Isle of Man discussion [split from Cherry Mobile thread]
 

...hm...

Sounds like Isle of Man roaming cards are in deep deep trouble and one would expect the other issuers to quickly follow suit...

Didn't somebody on this board about six or seven months ago suggest they had heard from some executive at a telcom type conference who indicated the free ride of the Isle of Man sim providers was about to end...

And how will this affect a roaming card issued using a Jersey roaming partner...I wonder who that means?

I was the one that posted the following last March. He was/is a high profile person who i brazenly approached and asked specifically about IOM services.

At that time it was just rumors. Moderator Andy followed up w. a reply stating, as I did, that it was just a rumor.

===
13-03-2007, 01:37
Re: IOM rates.
There was a "high end" telephony conf. about 10 days ago in S.F. sponsored by oreillynet.com. There were at least 200 people there from all over the world.
No - I didn't spend the $2K to attend. However, I did go one afternoon and evening when you could sign up and get into the Exhibit Hall for free. I couldn't help it if I accidentally walked in on a couple of conferences. Many/most of the sessions were WAY above my head.
Anyway, I wound up talking to someone w. a UK accent - a person who is somewhat well known in "telephony circles" in the U.S., (he was interviewed by Reuters about an hour earlier). I asked him about the IOM "carriers". He said that the free ride for the IOM resellers will probably end soon - for the same reason the Iowa "free calling to Europe" operations were shut down.
[An aside, there is still one of those free calls to many countries operations with a Minnesota number 218-339-1990. At least it was still working last Friday.]

He didn't tell me the exact reasons and I didn't know anyone else to verify this with.
My guess is that either (1) the central UK govt. subsidizes the IOM operator and/or (2) there is a much higher termination cost for calling an IOM number that the carriers either (a) don't know about or (b) do know but their systems can't distinguish between calls going to diff. UK - +44 - systems.
I do know that some operators can't distinguish between calls going to the mainland U.S. and countries in the Carribean w. +1 numbers for setting rates.

So, for now, this is just a RUMOR. I have seen this mentioned either here or elsewhere in a forum.

Still just rumours. Everything I read about the current problems appears to point to financial troubles at Callkey (the usual one, big loans, some revenue, but no profit).

There hasn't been any mention of regulatory problems, and it's hard to see why there should be. What the IOM (and other) carriers are doing is perfectly legal. There's no subsidy of any sort on these number ranges (indeed the opposite, this is an expensive place to operate from). No "free ride" to end.

I notice Truphone uses +44 7624 as well. Has anybody had any problems with them?

This discussion begs the question of how these Channel Island operators can afford to route a call to so many countries within the revenue they're receiving for the call, when larger providers won't do so.

Frankly I hope these services stay viable for a long time (United Mobile came in quite handy for me while I was in Switzerland, Germany and Liechtenstein last month). I like the idea of having a single inbound number I can use on many foreign trips, even if I end up using a different SIM for most of my outbound calling.

I have no problems with Truphone on +44762400xxxx

(just to be picky, the isle of Man isn't in the Channel Islands. It's the little blob between England, Scotland, Wales and Ireland. The Channel Islands are off France).

I don't think larger providers are hungry enough to do global sims, and it's a different business: callback. Where callbacks under a certain cost are paid for by the revenue the sim company receives. These are the free incoming countries (since when you make a call you need an incoming leg of the callback). Above that, they start to charge for incoming.

But I think recent events might prove that their business model doesn't always work and might not be sustainable. A factor in this is probably people like us combining free incoming with another company's callback - so the sim card gets very little income from outgoing calls, which is where the profit is.

This is where a lot of VOIP companies are having a problem also - they attract users who want to save money, who then promptly identify where the VOIP company is overcharging to get profit, and subsitute that part of the deal, so that the VOIP company is just left with the loss-making parts...

(if Truphone is still working then it's clearly a Callkey problem rather than an IOM numbering or regulatory problem, as they have similar ranges).

Guilty as charged!

Quote:
<TABLE cellSpacing=0 cellPadding=6 width="100%" border=0><TBODY><TR><TD class=alt2 style="BORDER-RIGHT: 1px inset; BORDER-TOP: 1px inset; BORDER-LEFT: 1px inset; BORDER-BOTTOM: 1px inset">Originally Posted by snidely http://www.prepaidgsm.net/forum/imag...s/viewpost.gif
From message posted by me 6 months ago. It now appears that people "on the inside" knew this was coming some time ago. [Andy replied to the post stating it was pure speculation and I had no other confirmation at the time.]

===
13-03-2007, 01:37
Re: IOM rates.
[...]
He didn't tell me the exact reasons and I didn't know anyone else to verify this with.
My guess is that either (1) the central UK govt. subsidizes the IOM operator and/or (2) there is a much higher termination cost for calling an IOM number that the carriers either (a) don't know about or (b) do know but their systems can't distinguish between calls going to diff. UK - +44 - systems.
.



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I think we remember that

People who know more about the UK and Isle of Man governments and their telecoms regulatory bodies and providers have already tried to correct your unfounded guesswork about tax subsidies, termination fees and whatever else.

Namely, the UK does not subsidize the IoM operator, which is part of a large multinational - and which, rather unsurprisingly but inconveniently for this wonderful hypothesis, is still trading quite normally.


Quote:
<TABLE cellSpacing=0 cellPadding=6 width="100%" border=0><TBODY><TR><TD class=alt2 style="BORDER-RIGHT: 1px inset; BORDER-TOP: 1px inset; BORDER-LEFT: 1px inset; BORDER-BOTTOM: 1px inset">Originally Posted by andy http://www.prepaidgsm.net/forum/imag...s/viewpost.gif
It sounds rather too speculative to me, and the termination and subsidy issues would be on rather different scales if indeed they are the reason.
[...]

Manx is not simply a poky regional operator, but part of a larger firm. I doubt that the person you met has detailed knowledge of any cross-subsidies between the companies and the Manx and UK governments, and whether the regulators have it on the agenda. [...]



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Quote:
<TABLE cellSpacing=0 cellPadding=6 width="100%" border=0><TBODY><TR><TD class=alt2 style="BORDER-RIGHT: 1px inset; BORDER-TOP: 1px inset; BORDER-LEFT: 1px inset; BORDER-BOTTOM: 1px inset">Originally Posted by RTuesday http://www.prepaidgsm.net/forum/imag...s/viewpost.gif
The UK government doesn't have anything to do with Manx Telecom (apart from anything else, MT is now a division of Telefonica of Spain). Nor does it have any direct control over phone systems in the IOM, that's the job of the Isle of Man Communications Commission.

The IOMCC does have to deal with the UK's Ofcom for number ranges, much like countries like Caymans +1 345 have to deal with Nanpa, because the country code is shared. But Ofcom doesn't control the rates or how the numbers are used.

I don't think there's any reason other than lack of will (or number availability, or regulation) why any UK based mobile company couldn't do something similar to what is being done with Manx number ranges. It costs so much to call any UK mobile number that there is plenty of room for the forwarding/roaming cost.
[...]

There's no loophole or subsidy being exploited anywhere for the Manx numbers - they are simply using the high incoming charges to "UK" mobiles to pay for the forwarding/roaming. Same could be done with UK numbers, or Jersey/Guernsey.



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And since this was written, as we now know, 2 companies have launched similar arrangements with Jersey Telecom

And there seem to be some global SIMs appearing with UK numbers. And even before your post, from January in fact, there was an add-on option for O2 UK that was on similar tariff levels as the global SIM cards while in Europe, free incoming, 25p outgoing. What unidentified-source over-simplistic and patronising remarks can you report for them?

Andy -
As you did mention above - people here did say IOM carriers were not subsidized. I tried to make it clear I was NOT told why some (all?) of these IOM cards would be gone "soon". I thought i made it clear my reasoning was pure speculation.
Nobody has posted to this date what did cause this, AFIK.
I only went to this conference because it was in S.F. (my home area). The technology items discussed there were far above my head. The exhibit area was open to anyone on one evening. I happened to see one well known person who spoke about roaming, SIMS, etc. and simply stopped him in the hallway and asked about IOM, UM etc. All he quickly said was that IOM cards wouldn't be around much longer. He didn't say why and wouldn't respond when i asked him.

...mike

This phrase seems to be central in what you report he said, and the speculation you derived from it: "He said that the free ride for the IOM resellers will probably end soon - for the same reason the Iowa "free calling to Europe" operations were shut down. "

Given that there was no such free ride, in either of those cases, perhaps your correspondent was not as knowledgeable as you hope, or you misheard.

I read elsewhere that the Iowa termination fees were unilaterally increased by certain companies from 5 to 14 cents, and the dispute started from that point. I don't know if that is true, but it certainly does not parallel this case.

In the Iowa case there were several articles in the regular press that some people/companies were taking advantage of the fact that certain rural phone companies took advantage of the fact the fed. govt. subsidized them by paying a certain amount for each minute a line was used. This was set up many decades ago to encourage phone development in rural areas. (I actually think it was outsiders who were taking advantage of this anomaly.)
The "expert" didn't give me any reason - it was I who guessed this might be the case since this Iowa situation was going on at the same time. I can't recall if he used the term "free ride". He definitely said they wouldn't be around much longer - at least in their then present form.
In hind sight - the UM situation came to ahead recently because callers wouldn't pay the very high price charged for them to dial the +423 numbers. The "free" incoming calls were being paid for the the person placing the call.
Do we know what caused the problems w. several IOM card issuers to suddenly discontinue operations?

...mike