Has anyone here heard of or used:

http://www.yackiemobile.com ?

It appears you can choose either a U.S., French, or UK number.
Their rates for outgoing seem reasonable and claim they can be used in 160 countries. Who are they and how does this all work. It appears that outgoing calls make use of a callback system like United Mobile. How can they issue numbers from 3 dif. countries?

...mike

The service looks like a VOIP service rather than a mobile service. Yahoo took over the old dialpad service. It is my understanding that since they took it over, you lost the ability to connect via sip and could only connect via their proprietary software. While it is not a bad offer, take a look at voipbuster.com, voipstunt.com, and voipdiscount before leaping. For many people this is a better offer.

I see no free incoming calls... presumably not even in the country "adopted" (i.e. the prefix that you have chosen: US, UK, France "or any other number from our list of available numbers" (???))

Effendi/AndreA: don't you think it could be useful to have a post (maybe pinned) containing just a list of all the international prepaid sim offers on the internet? There seem to be so many new ones coming up e.g. yackiemobile or just call28.com - a google ad on prepaidgsm - mentioned by Przemolog earlier this month - but I had to "search" the forum to find out it had been already spotted.

Yes, I was thinking about almost the same (restricted to very numeruous Manx sims only). I agree it's an excelllent idea - it's getting really a lot of this stuff :D. I also think that the list should contain also rebranded SIMs with the same rates (like e.g. Eco World which is in fact a relabelled UM).

As to Yackiemobile itself, my first impressions:
1) It seems to be the first international SIM to beat the Hop rates in the USA and Canada (especially on incoming calls) - but not in Cuba and India :P
2) The coverage seems to be similar to 09 but there's also a roaming with something named "Satellite communication B" ??? :unsure:
3) The description of the menu based calling and compatibility nakes me think that it uses UM/09 technoiogy rather than "Manx" one
4) I think that there must be a separate SMS number - I doubt if SMSes can be forwarded from "official" landline numbers to a "real" SIM number :unsure:

It's a good idea, no problem, but everybody can start that thread and then we can just put it stiky on this forum... I mean, I'm a little busy these days, so if you want to start the hard job... :D

Hello,
i just tried to call one of their french numbers that appear in the ordering list to find out if its a mobile or landline number. It picks up at once and plays music (at the moment something from Genesis) ;-)

As the numbers they are offering are really landlines (checked the number range) the incoming call costs of 24 us-cent can only be used to cover the forwarding costs of the virtual sim-card numbers.

In total i think they have a good offer.


Chris

So, you think that if you called a "real" SIM number instead of US/UK/FR landline forwarding number, the incoming call would be free (at least in countries with 24 cents inbound rate - there are some more expensive!)

Well, they could do it for free but i guess they wont.

i just found sth interesting in the user guide:

"Incoming Call:

* There are two options to receive calls:
o Via land line
o Via your homeland GSM by using "divert calls" feature from your land line number.
* When the phone rings, answer it normally by pressing "send."
* When caller ID is activated, press #1 to receive the call.
* To activate caller ID service, contact Yackie Mobile Support: *606 From Yackie Mobile SIM."

That makes it look very suspicious again.

Chris

If they do, it might mean free incoming calls in US and Canada :).

"Via your homeland GSM by using "divert calls" feature from your land line number."
Suspicious or not - I don't understand it :)

I would say ""Via your homeland GSM by using "divert calls" feature TO your land line YACKIEMOBILE number.". If I could divert incoming calls from my "regular" mobile phone to Yackie, this might make any sense :unsure:

Uhm, i dont understand it either ;)
I sent a email to their coustomer support (if it arrives - the actual adress that was written on their website does not exist). Lets see if their reply lights up the darkness a bit

Chris

I also sent them an email at the same time i made the first post here. Still no response about 24 hours later. I asked them to explain their confusing statement about how incoming calls are handled.
I first heard of this outfit via post in Howardforums.com Here is what was posted:
(I also sent an email to the "General Manager" who posted this. No response either.)
I can't understand why these "startups" ignore the very people (we early adopters) they need to start a "buzz" about new offerings.
==
[From - http://howardforums.com/showthread.php?t=3...5&page=15&pp=15 ]

I don't know if this is the right place to post this. But if it is about Global Prepaid SIM cards then I cannot be too wrong...

Yackie Telecom Corp. (www.yackie.com), VOIP provider connecting 135.000 households is launching Yackie Mobile (www.YackieMobile.com).

Yackie Mobile SIM card ensures the lowest pricing for the business traveler anywhere in the world, while maximizing convenience. Pay no more additional roaming charges to your mobile operator.

As an alternative to current cellular operators offering international roaming, Yackie Mobile provides true freedom to mobile roamers with a cost-saving solution on inbound and outbound communications (Local, Long Distance and International) while abroad.

Outgoing minutes priced from USD 0.39 - on calls from abroad
International on net calls - using Yackie Mobile website you can call worldwide from USD 0.39
Easy Recharge - via Yackie Mobile homepage at your individual budget
Global Coverage - in more than 160 countries
Prepaid - no monthly fees, no contracts, no minimum usage requirements
FREE Advanced Voice Mail services
FREE INCOMING SMS while roaming
Conference calls and 3 way calls
Call recording
Best online account management. You can manage your account, view your call logs - incoming, outgoing and SMS
Send an SMS via your customer panel on Yackie Mobile anywhere in the world
No connection fee

For more information please visit our website www.YackieMobile.com .

Florian SEROUSSI
General Manager

About Yackie Telecom Inc.,

Established in 2003, Yackie Telecom Corporation USA provides a complete, feature-rich Voice over Internet Protocol (VoIP) and PC network system that allows small- and medium-sized businesses to make a low-cost, no-risk transition to VoIP - at their own pace and without disruption to existing operations. Yackie offers a powerful combination of traditional and Internet-telephone capabilities that enables customers to improve productivity and to save money. Yackie Mobile is a division of Yackie Telecom Corporation aiming to promote mobile low cost roaming solutions for individuals and corporates. For more information, visit http://www.yackie.com and http://www.yackiemobile.com.

If i have time i'll call one of their many phone numbers and see if the people there will tell us something.

The company structure is quite weird too.

head office in the USA,
R&D in Panama
The Yackie Telco Group is registered on St. Vincent & The Grenadines.

geez.

Chris

I went ahead and tried calling. Results are as described in the copy of the email I sent them - below:

===

Was referred to your web site. but:

1. Never had a response to an email i sent to you nearly 3 days ago inquiring about your service.
2. Tried calling your 8003602031 number. Got a weird recording saying "my balance is too low" and was immediately disconnected.
3. Tried calling your +442071830360 number and got a recording saying "extension xxx is unavailable and please leave a msg.". No company name was given, so i don't know if that was even your company.
4. Tried calling +19054810174 and the same thing happened.

In cases 3 and 4 above there were 5 to 10 seconds of dead air before hearing the recording. No ringing tone at all.

Thank you.

I forgot to add that calling their fax number did NOT connect to a fax but sounded like it reached the same answering machine as above.

Hello,
today i got a reply from them for a email i sent them some days ago.
I asked about the incoming calls and the virtual numbers as well as on the VAT procedure. Here's the answer:

Chris

I, too, got a reply today - Sunday - a major 3 day holiday weekend in the U.S. He apologized for the delay in answering and said they were overwhelmed by responses when their web site went up.
Can you, or anyone, explain in simple language how this works? It appears you get a landline number which some how is tied to the SIM card.
Some guessing here. "Yackie", it would appear, also runs a VOIP service in the U.S. My guess is the number they assign is in the pool from their VOIP service - which is why they also have UK and French numbers available like other VOIP services. The "VOIP number" is then automatically forwarded to the SIM.
Question - what country/system is the SIM based? It must have its own discrete number.
If this system really works and has working VM available, it will definitely be quite useful. I wouldn't need Kall8 to forward calls when roaming overseas.
[I don't need a prepaid when in lst world countries since i am lucky enough to still be on an old T-Mobile plan where incoming is still about 29 to30?/min. I would still get something like Yackie for outgoing since I still pay about 70? to $1 for calls back to U.S. and quite a bit even for local calls. Guess i should consider a callback service when in first world countries<G>. ] Much of my travel, tho, is to 3rd world places.

...mike

Hey, they can forward VOICE calls from landlines wherever they want but how about SMSes? I really doubt if you can send and SMS to a landline number and then it will be forwarded to a mobile network. I don't say it's technically impossible as there are many landline phones (even analog ones, not ISDN or something) nowadays with SMS capabilities so it shouldn't be a problem to forward an SMS to a mobile network instead of terminating it on the "landline". But what will happen on the "sending side" i.e. will any mobile operator transfer such an SMS to a landline (in any of the three countries) without losing it? My conclusion - IMHO this SIM number can't be so discrete if sending SMSes to Yackie is to be functioning in practice not theory only?

BTW, AFAIR Buytel used some kind of forwarding from landlines but it had also an "official" +423 663 number attached to the SIM. What was the way to send an SMS to Buytel SIMs - I guess not a landline :D.

And, in the end some thought OT about SMS and intermational SIMs.
So far, there are two SIMs for which SMS don't (or almost don't) work, namely Hop and 09. What do they have in common? IMHO their "official" numbers are not from the networks whose roaming agreements they use:
Hop: Monaco Telecom/Areeba Ghana
09: Viking Wireless Iceland(?)/Swisscom(?)
and this may cause SMS problems.

If Yackie is going to follow that way, I "smell" some SMS problems even if they weren't use landline numbers as "official"numbers :).

Hi,
we have such a system in germany too. The o2 "Genion" cards have a landline-number attached to their SIM-card as well as Vodafone "Home" and t-mobile "@-home".
So this is technically no problem.
You can receive calls on the landline or on the GSM-Number (receiving on the landline-number can be charged if you leave your "home" area - depends on your contract)- SMS are sent to the regular GSM-Number.

Technically you can send SMS to landline numbers too. In germany the network tries if the receiving phone is capable of reading SMS. Most modern phones can do so and also send SMS. If not you get a voicecall and the SMS gets read out by a computer voice.

But i think they will let you receive SMS on the mobile phone number as this would be much more easy to handle.

Chris.

Yes, sending SMS to landlines is possible in Poland too, but GSM to landline SMSes cost usually 5-6 times :thumbdown: more than regular SMSes, probably because of text2voice conversion and possible multiple attempts of delivery.
But the most important thing is that they cannot be sent abroad! So I think you're right that they must reveal the "secret" GSM number anyway :)

Hi Everyone,

I am new on the forum and I wish to introduce Yackie Mobile to the board. You have a lot of questions I will try to answer to most of them.

First Yackie Mobile is a division of Yackie Telecom Corp. USA as you may check here https://sos-res.state.de.us/tin/GINameSearch.jsp .

Yackie Telecom Corporation is mostly known for its Voip activity www.yackie.com based in Fort Lauderdale Florida.

Our customer service is located in St Vincent Grenadine.

Now back to www.YackieMobile.com our global roaming SIM card.

You can choose a DID for incoming call US, UK or French. All are landline numbers. The choosen number is assigned to the SIM card. It is not a VOIP number. It is a DID number assigned to the SIM card via SIP proxy (a bit technical- too technical for me ;) ).

You still have a physical mobile number for SMS. We are currently working on a solution for user to use his landline dedicated number as SMS number as well.

Incoming calls are direct to the phone. No operator, nothing. Just like any other regular phone.

For numbers on the website, I will check with our team. But I can assure you that everything will be fixed in the next hours. As for email, they are all received and answered. Sometimes with delays as we have received thousands of questions and we did not want to use non human answers.

Yackie Mobile SIM cards works like other competitors as mentioned by some members of this board. Although we have some differences :

- Choose your incoming number. we did not want to use an expensive to dial Lichtenstein or Estonian number. On the other hand, incoming calls are not FREE :lol:
- You can even choose several incoming numbers. Great if you always travel between 2 countries.
- Yackie Mobile SIM card covers 161 countries and more to come soon
- We have the lowest prices on outgoing calls. :thumbup:
- Free incoming SMS - Low price for outgoing SMS
- IVR available in EN/FR and SPANISH soon DE and IT.
- Advance voice mail

I will make the user guide clearer concerning incoming calls. We have received a lot of questions on how we handle incoming calls. The answer is once again :
incoming calls are going straight to the phone. Nothing to do, just answer once it rings. By the way we have a free vocal caller ID option. If the option is activated, once the phone rings you will get a vocal message saying : 'you have a new incoming from 12345678, to answer press 1 or 2 to forward to your voice mail'

It is A FREE OPTION. You choose if you want to use it or not.

I hope you will find there your answers. If you have more to ask, feel free to contact me at f.seroussi (@) yackie (dot) com as I may forget to check my PMs.

Thank you,

Florian

Hello and welcome to the board,
i just sent you a email with another question some minutes ago before finding you here. So you can ignore the email as the question was answered already in your post ;)

chris

No problem ;)

I will try to keep an eye on the board for comments...

Thanks

From what country is that physical number - just curious? And what operator is provides you roaming agreements? It's more than curiosity because in general international SMS interchange is possible only between roaming partners


After all I think that it's better to allow people to choose if they are to pay for their incoming calls or not - that's my European point of view :)

Not bad, but I'm not sure if for any origin-destination pair :whistle:

In some countries it's nothing unusual ;)

But don't you have "regular" caller ID (number shown on the phone display)?

+972 IL and roaming agreements from Orange.


Well we made this choice after 2 surveys conducted one in the UK and the other one in the US.


At Yackie Mobile it is FREE in any of 161 countries we cover

It depends on the network used. Sometime it does show, sometimes it does not. Whoever says it always does is not honest...

Cizake -
I think i speak for all of us here - we appreciate you coming on and fielding all the pointed questions.

I, for one, am willing to give this a try. Just came back from Costa Rica where i could have made use of your service. Next intl. trip isn't for a month.

My only question now would be the subjective one - how is the voice quality? It appears that when someone dials the U.S. number (or French or UK number) the call is routed via VOIP to the Israeli SIM which is then processed like a normal cel call. My only concern would be if there is a big loss in voice quality over the VOIP leg.

As an aside - altho you are based in Florida, all the U.S. numbers you have are based in Ohio :wacko: - a 567 area code.

The big advantage to me, anyway, is the fact i can simply forward calls to my Yackie U.S. number, thus eliminating my need to use something like Kall8 to forward to my intl. cel phone. That much more than compensates for paying the 24?/min for incoming calls you charge in most countries and even the 34 or 39? you charge in the high priced countries like India (34) or Nicarugua and Belize (39).
If you have a truly functional VM system - for me this service would be perfect. Much of my travel is to 3rd world countries. Even in lst world countries, as mentioned above, the fact callers dial a "local" number more than makes up for the "advantage" that some competitors claim to have by offering "free" incoming in dozens of countries. Calls to most all mobiles in the world are more than 24? via any LD carrier in the U.S.

If/when i do go ahead and use this service, I will forward home and office lines to my U.S. Cel which I will then forward to the Yackie Ohio number. If i forward directly to Ohio from landlines it would cost me 4.5?/min. Via cel, it will simply come out of my large bucket of min. which aren't being used anyway while on the road.

...mike

Hi Mike,

There is no loss in quality. In fact the local DID number called is assigned to the SIM - not 'redirected'. DIDs are stocked directly on the SIP server.

Like I wrote in an earlier post, we will soon offer a larger choice of DIDs including 60 different US area codes.

If you need a specific number not yet available on the website please email me and I will see what we can do.


;)

Florian

Is the +972 number made available to the end-user? I don't find it convenient to route incoming calls to the US just to have them sent back to Israel over IP for TDM termination. I'd rather give out a standard +972 mobile number (as long as it's not in the Palestine or Jawall range). Termination to such numbers is quite inexpensive.

Also, are calls made directly to the +972 number still charged the $0.24/minute redirect fee?

Hi Vlad,

THe +972 cannot be used to receive incoming calls. Only for SMS purposes.

Ok... In this case can you provide an IL Proper number (eg Bezeq) so that the latency added by your redirect would be minimized?

Yes we can although I can assure you there is no latency...

With all due respect, there has to be latency. A call placed from let's say Germany to the US and from the US back to Israel would add at least a 220-250ms delay.

On the other hand, a call placed to Israel proper and redirected to the mobile operator would only add 40-60ms.

It's pure math...

I think it's not quite fair solution :thumbdown: .
I think you should offer a choice - calling via landline DID or calling an Israeli number directly with free (or at least much cheaper) incoming calls.

Yair Frankel our CTO just told me the difference is less then 15ms in worst case. All DIDs are parked on the proxy SIP server next to our CB server.

But this too technical for me B)

Anyway we can also provide IL landline numbers associated to the SIM.


:thumbup:

I understand your point but it is only a contractual barrier with Orange IL. Part of the deal let's say...

OK, I understand, but it's a pity anyway :(.
So, since you earn nothing (or close to nothing :)) on terminating calls in your DID, so 24-34 cents is enough to cover the costs forwarding calls to Israel and then to the mobile phone roaming somewhere in the world - not bad:)

BTW, could you explain what are "Maritime vessels" (GSM-on-ship networks?) and "Satellite communication B" (Iridium, Inmarsat?).

I think also that MonacoAlbania entry http://www.yackiemobile.com/main/coverage/?part=MP
should be Monaco-Kosovo (Kosovo is a UN-governed part of Serbia, with Albanian majorit. Their GSM network uses Monaco country code +377). :)

The 15ms delay your CTO is referring to is most likely that between your SIP media gateway and the CB.

Going back to my previous example, the call path for a call from Germany to the US and back to Israel (be it TDM or VoIP) is still a whole lot higher than 15ms. To aleviate this delay, can the DIDs be ENUM enabled? This way a call can pass over IP from origin to your media gateway without looping through the US.

I think some here are being "unfair" in criticizing Yackie on their pricing. Charging 24? for incoming is very reasonable since there is NO charge incurred on the back end.
Eg. It would cost 20 to 25? or more to call a UK mobile number used by many of these intl. card purveyors. Besides that, I have to maintain an account w. Kall8 (albeit only $2/mo. to forward calls to a UK (or Iceland) number. We all know what many of the charges are to call a Lichtenstein (United Mobile) number :thumbdown:

I will definitely give Yackie a try. (Probably won't be for a few weeks.) I agree w. the statement in the "card review section" that the initial "set up" is high when compared w. some of the other offerings. It is not outrageous, tho.
As for latency - wouldn't there be some delay, for example, when - a call comes in, forwarded to my Kall8 number, forwarded to my UM number in Lichtenstein and then "forwarded" on to me when I was in Australia? I didn't notice any problem. There would have to have been more delay than if someone simply dialed my roaming T-Mobile phone directly (or an Oz prepaid). The delay wasn't noticeable to me. I didn't use UM much there last summer because of their non-functioning VM system at the time.

...mike

I'm not criticizing Yackie for their incoming rates - e.g. it's the first international card which can compete with Hop in USA or Canada. My point is that I liked the idea (not the rates themselves :)) introduced by RangeRoamer: the same company provides both direct calls to the "real" SIM number (with free/cheao incoming calls) and forwarding via free or low lost local number (and the Called Party Pays). I'm just sorry that they can't offer "Calling Party Pays" direct calls to "real" Israeli numbers which their SIMs have...

I clearly understand this point. I am also a user so those things are very important to me too.

I think we could give a mobile number associated to the SIM - even if this is not the physical SIM number - and offer free roaming in countries were termination is low.

So should we have both systems? Maybe.

But keep in mind that 'normal' users are not understanding those problems, they just want low cost on outgoing calls and incoming calls. They refer to their actual operator while roaming...and we are *much* cheaper. :)

For USA and INDIA we are currently working on a technical solution to avoid RPP. I cannot say more here - competition is watching :censored: , but soon I hope.

It is on Orange Roaming List. I know that they have roaming agreement with SEA MOBILE . As for Sat Com - I will check ASAP.

Corrected. Thanks