Greetings,

Well, I was intrigued by the "Global" card mentioned the other day on offer from a company in the UK called "0044". While the price is a little on the high side for the SIM (?34.99 - possibly due to a mark up by 0044) the service is certainly interesting as the rates for calls / sms are competitive and incoming calls are free in all the places I frequently travel in Europe. The card I received is actually from a company called CallKeyOne who are based in the Isle of man (www.callkey.com). The support seems to be good as they replied to a question I sent by email at 20:30 on a Friday within 20 minutes!

I've been using Riing (UM) for over a year and it seems to perform perfectly well with only the occasional glitch but the one disadvantage for me personally was the cost involved in people calling me. To keep things simple for clients and friends I gave them a UK based "personal" number from a company called Flextel which allows free forwarding to mobile phones pretty much anywhere in Europe. The downside of this is the cost for people to call me...GBP 0.35 / min 24hrs a day! Even if I handed out the Riing number most operators charge quite a bit to call the Liechtenstein number.

To combat the large cost of people calling me I've started diverting calls from my landline to my mobile when travelling which is ideal as I simply give my office number to everybody. However, the cost when using this with Riing was just too high to be economic. I currently use a UK based VOIP service called Voipfone and they charge GBP 0.27 /min to divert to Riing whereas diverting to the Isle of Man number issued by CallKey only costs me GBP 0.08 / min. I can even couple this with a UK freephone number for an additional GBP 0.04 / min and have anybody call me for free while I'm pretty much anywhere in Europe and it will cost me less than half the cost of receiving a regular roaming call with my UK Orange phone! Voipfone is particularly good as they have a system called "virtual PBX" that allows me to have several extensions and setup individual diverts on each one. This means I can have all calls to my geographical number ring my SIP phone at home, the office and also ring my Callkey mobile at the same time. If I'm at home or in the office I pickup the SIP phone and pay nothing but if I'm over in Belgium, France or Germany even I pickup the mobile & pay a few pence a minute.

The other thing I have setup might be of interest to people from the USA is a Washington number that forwards for free to my Voipfone extension via SIP - perfect audio quality and once again clients and friends in the USA can contact me wherever I am for little or no cost to them and I pay very little to receive the call. I haven't checked into it in much but I'm sure there will be ways to get geographical numbers in other European countries that forward via SIP to my extension. The main advantage of all this is it's all prepaid and can be setup within a matter of minutes by anybody. You don't even need to use a SIP phone to have the mobile forwarding bit setup.

So far I've found the bad points about the Callkey card are....

There is NO CALLER ID on incoming or outgoing calls - all show as Private Number. I've emailed support and they said they do not offer this service and have no plans to introduce it. While it's only a small problem it stops me using the Voipfone callback service in a simple way which would have given me very cheap calls and I miss seeing the numbers of missed calls. I can use the callback but it's a little complex...I have to go to a special webpage on my PDA, login, type in the Callkey number in one box, the number I want to call in the other and I receive a call. Complex - but at least I can get it to work.

The only other bad point I can see for the moment is how the phone rings when people call. The caller hears the ringing tone (UK style) a few seconds before the mobile actually rings. Initially I thought this meant the caller was charged even while the call is "ringing" but after testing it's not the case - charging starts only when the call is answered on the mobile. The problem is impatient people sometimes only allow a few rings before hanging up so if you're not quick in answering the phone then that will be a missed call with no caller ID.

I'd be interested if anybody else has used this card and to share experiences with regard to it's reliability in different countries etc.. I'll be conducting some more "real world" tests myself over the next few weeks.

:meh:
Michael

i expected some more tests... as in whether the prices were similar to the ones shown on the website, how well it roamed and stuff :bye2:

Yes, these are indeed the most important tests! I'll be back out of the UK next week so I'll be able to test it in France, Netherlands, Belgium, Luxembourg and Germany. However, on the face of it as the UK mainland is a "roaming" country and it works fine on all the networks things look like they could be ok.

The prices within the UK seem to actually be slightly lower than the ones quoted on 0044's website. They are actually calculated in USD but 0044 quote them in GBP and it seems the exchange rate used by 0044 is slightly pessimistic. For example I made a 1 minute test call to a UK landline number which was charged at USD 0.15 (~GBP 0.859) which is ever so slightly lower than the rate of GBP 0.09 quoted on 0044's website. I know that buying credit on the credit card will give a poorer exchange rate but this initial test seems to show that the 0044 rates are pretty much correct for that section. The exact charging system seems to charge the call in 2 chunks..one relating to the country roaming in and the other for the termination. Here is a copy of what the user area of the website said about the call:

From United Kingdom [GBR] 447624xxxxxx 0:01:00 US$ 0.1100
To +44131xxxxxxx +44131xxxxxxx 0:01:00 US$ 0.0352
Cost: US$ 0.15

I'll make some more calls over the coming days and post the actual charged rates from the website control panel thing at callkey. However, as mentioned some more thorough tests are needed but for me the incoming possibilities are certainly interesting.

I got one recently, and took it abroad 2 weeks ago. It roams on any UK network, but chooses O2 for preference. Travelling through the countries ticex names plus Austria and Slovakia, I didn't try to register with every single network in every single country, but I didn't find any where it wouldn't.

I had read a comment here that it wasn't always reachable from O2, so I called it with my O2 phone several occasions in each country and it always rang. It's noticeable with both phones next to you that the caller hears about 3 rings before the other phone rings; this applies to calls in both directions. I made 3 calls home to UK from Slovakia Germany and France. A 10.2 minute call from France cost $2.11 + tax, about ?1.45 total.

The tariffs on the CallKey site are only available on secure pages, are quoted in dollars, and probably without VAT, as an initial balance of US $10.13 became $8.62 (= ?5). There are some errors on the 0044 site; typical call costs to landlines are in the range 20c to 25c. Mobile destinations are relatively expensive at around 60c, but I think I've found what could be a cheaper workaround. There is a cheaper rate of around 35c for calling UK 08 numbers and there are a wealth of especially 0871 callthrough numbers that could be used for many international mobiles, so this should save a typical 25c plus tax. I've called like this about 5 times, but not answered to see what the call quality was like - probably difficult to judge anyway with a phone to each ear and hearing your own voice

As ticex suggests, there may be cheaper callback possibilities with other providers, but some of these may be more tricky due to no caller ID at present. I suggested another possibility to someone here, and have two similar ideas - think about using callback and call diversion together. Or use web triggers, either on a PDA or via gprs ...?

Voipfone in fact has UK 0844 numbers on its tariff at 5p, and some of these can reach UK mobiles at the moment, but these are promotional offers; so for now it would be possible to use Voipfone with this SIM to call landlines for 9.6p, UK mobile for 13.5p, other mobiles for 18.5p per minute. They have some cheaper rates that are almost certainly tariff mistakes, but with certain other tariffs elsewhere it may be possible to make calls for about 4p per minute, or less. I really doubt if this would work though, but more playing about required.

It is rather odd that many companies count IoM mobile as a UK one without even knowing it, but other cheap call providers have no coverage there at all. From the UK, the cheapest way to call there has risen twice recently from 1p to 4p per minute; promotional price as I said, but maybe 18185's 5p weekdays, 2p weekends will last

was the first charge for a standard landline call to the uk ? i ask because by phoning a calling card number (0208************) i can then call for less than half a pence a minute everywhere in europe

Also have you tested any calls where the differences (as in prices to call landlines and mobiles) were really obvious ??? thanks a lot


both Andy and Ticex... Great work

Whilst you could do that with the calling card, there will only be pretty marginal savings on some destinations, as the variation is only about 3c for common European landlines and they will probably be a bit more on the calling card as well

eg calling in France to -
USA .206, UK .206, A .222, B .234, CZ .226, DK .222, EE .238, F .214, D .214, H .238, I .230, FL .278, NL .218, PL .230, SP .222
- these are default landline tariffs, and most but not all capital cities plus a few others eg Antwerp, Barcelona, Milan, are slightly cheaper

If your UK calling card has 0800 access (but not 08081), then the rates drop by 3.2c, but your card provider will probably charge more. The same lower tariffs apply to what they call UK VoIP, which I assume without asking yet will be SIP peering arrangements, but probably not Skype.

From UK itself, the outgoing rates are all lower, starting at 13.2c, or 0800 or VoIP from 10c. I know that some people here have UK SIP numbers, so that might interest them.

Your calling card idea could be useful for replacing the higher CallKey tariffs for foreign mobiles, or an 0871 number would be similarly priced, as I suggested.

Apart from the CallKeyOne SIM itself, their callback can be used separately, by filling in web form, sending sms or email. Then, the cheapest tariffs start at about 4.5c between landlines - all these prices are plus tax of course. I noticed that their rate for Liechtenstein has only a default of 9.52c (7.28c to a UK VoIP number) ... how to start the call though ... the sms method only calls back the number it's sent from, and Riiing's sms rate is high. If you have a facility to send email or webform, that could be useful but then you may have other VoIP possibilities anyway. I'm wondering about wap/gprs trigger possibilities as DRN has suggested before. Maybe they would consider a trigger portal number, but if they haven't so far ...and you somehow feel they wouldn't be keen to support a rival SIM.

Other VoIP providers would have similar possibilities of course. Voipfone as already mentioned has free UK 0800 numbers, VoIP peering, and some other interesting possibilities.

Certainly some interesting ideas floating around. I'm glad to hear from andy that this sim seems to roam ok in different countries as this is the main reason for having it!

I did a small experiment today and was able to setup a callback from voipfone using their "PDA" login (Voipfone Link)via the WAP browser on a Nokia 6230. Even though this system does work it is far from ideal as it involves entering a username, password, phone number for callback and then finally the number you want to call. If any of you guys are like me then you'll have so many mobile numbers just even remembering the number you want the callback to ring to is a challenge in itself! I saved the username and password in the wallet function in my WAP browser but it still involves a fair bit of typing to setup the callback. My concern is it's just too complex to use in the real world. If the IE on my windows smartphone or PDA had the facility to save usernames etc.. like the PC version then this would make things a lot easier. Perhaps there is a plugin or something?

When experimenting with the voipfone callbacks I noticed another good feature is the CLID sent is that of my landline number. When combined with call diversion it means people who miss my call or whatever can simply call me back.

:thumbup:

I just used the CallKey callback to connect my Riiing number to my home phone. The published tariff is 9.52c. I was charged 53c for 48 seconds, which is 65.52 cents per minute. I'm pretty confident this is an isolated error/omission, but I'll see what they say. Doesn't look like the plan to use this callback with Riiing has much future though.

Oh dear - that's a pity :thumbdown:

It would have been particularly "interesting" to use a callback system from one international sim provider with one of their rivals and have the call end up cheaper! For some reason I would have found that especially satisfying :P

andy why did you do that for :blink:


BTW, with o2 i have no problem diverting my calls to an international number (including riing)... it might be a hassle but you can divert your bt line to your mobile phone and your mobile phone to your RIIING card ... it will still work out
cheaper in the end :thumbup:

Because I was hoping for this tariff - landlines from 6.4p, UK mobile 9.8p, other mobile 14.8p.

As ticex says, it's a bit odd that I was looking at a different callback with the CallKey SIM, and CallKey callback with Riiing.

So for now it's back to the ideas from earlier - simpler to make the calls as I could only do the latter one on the website so far, whereas the earlier one has two other chances - sms or their call-me-back button (well just an idea - I've saved it, but not tried yet) - and maybe CallKey will turn on the caller ID some day.


<span style='font-size:7pt;line-height:100%'>Thanks for the call divert idea to Riiing, but that costs 17p a minute from O2; I was on 7p until Enlinea's rate went up. 8p is possible CBW to Riiing but I think you can only get an 800 number which would confuse people with the announcement. And there are cheaper calls available from UK to IoM mobiles than to Riiing.</span>

I've been working on this system the past few days and thought I'd share what I've managed to get setup.

The problem I had with using the voipfone internet trigger was that I always had to type my callkey number into the "calling from" box and it was a pain remembering it. Well, I found a workaround - I added an extra virtual PBX extension (number 202) into my account and have that set to always divert to my callkey mobile (costs 8.4p /min). I login to the Voipfone "PDA" callback page then type the number I want to call in the top box and simply the diversion extension "202" in the 2nd box. A few seconds later the mobile rings and when I answer the person I'm calling's phone rings. The smart thing is when I hang the call up the voipfone callback page immediately refreshes and has 2 fresh boxes for my next callback. Total call cost to a UK landline = 9.5 pence / min (+/- 13.7 euro cent). It's about the same cost to call landlines in most of Europe, USA and all the other "cheap" destinations. I've tested it quite extensively and it does always seem to work perfectly. 100% call quality and the caller ID sent is that of my UK landline number which if people call back will ring straight through to the mobile. To further save money on incoming calls I've completely deactivated the voicemail on the callkey line so when a diverted call rings for 30 seconds voipfone stop the diversion and instead send it to my voicemail box. This then sends the messages via email as an attachment which I can pickup directly on my internet phone.

To make this work I'm using my SPV smartphone with the Wind mega-no-limit sim inside and the callkey sim in a 2nd phone so it's a 2-handset setup. As I'd probably have both phones with me this isn't much inconvenience and allows for pan european coverage at the same low price. I think this price is hard to beat and as I said before, for me personally it's a major advantage to be able to divert my landline calls for such a low price.

There is another option where you send an SMS to voipfone from the callkey handset but I prefer the internet version as it saves the cost of an sms. As such I've not tested this sms method yet but I'll try it over the next days and report back.

Now, another interesting part in this is voipfone apparantly are planning to introduce the facility to have incoming numbers from outside the UK. Also, if you can prove you own a specific number and fax them the paperwork they will put an option in your account to send that caller ID on outgoing calls. I've put in a request for them to add my callkey number which would be handy but I guess they will also allow an international (non-uk) caller ID which could be useful for other people.

I had another idea, untried as yet. I've saved my Voipfone call-me-back button as a wap/gprs bookmark on another phone. If I divert incoming Voipfone calls to the IoM SIM, then I'm hoping to type the number I want to call in the single box ...

Another choice would be to use call diversion with a different phone, and use that caller ID to trigger the callback.

Then for the ongoing part of the call, there are interesting callthrough possibilities as I already said - 0844, 0871 numbers, meaning many parts of the world including mobiles could be called for 9.5 or 13.4 or 18.4p per minute. I'm waiting to hear on another forum if someone actually tried 0844 over VoIP.

On the Voipfone forum, someone asked about other numbers, and was referred to IPkall, which will issue a free US number (in Washington state) which can be pointed straight at your Voipfone SIP address. Might give our American friends some ideas ...

Hi Andy,

This is an interesting idea about the call-me-back button. I hadn't actually thought of this option and this certainly would simplify things. I'll have a play around with this over the next few days and see what can be done.

I've tried the 0844 numbers myself and while they do work the one problem is with the specific one I found via moneysavingexpert's website which allowed calling UK mobiles. The call quality really wasn't so good but the 0871's to mobiles in Poland, France and Germany were better but not without quality problems on occasion. I think this needs some more testing.

Finally, I must have read the exact post you are referring to on the voipfone forum! I've setup one of these IPkall numbers and given it to friends and clients in the USA. It really does work perfectly when forwarding to voipfone. The only minor issue is the incoming caller ID is lost and the call simply comes up as "Asterisk" with the IP address of the American server - not a big deal though.

I think there are certainly some interesting possibilities with this combination. For the moment I've decided to put this callkey sim down as a "tester" because it's not really proven until more of us use it extensively in different countries. It does seem to work 100% so let's just hope it stays like this as it's a rather good setup!

I used to use a product called Mint for years then found other cheaper roaming services like United Mobile. However none really gave me a service I could use to receive calls on, simply because giving out the number was too expensive. I then came across a product called Callblue Gsm (www.callblue.com <http://www.callblue.com/> ); they offer a UK Mobile number which was great as now I could give this out to everyone I needed to call me.

What I found about callblue is:

1. they offer a UK number which was great for me and was really cheap for people to call me. I noticed that if you have cross-network minutes available on your existing UK mobile phone, then you could call callblue and the call was free.
2. they have several plans to suit my needs, including plans to offer free incoming calls across Europe while I roam.
3. they have low roaming prices in many destination, I recently traveled to South Africa and used the service to place calls from there, it really saved me a bundle
4. they have good customer services, as I too was confused as to when the call gets billed, but I received a reply back within half hour of sending my email; they have an online support center which helped answer all my general questions

when using my existing Orange Mobile from the UK while roaming, I noticed my monthly bills were around ?500 per month, now they are a fraction of that. J

i also used to use skype out service to place calls from my computer, but noticed that they did not have great quality to mobile numbers, and then I used callblue and their quality was really good. I then signed onto callblue voip product, they have a pc to phone software that I can use from my computer to place calls when I don?t want to use my mobile. The rates are very reasonable and quality is good as well. A typical call of 10-mins to UK cost me; $0.325, which was around 17p.

I went to callkey?s website, but there is nothing there and did not seem that impressive. The rates are not straight forward and did not feel like I wanted to risk buying something where I have no idea what my costs are.

From France I paid $0.43 per minute which worked out to be around 22p per minute which was something compared to my existing Orange calls of ?1.50 per minute.

I?ve also found it very helpful to use an online voicemail service where I can forward my landline calls to and receive my voicemails as attachments to my voicemail. This way I can always be in touch. It?s like being in the UK, only not.

I think I will stick to this, as having a uk number really helps out.

Ah, Mint! A blast from the past that one...

Interesting...I hadn't heard of this "callblue" service before. However, I notice to have free incoming calls outside the UK and within Europe you have to pay a monthly subscription of $19.99 otherwise they charge.

Personally, I think the callkey (0044) offer is better value and UM has the proven reliability but it is still interesting to see another company launch a package like this.

What was Mint? I googled a little but still don't know. Was it a brand for Swisscom International SIM?

I'm not quite sure whether to suggest that this Callblue product deserves a separate thread, or whether it might be an alternative brand for CallKey or is another IoM SIM.

Comparing the 0044 and Callblue destination lists shows up several differences, but then looking at the Geodesa site ticks off most of the exceptions. The only ambiguities are Aruba, Bosnia & Hercegovina and St Kitts/Nevis/Anguilla.

However, our new member has pointed mainly to prices, and it must be said that at the moment the Callblue rates of 51c or 61c per minute look rather higher than 20 to 30c from CallKey. I am at a loss to understand this remark
The Callblue listed rate from France is 51c, not 43c, that is about 28p, and it is not clear whether this includes VAT or not. And to call a UK or other European mobile from Europe costs 79c to $1.01 which is only marginally cheaper than using O2 contract roaming at 58p or Orange at 70p. The quoted ?1.50 from France on an Orange UK contract is fictitious, and as a result I am slightly sceptical about these remarks.

As ticex and I discussed earlier in the thread, CallKey's tariff for France to European landlines is $0.206 plus VAT, = 14p, and there are prospects of making cheaper arrangements at about 9.5p. It is true that CallKey's rates to mobiles are not quite so great, but they are still a lot less than Callblue, and again, there are other callback services that would charge from ?0.30 apart from my idea around 19p.

Is the call forwarding to voicemail to email using this SIM, or a separate product with the company? There are other services with free voicemail and fax to email using ordinary area codes, and the call forwarding would be cheaper than forwarding to a mobile.

andy sorry but i am getting confused now...

the sim card we are discussing is it from 0044.co.uk or from geodesa.com ?

thanks


because the prices i see to call from France to UK/russia/belgium landlines are 0.49? a minute !!!

can you provide a link to the call calculator you are using ? thanks

I think it's the same SIM from both places (and others)

The CallKey tariffs are on secure pages when accessing the account, so you'll just have to believe it for now, sorry. A text message comes after each call with the cost - $2.11 for 10.2 minutes from France

Your word is good enough for me andy :beer: but the 0044.co.uk calculator
simply states very different numbers so i am confused.
When they said 2.11$ did they really bill you 2.11$ ??

So tell me to get the same callkey service (including txts after every
call), where do i need to get the sim card from 0044.co.uk ???
The geodesa sim website shows different prices....

BTW have you spoken to 0044.co.uk if they are going to release a pay monthly
service because the idea of topping up is just too far in my mind.

Also please check the "orange uk" thread in Europe section, see if you can help figure out what is orange up to... thanks :thumbup:

andy :bye2:

I haven't asked about automated monthly payment; there is a fee for this but I don't know how much. Payment either by credit card standing order or on account (subject to status), set up on CallKey site.

I don't know whether dealers will take on some functions and details may alter, and whether that may lead to apparent differences (including prices) between what agents promote.

I've used the Voipfone callback via different methods, albeit pretty briefly, not yet the pda page though. The gprs web call-me-back button idea works as does sms and dialling their portal number using a diverted phone.

I've drafted a couple of replies for that Orange thread .... I half believe it and am half-sceptical at what the exact detail might be.

Hi everybody,

I've been away travelling the past weeks and haven't had much time to get online. Anyway, I just thought I'd share my extended roaming experiences with using the callkey sim in combination with voipfone callback. I've made/received over 9 hours of calls now and there was only 3 occasions it let me down. The rates via voipfone really do work out well - outgoing calls to UK landlines (for example) have been costing me 10p/min all in when triggered via the web callback, outgoing CID is shown as my office landline and it's all done by the second.

I've found this a really powerful setup, it has saved me a substantial amount and kept me in complete contact wherever I've been. All people have had to do is call my regular Edinburgh landline number (now on voipfone) and it has rang the phone on my desk in the office in Edinburgh, office in Brussels and the callkey mobile at the same time. If I'm in the office in either location I simply pick up the SIP phone and pay nothing but if I'm out I pickup the mobile and pay 9p/min. There have been a few issues on the occasional day where voipfone had problems with the routing provider to 07624 numbers but they were all fixed within 24 hours.

I've used the setup in UK, Germany, Poland, Switzerland, France, Belgium, Luxembourg, Netherlands and Spain. Aside from the few hours out of the past months I noticed the voipfone routing problem the callkey card has only had 1 hiccup. In the Netherlands last weekend all received calls on the Sunday night were being dropped after 3-4 seconds no matter which network was selected. I sent an email to callkey and they replied within 45 mins at 1:30am on Sunday to apologise, said it was an isolated incident and would be rectified within 24 hours - impressive support!

I've made a couple of calls via callkey themselves and the sim application type callback system works fine on my Motorola V3 but not on my latest firmware Nokia 6230 - it just shows "call not allowed". However, my main interest was to use the previously disussed voipfone callback web trigger. I've had my wind sim card with the mega-no-limit in an Orange SPV I picked up for ?50 and I've found it really very simple to trigger callbacks in the mobile Internet Explorer, it's even easy enough to do while driving - although I'm not sanctioning such a dangerous effort in today's health and safety world :P

The thing I found really handy was by deactivating the voicemail on the callkey sim all calls I didn't answer through the voipfone PBX which rang to my mobile went back to voipfone free of charge and to their voicemail system. If somebody left a message it was then emailed to me directly (possibility of paid for SMS alerts on this) and my SPV retrieved it for little cost in combination with the WIND sim. I was then able to listen to the messages directly as a WAV within the SPV email client and even read the callers ID in the email body. This really has slashed costs - If I'd been using a standard mobile I'd have paid for the diversion, roaming costs and then the roaming per minute rate to hear the voicemail but with my way it costs next to nothing.

Anyway, to sum up I really am very very impressed with this setup as finally I can be in complete contact wherever I am in Europe for the same cost as if I'm back home in the UK. I'll test out the service for reliability over another month or so before I commit completely but these initial tests look good :D

Andy, have you been using it much? Any problems?

Thanks again for all the tips and advice on the forums - without all this I wouldn't have got this setup.

Just to let you know my set-up. I have Callkey clone card from Geodesa. At the moment I use VOIP providers. For local Prague Number I use VoipDiscount.com, which forwards all calls to my local London number subscribed from Skype at Euro 30 per year. From this one, all calls are redirected to my +447624****** number at Euro 0.017 per minute. Sometimes the quality is not the best, but until now I haven't any problem to understand when on the phone. :bye2:

It would be simplier to you if there were Czech SkypeIn numbers...

Be careful - this SkypeOut rate to IoM mobiles (=UK landline) is definitely a Skype's mistake. They can raise it any moment!

Thx for your comments Przemolog. I know about the issue with wrong Skype rate. And I do check it almost everyday. The same applies for SkypeIn numbers. You have a bit of advantage in the Poland. But I don't mind this set-up as still do have some business in UK. :thumbup:

I clearly haven't used it as much as you.

The only odd thing I found is that using CallKey and Voipfone together, the hang-up signal doesn't seem to be signalled and then the call is default ended 60 seconds after the called party hangs up (so make sure you hear it happen) - rather puzzling, and probably not possible to ask CK why this happens ...

It took me quite a long time to notice that it was only happening on this and not with my O2 SIM, when to begin with I was looking at 5 different callback triggers (O2 dial to portal, sms, wap/gprs, web form, pda version of webform, most with and without diversion from O2). However, when the O2 is diverted to Callkey, then the call is correctly ended when hanging up the CallKey phone


I'm interested in callback service which lets you use other providers - CallKey itself has a zero tariff for UK VoIP. But maybe the Finarea companies can't be used for both legs, eg for free calls between landlines; it could be interesting for FL mobiles as well though ..... more playing around to do

I have been playing around with the Finarea (voipdiscount in particular) and diversion to my UM FL mobile. While the outgoing rates for routing to the UM were quite good and Finarea provided a geographical Edinburgh number for free the call quality for received calls on the UM were really bad. Also for some unknown reason the incoming CLID was some German mobile...bizarre!

For the moment I'm going to carry on testing the voipfone/callkey combo but I am a little concerned at the very occasional reliability issues on voipfone's side so will keep my eyes open for a backup.

you could also try callback to that Edinburgh number, if you can sometimes put up with the quality

One question about 0044 product: on their site they write the billing is done at 6 seconds increments, and not the usual 60/60 like almost all the other providers (including the other IoM based ones). Can you confirm that?

Geodesa is not 60/60 either:

http://www.globalsimcard.co.uk/moreinfo.htm

Billing / Help:

? 30 Second minimum billing, 6 seconds thereafter
? No surcharges, no minimums and no connect fees

Yes. 30/06 as Przemolog says, same for all versions I would think. But you say some IoM based ones are 60s units - Callblue maybe?

I can confirm, what Przemolog and Andy already confirmed. Geodesa and 0044.co.uk shold be 30/6 billing. GT-SIM prepaid 60/60.

According to their websites, 60/60 are: gt-sim, Callblue and Talafone.
AFAIR Globalsim Holiday/Business from Globalsim.net was also announced to be 60/60.

The CallKey SIM also allows you to have voicemail that is accessable from the website as well as sent by email and also notified by SMS at the same time. You can also forward calls to pretty much any other number for free and, if that number does not answer the CallKey voicemail kicks in - some interesting options to play with.

Caller ID is promised as an option in the future

On the CallKeyOne SIM, if a call is not hung up immediately try using '##' to force hangup. The lack of hangup is related to poor signalling from the carriers. The closedown of the call by itself if done by silence detection which should backdate the billing to the first point it first heard nothing - if that makes sense ;)

Aha, thanks - I shall try this soon

Let's be clear - I didn't have this hang-up problem at all with the CallKey phone on its own, so I have no complaint against them at all.

It was only when used with a different callback, and then did not occur after callback was used to the forwarded O2 phone received on the IoM number. I'll mess about with it a bit later on; it would be good if it works, as if they later introduce caller ID, then less need for O2 as well to have the range of callback methods or protect this hang-up issue.
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Also worth bearing in mind that the CallKey SIM is not primarily SMS triggered but USSD. The manual string for dialling a number using USSD is *125*1*+{Int Format number}# this also works for the various shortcodes. This helps in Nokia handsets that have problems doing this by themselves.

Should this fail then the system should fail over to SMS automatically but the manual send string (should you be interested) is *1*+{Int Format Number}# which is sent to one of a number of SMS access points. This is useful in places like the UAE where USSD is blocked in a way that fools the automated retry.

I have just noticed that telestial is selling another globals sim with a UK number. It seems to be callkey ... but not quite. They call it the AMBASSADOR

Anyone know if there is a new Global sim card on the market?

http://www.telestial.com/sim_cards.php