eKit not receiving calls to US number when abroad
 

Hey gang-

I have an eKit dual-number SIM that has worked great until the past few weeks. Suddenly, none of my callers are able to reach me at my US number when I am in Europe. They report that the call either doesn't connect, or goes straight to voice mail. In any case, it never rings on my end. Note that they ARE able to reach me at my UK number. Also I have no problem placing calls- just can't receive to the US number.

Anyone else have problems like this? I'll call Support as soon as I get a few free minutes. Thanks!

Kupe

Did you call ekit customer service? Have you tried to make a quick call to the US number from where you are?

Just curious.

Thanks Matha. Yes I called customer service last week, and we got to the point where they needed me to call them on a landline so the eKit phone would be free. They give me an Italian toll-free number, but the front desk told me that "toll free" call would run about 8 dollars a minute! And of course it didn't work from the payphone in the lobby. Exasperated I gave up at that point.

FWIW, I'm back in the US now and I DO receive calls to my US number if I log in with US mode- i.e. 2+PIN. If I log in in International mode 1+PIN I do NOT receive my call- it goes straight to voicemail. I know that is the expensive way to go in the US, but it should work nonetheless- it used to in testing anyhow. Seems like International mode is dead for incoming to the US number.

I hope to have time to call Support tomorrow- the last time took 40+ minutes, so I need to wait for a free hour in the day.

Kupe

International mode
 

Actually, I think they have it set up [I somehow recall something about this but I don't know where I learned this] so that you will NOT receive US# calls in the US if you are in 'Global mode. They then send an SMS saying it is cheaper if you get into US mode.

Which ekit card do you have? I am not sure that would make a difference but there are different rates for different cards. I don't know--mabe I am just curious.

It's the Telestial Passport eKit sim. I've just PMd details to eKit and I'll post what we find.

Thanks!

Kupe

Hi Kupe! Did you resolve your problem concerning your eKit not able to receive calls? Please post them here. I think I am having the same or similar problem of my own.

Just got back yesterday from Belgium, and eKit worked fine this time. I had lengthy discussions with the nice folks at eKit support, and they were not able to see anything that might have caused the earlier problems. So the plan was for me to give it a try once I got to Belgium and call them if it didn't work.

Sooo, as we speak, all seems okay. We still don't know why it didn't work in Italy or the British Virgin Islands, but hopefully isolated network issues?

So, that's where it stands.

Kupe

Kupe:

When it did not work the first time, did you manually change the GSM carrier in Italy to see if the problem was corrected?

Yep- three different ones. Made no difference. In any case, hopefully working now.

Kupe

same here - Not receiving calls to US number while abroad
 

I am on my last day of a 7-day visit to Montego Bay, Jamaica. The Ekit sim card has not really been useful for what I got it for. May be only 1 out of 10 calls to the US number rang through. I tested this several times. Since I have several ways to call, via Wifi, using other sim cards, etc. Thank god for TelnaMobile. Once I realized calls to the Ekit sim were not coming through, I changed my forwarding to Telna. And that worked for all incoming calls. Withe the non-functiojnal Ekit, the caller hears a ring, but it does not ring through to the Ekit sim and eventually just goes to VM. I switched carriers Digice/C&W, but the results were the same. Outgoing calls worked without a problem. Thanks to the resort's free WiFi (Only in the reception area), pretty much almost all my outgoing calls were from My Nokia E63 (Using voipcheap, skypemobile, and truphone clients) and my Tmobile Nokia UMA phones using the WiFi.

Like I always say, make sure to have a backup of more then one other option. It also helps that I have my netbook with voipcheap and skype on it.

Hi Bossman-

I had similar poor results with my eKit in the Caribbean last month- in our case the British Virgin Islands. Calls to my US number were not coming through. I've since been back and forth to Europe several times and got my eKit calls just fine. So this seems to be some sort of network issue in the Caribbean?

I do know next time I'm "down in da islands" I'm going to buy a local LIME Sim Card.

Kupe