Yackie and Mexico
 

I lent a friend of mine who was going to Mexico my Yackie sim, showed him how to use it etc before he left and even tested it here in the US before he left. It worked flawlessly. When he gets to Mexico today he calls me (from the Yackie sim) to tell me the incoming calls arent working to the sim. I called the number and sure enough, silence and after about 15secs nothing but a single beep and then silence after that until I finally hung up. Anyone else have this happen in Mexico or know whats going on? Like i said, he called me from it so obviously the outgoing was working.

**UPDATE**
I looked at my Yackie account online and saw the following, I emailed them to get clarification but as you can see some calls were
billed at over $1 a min!
The far right colum is time and the one right to the left is the charge, all in all it used up all my credit which was a little over $20 in calls, which is significantly higher than the rates on Yackie's site.


29/03/2007 12:10:23 Outgoing Call USA Global 1.30 0:31
29/03/2007 12:10:53 Phone Call 1XXXXXXXXXX -0.01 0:01
29/03/2007 13:47:40 Income call Mexico Global 1XXXXXXXXXX 1.69 0:02
29/03/2007 13:59:13 Outgoing Call Mexico Global 1.80 0:47
Busy Line XXXXXXXXXX
29/03/2007 14:00:28 Outgoing Call Mexico Global 1.80 0:51
Busy Line XXXXXXXXXX
29/03/2007 14:02:02 Outgoing Call Mexico Global 3.60 1:03
Busy Line XXXXXXXXXX
29/03/2007 14:57:21 Outgoing Call Mexico Global 1.80 0:31
Busy Line XXXXXXXXXX
29/03/2007 15:06:26 Income call Mexico Global XXXXXXXXX 1.69 0:07
29/03/2007 15:06:41 Phone Call XXXXXXXXXX 0.09 0:06
29/03/2007 15:07:52 Income call Mexico Global XXXXXXXXXX 1.69 0:13
29/03/2007 15:53:36 Income call Mexico Global XXXXXXXXXX 1.69 0:05
29/03/2007 15:53:47 Phone Call XXXXXXXXXX 0.09 0:06
29/03/2007 15:53:57 Income call Mexico Global XXXXXXXXXX 1.69 0:04
29/03/2007 16:01:15 Outgoing Call Mexico Global 1.80 0:44
29/03/2007 16:01:23 Phone Call XXXXXXXXXX 0.09 0:35
Total: 20.81

I think in your case the red line under the tariffs hit full scale:
"RPP may be applied to this country depending on the local provider"

In general the Yackie-billing still is very random.

Chris

If I were you I won't use Yakie anymore... totally unreliable... I was never able to receive a call in Italy or France too...

Agree with you.
I keep it as long as there is still balance on it and then it goes into the collection of SIM-cards that is glued to my computer case (very impressive sight already... hehe).

Can anybody confirm if the Celtrek SIM is more reliable? Must be the same platform basically.

Chris

PS: Carlos, I fear i threw away the paper of the Aldi-SIM after sending you the PUK... Sorry :-(

No problem, my fault, I'll get a new one next time I'm up there in Germany (should be in May, in Mainz)... pity that there were no promotions with Blau and Blauworld at Saturn in Bremen, they were quite expensive (expecially Blauworld, if I remember well).

The billing is really screwy! They billed $1.69 for each of those calls thet never connected, and even billed $1.80 for the outgoing calls that were obviously busy. So, they are still billing for busy calls. Well, I guess rhey start charging once the callback is answered, even if the number that was being called is busy or never answered. It will be tough for them to compete wth all the other international sims out there.

Celtrek was reliable but I'd still describe the billing as "screwey". They seem to charge for each half of outgoing call: The callback to the phone and the call to the destination number. This means you seem to get charged even when the destination number is busy.

To make matters worse, with Yackie, the credit balance can only be checked from the web. Is this the same way with Celtrek DrNewcomb?

Thanks for all the feedback, but it looks like some of the calls were billed at a normally reasonable rate, I just think at nearly $2 its definitely more expensive than my current Tmobile sim. Yackie did work great for me on my cruise to Central America, I used it in several countries and didnt have any complaints about it. However, Mexico is still not the same, Im hoping for an answer from Yackie so I know 100%.

For Mexico it may be cheaper to buy a TelCel Amigo gsm prepaid card and keep it live via web refill (also can be refilled from the US website http://www.prepaidwireless.com/produ.../telcel_en.cfm ). But their rates to the US are fairly high, so best paired with a cheap Mexican prepaid calling card or callback service. You could probably do the same with competitor Movistar.
Other solution is some prepaid US phones will work in Mexico (Boost Mobile/Nextel iDen phones in Baja California, also my father's Verizon prepaid CDMA phone worked quite well in Cancun even though it probably wasn't supposed to...).
Cingular USA postpaid gsm also seems to have a good roaming rate of US$.99/minute for regular plans and US$.59/minute for their World Traveler option.