Free time: looking for reviews
 

Has anyone tried free time in Germany yet? mrsimcard.com - FreeTime Telecom Sim Card

The data rates aren't as attractive as lidl, but the other rates are pretty attractive.

Never heard about these guys. According to their FAQ section the SIM card is based on a Mobilkom Liechtenstein (like United Mobile once upon a time) but has multiple IMSIs. One of them comes from eplus Germany, which explains the low price for the 5GB data pack for Germany mentioned in the article you linked but not offered on their website. Obviously someone has seized United Mobile's last plans, which involved a multi-IMSI SIM and they even already had an agreement with eplus back then. I also remember that UM sought a code monkey specialized in VoIP.
Also "booking a foreign number" seems not to work yet. Anyway I wonder how they want to offer American numbers. With the American bill-and-keep arrangement they won't get a penny for terminating incoming calls, so they will have to charge their customers something for inbound calls at least for US numbers. Even for those countries with the calling-party-pays scheme they will need mobile or premium numbers in order to provide free incoming calls.
Despite the SIM being offered by a German company which according to their T&Cs is also the contractual partner for the actual mobile service and as such subject to EU regulations they violate the price cap at least for Bulgaria. Those € 0.05/min charged for incoming calls in all the other EU countries I checked, are pretty cheap, like rates for many other countries are.

Hello there,

I have such a Free Time Telecom SIM-Card.

I have currently three numbers:

+49 1570 360 xxxx (Telogic/vistream virtual network, using mobile network of E-Plus)

+423 661 00 xxxx (Mobilkom Liechtenstein Network)

+1 940 yyy yyyy (Number from Denton, Texas Area, USA)

When ordering the SIM you'll get two (2) numbers minimum, you can choose from a list the xxxx digits are the same e.g. xxxx = 1234 (not my number)

the US number is an option.

Yes you're assuming right, there are some "relations" to former United-Mobile technology :-)

Voicemail sends me message via e-mail (.WAV Format).
Voicemail works at the moment as beta only on the 423 or the international number.

SMS (Textmessaging) is possible to all three numbers, texts arrived within a second on the E-Plus-Network logged in with the Telogic/Vistream IMSI :-)

Company plans to offer numbers in the UK, Russia and more countries.

Recharging is possible via scratch-cards, credit-card or paypal.

I'm in Germany.
If somebody calls me on the US-Number I pay 14 Cent/Minute incoming
If somebody calls me on the LI-Number I pay 5 Cent/Minute incoming
If someboy calls me on the Telogic (vistream) Number its free for me :-)

If somebody wants to make some test calls, please drop me a line :-)

I bought a SIM from Free Time Telecom GmbH | SIM Karte Multi SIM IMSIkarte SIMtravel Globalsim im Ausland bis zu 70% Handykosten sparen.

The SIM has 3 IMSI's and came with 3 numbers:

IMSI starting with 262.03 (e-plus)
IMSI starting with 295.05 (Mobilkom Liechtenstein)
IMSI starting with 310.630 (Cellular One)

Amerilink Wireless is now called Cellular One and serving this area: Amerilink Wirless - Local Coverage Map

One can switch between the IMSI's with SIM Toolkit, menu "Multi Account".

Being in Germany, the SIM only registers to a network (e-plus) when switching to IMSI 262.03. The display shows the network-name as "Germany", which is indeed e-plus.

One is reachable by all 3 numbers:

+49 1570
+423 663
+1 940

Would be interesting to which networks - using which IMSI's - the SIM registers in other countries.

Hello,

Welcome to the Club :-)

Me too :-)

As far as I understand the principle: The Telogic/vistream IMSI (virtual operator inside E-Plus Radio-Network) works only in Germany.
The Mobilkom Liechtenstein IMSI works in all countries but not in Germany and maybe not in the US.
The US IMSI should work in the US only, it does not work inside Germany (tested :-)

For the caller who wants to call you, this doesn't matter at all. He calls one of these three numbers and reachs you. For the called party i.e. you it depends on the number the caller comes in.

e.g. in germany you will be charged:

0,14 EUR/min if the caller comes via the US-Number +1 940
0,05 EUR/min if the caller comes via the LI-Number +423 661
0,00 EUR/min if the caller comes via the Telogic/vistream Number +49 1570

Hoping this was understandable

The following item from their FAQ page (which is not yet available in English) support your speculations.

translated:
Seems to be a pretty interesting product, although the branding and the website are absolutely subpar. This silly fish and the brand name is probably not very appealing to business travelers. Also the German text is far from perfect - doesn't appear very serious especially as it's a German company, although I accept that there's a serious person behind this company.

Has anyone of you already tested the VoIP functionality? Their SIP service runs on a server called sip.mobispeed.net. The domain mobispeed.net is registered to "Achilles Rupf Unternehmensberatung", Valustr. 3, 8887 Mels, Switzerland, a stone's throw away from Liechtenstein, but it points to an IP address of Mobilkom Liechtenstein (213.33.90.229). This sounds like the VoIP service is well integrated in their MSC and so will run stably.
Will inbound calls also be signalled through SIP? And what tariffs will apply if you answer a call by SIP? (would be interesting if it was free).

Another cool feature would be if you could be called on your FreeTime SIP by SIP (through a SIP-URI), which would be charged to the FreeTime customer at a moderate rate. This would allow diverting any existing number to your FreeTime SIM through SIP circumventing conventional circuit-switched termination. I think Telna have such a feature.

Hello,

when you log in, you'll get a cryptic Passwort for SIP Operations.
Your username is the Liechtenstein Mobilenumber without 423 eg. 661xxxxxx

The Setup-Procedure is explained in the FAQ session.

Mr. Rupf was former CFO of United-Mobile.

I tested the SIP feature with my Speedport W700V Router (delivered by Deutsche Telekom)
I received calls only when calling my US-number, then the mobile phone kept quiet. (Mobile phone was registered in German E-Plus radio-network) When I switched off the VoIP-Account in the router, the mobile phone rang again.

When the "VoIP-Telephone" rang and I lifted the receiver I heard nearly nothing of the callers party and they didn't hear me, sounded like to less bits for decoding my voice.

I could not make outgoing calls via SIP. I didn't find out, which area codes are necessary, as I do not know, how and where the SIP-Server is connected to the PSTN, if he is. (Liechtenstein, Germany, US, anywhere?)

To be honest: I'm not so familiar with VoIP-Things, so I do not know, if I did all setups correctly.

But lets keep realistic. How should their business modell work, if callers could reach the mobile via SIP for free?

I think, to answer all this questions, you should invest in your own SIM-card :-)

That device is probably not the best choice for a test. I would rather try an AVM FritzBox, which usually delivers best user experience for VoIP.

It seems like they don't support parallel call (mobile and SIP ringing simultaneously), which I found a great feature with solomo, who however never solved the billing issue of their parallel call feature while roaming and eventually dismissed it.

I guess their SIP infrastructure is hooked up to Mobilkom Liechtenstein's core network and so SIP calls are originating from Liechtenstein.

If the phone rang for incoming calls and your VoIP router was not attached to another NAT-router there's few you could have mistaken with configuration. But I wouldn't rule out that there was a problem with audio codecs between the SIP server and your router.

I didn't propose free incoming calls on the mobile, but rather the following two features:

1. Receive calls by SIP originating from a SIP-party (no radio network involved): If you're being called on one of the DID numbers or directly by VoIP through a SIP-URI you could answer calls by a VoIP client, which would mean for FTT (or their underlying MNO-partners) they would take the termination fees (at least for the German and Liechtenstein number, where the calling-party-pays scheme applies) but there would be no costs for terminating the call except for the negligible costs of IP transit of the SIP traffic. Inbound pure SIP calls (from a SIP party through SIP-URI answered by SIP client) would of course mean no revenue, but the costs of this is again just IP transit.
   
2. Receive calls on the mobile from a SIP-party (using radio network): If you're called on your SIP-URI but answer it on your mobile (as opposed to your SIP client as above) FTT would of course need to charge their customers for the incoming call. This feature of course would rather target a small fraction of their customers who are VoIP-savvy.

My readiness to invest time and money in beta tests has declined over the past years. I've helped United Mobile to discover some anti-roaming-steering tricks and USSD-blocking in Bulgaria and despite my help they didn't even refund the erroneously billed calls back then. Of course if they gave me a SIM for free I would be happy to test it.

It seems that some handsets do have problems with the SIM card. I tried it in a Windows Mobile device (Toshiba Portégé G710) and the phone hangs when switching the IMSI. Hardware reset (pull and plug batterie) is needed.

I also tried it in some Blackberries (I like BB's because of the hidden network monitor which one can activate), here the SIM works well.

The feature "call divert" (see attached screenshot) does not work. I tried it even with "easy destinations" like "Germany landline": dialling US, Liechtenstein and German mobile number - divert does not work.

calling to the German Number costs as calling to an Eplus number?

No, this number range is Vistream, so many operators have a different pricing for these numbers.

Chris

do you know if betamax (dellmont) voip provider accepts calling this Vistream number or is barred?

vistream subscribers are reachable through Betamax/Dellmont flawlessly and calls are billed like to any other German mobile network.

ok that's good. because Betamax/Dellmont barred access last week to all UK-netwrok cloud9 mobile numbers...

do you know if I supply them (freetele) with my corporate EU VAT number if they'll abolish the vat charge as abroadband does?

I couldn't find much info on their website, is the setup of the sim pretty straight forward?

Like inquisitor, I didn't find the 5gb data option on their website either; is it available ?

Hello,
FreeTimeTelecom is in "status nascendi", the main aspect seems to me voice telephony at the moment, but Data will follow.
International Data Prices are extrem high and there are less to no ways to come around this.
Voice calls can be reduced by the "Call Back Thing" extremely, but mobile data not. The network operators argue that setting up the new faster data networks, backbones etc. is cost intensive.

The setting up of the sim card is simple.
Setup your own account on freetimetele.com - they need a working e-mail-adress and a password (don't forget it :-)
Then they ask for the SIM-Card-ID-Number and the SIM-Card-PUK (printed on the card'sframe. That's all.

You then can choose from a list of numbers and get the following:

German Number +49 1570 360 xxxx (located in the network of "Telogic" (formerly known as "vistream" - see Home - Telogic or - Germany - Telogic )

Liechtensteinnumber +423 661 00 xxxx

Remark that in both numbers xxxx are the same numbers.

e.g. +423 661 00 1234 and +49 1570 360 1234

the US-Number (+1 940 yyy yyyy) is different.

I've tested the card in spain and can say the following now:

The german IMSI works only in Germany (Display shows "Germany") in all other countries the Liechtenstein SIM works (Display showing "Global"), the US I couldn't test yet, but I would assume, that in the US the Liechtenstein IMSI wouldn't work, but the US.

you should note that the SIM-Card works with sophisticated form of SIM Tool Kit Application, which could crash the software of some older Nokia phones (don't worry, the phone will work with your previous sim cards again :-)

My nephew is using an freetimetele SIM in Germany. Their customer support said that calls to the US number (ringing in Germany) was only 9 euro cents a minute. Are you sure about the 14 cents?

I think with those € 0.14/min Henning Gajek was referring to inbound calls to a FTT subscriber's American number while staying in Germany. In contrast your nephew was probably informed about the price for outgoing calls from Germany to the US.
The FTT website gives a different price for outgoing calls from Germany to the US of € 0.18/min and further still lacks any information about the difference in pricing for inbound calls on the American, German and Liechtenstein numbers.
The product is great but the brand and the website (design and incomplete content) are horrible.

German MVNE Telogic (fomerly known as vistream), from whom SIM&WEB and Freetime Telecom obtain their German numbers as well as the German IMSI (which forms the basis for coverage in Germany), has declared insolvency as of July 25th. Customers of solomo, Telogic's prepaid brand, report failure of many services including reachability from other networks and failure of Internet access as well as outgoing calls (see Telogic in vorläufiger Insolvenz: vistream-Nachfolger abgeklemmt - teltarif.de News). Against this background I fear FTT customers are also affected and so will have no or limited service in Germany.

At the moment I can make only outgoing calls with the German number.

In the meantime German VoIP provider sipgate who had a service called "sipgate one" that consisted of a mobile number from Telogic that could be forwarded to any other German mobile or landline number as well as to a Skype account free of charge, recommend in their blog to immediately export these numbers to another mobile provider. This doesn't sound like there is a chance service to be ever restored.

I have a Sipgate DE DID (not FreeTime Tele). Am I in danger of losing it?

No, sipgate's normal VoIP service based on geographical DIDs is not affected. It's just "sipgate one", a service that was only available to invited users as part of their beta test and was based on mobile numbers from the insolvent MVNO Telogic.

Sipgate offered its standard VOIP landline numbers to the US market under the name Sipgate One as well:

sipgate one