Does anyone know of any other companies that provide global roaming with a US-based SIM card number other than Yackie? I came across another company when I was initially searching for a provider, but can no longer seem to find them. Why are there not more US-based global roaming SIM card providers? It seems like somebody is really missing the boat here seeing as though so many Americans travel abroad.

True, but maybe the US networks are not too keen to help virtual operators to use their facilities to undercut them on price. So far it looks like the most likely candidate providers are those near market saturation in small territories that have no other way to expand.

You could get a different country SIM and arrange forwarding a US number to the foreign one though; this is effectively what Yackie itself did, and other tariffs for the forwarding may be actually cheaper than that, like 15 cents to some UK mobiles including the Isle of Man numbered SIMs.

As Andy mentioned, you can get a local US number for free from a company like voicestick and then just forward it to your international sim. The only cost to you will be the cost to of forwarding, which is even cheaper than some long distance companies charge. For example, I have a local voicestick number that I will forward to my Globalsim number for an upcomg thrip that will take me to 3 countries where receiving incoming calls on GlobalSim is free. Voicestick's cost to reach a globalsim is 0.16/min.

You may want to search the forum, because this was recently discussed extensively.


PS. I was going the "Yackie" route myself before. But, since the US DID's have been deactivated, coupled with the other problems I have to go with a different sim.

Yes, I already read up on this option, and it is my fallback option if Yackie does not work out. That is my underlying problem, like all of the other Yackie customers who received their cards, I'm out the money until I receive a refund for my remaining balance and the SIM card, which may be an adventure in itself, or use all of my remaining call credit and get the refund for the SIM card, which has already been promised. My outgoing calls still work on my Yackie card, so I am not worried about that, but my incoming still does not work. I do have faith that they will get it up and running, but whether they have it up and running in time for my trip in mid-Sept. is a different story.

Yes. it might be a while or an adventure like you said, to get that refund back from yackie. I was already thinking about just exhausting my remaining balance by using it for the first few outgoing calls on my trip next month. Then just wait to get refunded for the sim. Even though I would have used yackie mostly for incoming calls. I agree, they will eventually get it straight. It's just a matter of when.

I've been doing the call forwarding route now for many months and it is great. Voicestick is great. If you are willing to setup a virtual Asterisks server with something like pbxes.com, easypabx.com, or voxalot, you can also do some real interesting things with many of the PAYG VOIP providers.

Stu