CelTrek - a new int'l SIM
 

DRN is his Asia report mentioned about a new international SIM he was testing there.

http://celtrek.com/FAQ.html

Q: Where can I view / check my bill?
A: Go to http://www.CelTrek.com/ - log in to your account for real time billing. Forget your password? Please contact our customer care center.

It seems that there's no balance check from the phone :(.

Q: When does the call charge start?
A: You charges start only when the service calls you back and connects you to the destination you are asking to reach.

It's not clear to me whether "the waiting time" is charged or no.

I hope that DRN will tell more....

CelTrek service is provided by Global Roaming Inc. who CEO is Florian Seroussi AKA Cizake (ex Yackiemobile man so helpful on this forum) - do you remember the guy:)?:
http://www.seroussi.com/gr2006/index-1.html
(Don't ask me why this site is partially in Latin :D)

Interesting! Just curious to test them! :)

PS: do you want the translation from latin? :P It's a 'little bit' strange thing for a TLC website :lol:

Vestibulum iaculis lacinia est
http://www.seroussi.com/gr2006/images/spacer.gif
Rus orci luctus trices posuere cubilia licitudin velit sed leo. Ut pharetra augue nec auguem elit agna, endrerit sit amet, tincidunt ac, viverra sed, nulla. Donec porta diam eu massa. Quisque diam lorem, interdum vitae, dapibus ac, scelerisq.

I can ask my wife - she is a Latin teacher :)

CelTrek appears to be a Yackie-like offering, based on a SIM from Israel with a US phone number. This means that it has the same problems roaming in countries that don't do business with Israel. Otherwise, I'm going to wait until I get a chance to use more of their features and read the detailed instructions before making any comments or recommendations. I can say that it worked everywhere they said it would work. They also have highly variable rates. It's very hard to have a "band 1", "band 2" description when every country seems to have different rates for incoming and outgoing calls or SMS.

I was invited to beta test (really it was a pre-beta) their SIM before their website came up. The test was supposed to be until Jan 7th and I wasn't supposed to say anything but was never told exactly what the non-disclosure restriction were. Since their website is now up and operating, don't think I'm violating any agreement by telling you about the product.

Well, I know very well latin language too :D

So tomorrow - now I'm really tired - I'll try my first translation from latin directly to ... english :D

I hope they can be happy to be in this forum :)

Update
 

Currently in Japan where I'm using the CelTrek SIM in preference to other options (I have only one WCDMA-2100 phone). While it seems to roam only on Vodafone-JP (a.k.a. J-Phone, SoftBank) the coverage is pretty good. Incoming calls are 24c/min, which gets pretty close to the about 19c/min to forward calls from the US to Iceland to use my 09 SIM and outgoing calls to the US are 34c/min. I took a brief call a couple of days ago and was charged only 12c. So, the billing is on some granularity less than one minute.

Their webpage allows me to download voicemail as an audio file and has very detailed call information. I haven't had much need to make a lot of calls since my room here has high-speed network access and I can make VOIP calls to the US for 2c/min.:D

I just keep thinking about those days when to make an international call when traveling, you had to go to the local telephone office, be assigned a phone booth, then return to the counter and pay. In many countries you couldn't make international calls from a regular public phone. Now we tote little phones on our belts that work just about anywhere and cost much less to use per minute than thoes calls I made in the 70s and 80s.

Please keep us up-to-date on your impressions, DRNewcomb. I like the idea of a Yackie-like offering, but without all the issues that Yackie has/had. One question I have, does CelTrek have an option to record your phone calls like Yackie does/did?

I believe they do. There seems to be one recorded call in my account but I have not played it. I've been traveling since Christmas and have not had much time to explore the finer points of the service. They have provisions for sending SMS from your online account page but it does not seem to work. There are a number of the finer points I'd like to understand better. They seem to have two prices associated with outgoing calls: The first to your mobile, the second to what ever number you are calling. So yesterday I made two calls in a single session. This was billed at $2.38 for a 6:55 callback to the mobile and two 15c calls to numbers in the USA. So there's an argument for using the speed-dial feautre.

Considering getting one of the CelTrek cards to supplement my United Mobile card. CelTrek rates look like they vary quite a bit from country to country. Interested in the low Bahamas rate. The CelTrek site also mentions in their FAQ's that data will be offered in 2q07. Data isn't offered on many prepaid international cards (off the top of my head I think Mobal and GT-Sim), so this would be a real plus if and when they offer it.

Some questions on their service when you have a chance:

Do they have reliable customer service (wouldn't want a Yackie like experience)?
Any additional charges for the US dial-in number that they don't mention on their website(is there a monthly or annual charge for it)?
Do incoming calls work reliably, and is the call quality good?
Are card refills relatively glitch-free?
If you use data once they offer it, can you let us know your impressions of ease of setup and use, and data rates?

Thanks!