[SIZE=7] Lots of UM users here and a few of us would be Yackie users. I just did a search here on all the Intl. Cards posted.

Why doesn't everyone here use some provider w. an IOM number? To call a UK number via the usual discount carriers is under 20?. They provide free incoming to dozens of countries. That would seem the total cost of calling a roamer could be only 17?/min. Am I missing something? None of the carriers I found had diff. rate listings for IOM phones. In fact, one or two actually listed tons of exchanges covered by their calls placed to UK mobile phones - and +44 7 numbers were specifically listed.
I researched GeoSIM fairly thoroughly. Haven't done the other one or two.

...mike

A few points come to mind................

1. Some of us have already invested in UM and other cards. Numbers given out and known.

2. Change is painful.

3. Check out the coverage or lack of it on the IOM cards. Friend going to Honduras on a mission trip from church; no coverage with GT-SIM, but UM has it covered. I think it is 80 versus 120 UM countries.

4. Can use CBW to reduce rates with UM.

Stan

IOM charges same as UK mobiles....most calls to UK on many US providers at about 30?/minute as is CBW via pin2dest.....UM at least on my plan is 10?/minute and on CBW pin2dest in 14?/minute as well as cost to make a call...

One glaring omission on UM, however, still remains New Zealand...I think IOM has roaming partners in NZ.

Well, I bought a IOM sim (GlobalSim) since yackie could not produce(still waiting on my refund :o ). I also have UM, but all the calling cards charge very high rates to reach a UM number. And, a lot of times it does not even work. UM+CBW works flawlessly though and the PIN2DEST always works too. But, as we all know, there has been occassions where CBW just does not work, in which case UM becomes very expensive to use without CBW.

I wanted people to be able to reach me by dialing a local number (the reason for jumping on yackie bandwagon), and GlobalSim + voicestick makes that possible. Voicesticks rate to the 07624 number range is 15cents/min. Both globalSim and UM have free incoming calls in the countries I am likely to visit.


PS: Snidely, I would assume you cannot receive incoming calls on your yackie sim either right. Since they deactivated all the US DIDs.

I have both UM and CallKey. I've used the latter a lot more, but it would probably be because of potential extra advantages to UK users, like availability from within inclusive minutes on some networks (even though they don't know it), so I can forward my O2 number straight to it.

The number prefix is out of the sequence allocated to UK mobiles - 077, 078, 079 - so it may be worth exploring tariffs with several providers.

While many blanket define all +447 as UK mobiles, some others don't enable +447624 at all, or may even default to count it as a landline; in which case get a landline diverted to it, and use callback to that number (but who can guess how long this would last?).

I'm wondering if the availability of Orange Israel SIMs that was underlying Yackie will resurface elsewhere. There are some pretty cheap tariffs for Israel Mobile.

Just got an e mail indicating increase in rates on geosim...haven't gone through all the various combinations but apparently and especialy makes use of geosim in the USA absurdly high....

As far as voicestick, we still remain with the problem of being charged for a minimum of a 5 minute call for many many calls as they still can't seem to fix the idea of what happens when a call is terminated and despite the fact they have been made aware of the problem, they just can't seem to fix it and to the best of my knowledge they are just about the only provider who can't get this right.

Yes, UM is quite expensive to compare with national SIMs. E.g. I paid for mine 42 EUR with 15 EUR credit included. Never had to pay as much as 27 EUR for a "national" empty SIM :P. Moreover, when I (and some others of us) bought a UM (then Riiing) SIM, there were no alternative with free incoming calls...

Did you hurt your finger(s) when you were changing SIMs :P?

Yes, coverage is a real issue and Manx cards are missing quite many countries even in Europe (Belarus, Moldova, Albania, Montenegro, Macedonia, Kosovo). UM is missing
only Faeroe, Jersey and just Isle of Man :)

As well as almost the same with 09 (which has even larger coverage than UM, and about 110 countries with free incomimg calls)....

I think that handset compatibility may be also an issue....Manx SIMs seem to be more "restrictive" :P

After all, it's impossible to say which sim is the best/worst or even determine "better- worse" for any two of them....

AFAIK rates of all international SIMs in USA, Canada, Cuba and India are pretty sick. Since Yackie has been a failure so far, only Hop remains somehow acceptable solution for these countries :unsure:

It must be pointed out that the biggest omission of O9 and it is a very important one is Switzerland.

There's something strange about that. On http://www.09.is Switzerland is mentioned in the call callculator but not it ithe coverage list: http://www.09.is/coverage.php. OTOH it was said here that 09 uses Swisscom roaming agreements - it would be pretty strange if the SIM had no coverage on its home network :unsure: