just was tired of calling them.
After working I traveled on holidays on Peru,Bolivia,Chile,Argentina and Brazil and could connect only in Bolivia and Brazil,but only to make calls, I couldn't never in 5 weeks receive any (free) incoming call.

I don't think that 09 is a serious company (4 of 6 countries no coverage at all, 2 partial only to make chargeable calls).

When I came back Spain, It seems it works here properly (make and receive calls) , but if this company works good only here in Europe, I think it doesn't worth it,compared with others.

What phone were you using over there? Brand/Model/Version ?

Nokia 6085 V 3.70 qualband (800,900,1800,1900)

I don't know if I explained correctly, In my previous message I wanted to say that I could connect to all the networks in all the countries (Ecuador,Peru,Bolivia,Argentina,Chile,Brazil) with my vodafone spain card (pay as you go).

Also in brazil I could connect to 1800 network and couldn't receive any calls, only make them with the 09 card.

Thank you.

The reception of the calls depends on how the caller dialed your number. Many voip networks do not connect to 09 numbers. Also normal phone companies do not connect sometimes.

I know, but the calls where made from a fixed line of Telefónica in Spain, and this same line has made calls always properly when the 09 card was in Spain.(just for testing before travelling)

Just to notice that in four countries, the mobile couldn't connect to any GSM network at all.

I understand. Then the problem is with the roaming agreement. A friend of mine has also noticed that the service does not work in cambodia last year despite the fact that there appears to be a roaming agreement there.

That was the reason I was so angry with 09 company, I bought their card because I didn't want to pay more than 2€/min that Vodafone Spain charges outside Europe, and got no coverage at all in South America.

Also it wasn't some type of punctual problem because I stayed in Ecuador during two months, came back 5 weeks later and didn't get any type of coverage also.

OTOH, I used them in Singapore and they worked very well. It seems that when they're good, they're good and when they're not, they don't work at all.

I guess anyone that uses yackie should also take note of that.

I suppose the yackie people monitoring this threat should contact 09 and try to find a solution about this..

Some things are probably beyond their control and that of O9....not to put one region of the world against another, nobody can dispute that not being able to provide service in Switzerland is a major major problem for those who use O9 Switzerland being right smack in the center of Europe...O9 has been around for a couple of years and has made no effort to remedy the situation about Switzerland (which I simply cannot understand).....Yackie knows about it too but they've done nothing.

An explanation might be that they are using Swisscom roaming agreements.

And Swisscom can't roam in its home country - that's why ;-)?

I'm wondering, was the problem that you didn't get any callback or were you not actually able to register to a network?

I was unable to register in Ecuador,Peru,Chile and Argentina.

I received callbacks in Bolivia and Brazil (making a call from the mobile) also received sms.

I couldn't receive calls (people calling with a fixed line from Spain that worked when 09 card was in Spain, so its not the problem in source line) in Bolivia,Argentina,Brazil (in brazil they have european frecuencies).
I used the providers in each country that 09 customer support told to me to use and tried others also,without sucess.

In Ecuador,Peru,Bolivia,Chile,Argentina and Brazil I could make and receive calls without any problem with Vodafone Spain pay as you go card.

I will travel to Poland and Ukranie in December, and I will report.

Hi,

I've just had some tests done in Argentina on both the "Telefonica" and "Personal" networks and in Chile on the "Entel" network.

All tests were successful.

I'm unable to test Ecuador and Peru at this time. I will attempt to test these locations as well.

When were you travelling in this area? There have been some important upgrades recently so there may have been issues previously that we were not aware of that have since been resolved.

Thanks for the tip.

I stayed in Ecuador from end of June until August, and also in mid-September.

In Chile,Argentina,Brazil,Peru,Bolivia from mid-August to mid-September

The 09 "My Account" page has something interesting. Under "Account Info" there's a tab that says "Life Cycle". Under this tab there is a block that says "Life Time" with a value of 600 days. Do you suppose this means that the 09 SIM actually has an expiration of 600 days?

Same for me

I just returned from a trip to Peru, Ecuador and Colombia. 09 Mobile did not work.
I purchased separate SIM cards in each country which are very inexpensive. In Peru Claro sells for $ 10, in Ecuador Movistar for $ 5 and Colombia with TIGO also $ 5. Includes some talking time. Text messaging very inexpensive, foreign calls average $ 2/min; incoming calls are free.

I'm currently travelling through south america. So far I've been in Argentina and Chile.
In Argentina the 09 sim worked very well, it roamed with all 3 mayor networks.
However in Chile I haven't been able to connect with any network. Neither Entel, nor movistar, nor smartcom works.

Previously, whenever I tried to send a SMS from my 09 SIM it just went into the ether and vanished. I thought I'd check it again and this time it worked perfectly to my US T-Mobile account. I also sent it a SMS from FishText which also worked perfectly.

I travelled in Venezuela in August 2008. 09 worked in Caracas, Ciudad Guyana (quality was like next door), larger cities but had problems in smaller towns ringing the other phone but not making a voice connection. SMS worked when logged into network.

Calling rate very reasonable, i.e. around 20 cents/per minute.

However, big awakening in the US. The connection was excellent but calling Canada I was charged almost $ 3 per minute.

Roaming in the US on just about all the sims will cost an arm and a leg. Maxroam is the only international sim I am aware of that has OK rates in the US. For example receiving and calling to the UK (mobile) costs 38 euro and 67 euro respectively.

Incoming Call €0.38
Outgoing Call To Cellular In U.K. - England €0.67
Outgoing Call To Landline In U.K. - England €0.50
Call To a Local Landline In USA €0.46
Call To a Local Cellular Phone In USA €0.46
Sending an SMS From USA €0.21
Calling Your Voice Mail €0.47