Callback World & United Mobile - Changes
 

I've been unable to trigger a call back to my United Mobile sim for several days now. I emailed Callback World and got this response:

"The Liechtenstein route has a lot of problems at the moment and
has been mostly down since last Thursday. The carrier, the
lowest cost one available, is doing a poor job. We are replacing
them with a tier 1 (aka top quality) carrier but the rate is going to
in the 50 something cents range on the 22nd and I expect a lot of
our customers may stop using it. At the moment it is barely
working and not reliable and it will be like that until the switch is
complete. The other global sim routes are stable at the moment,
both in service and rate."

Oh well, I guess it really was too good. It seems to me if what Barry says comes to pass, Callback World will be more expensive then most level one countries straight from the United Mobile sim card. I'm wondering if one of the other cards would now be better for international travel (I'm mostly in Australia/NZ, Asia, the Middle East, and Europe), for example the Travelsim with the Estonia number?

Any comments? Thanks.

I'd probably use up my UM credit making outgoing calls and switch over to using mostly my 09 card for incoming calls.

At this momenti I'm switching to Travelsim too... Estonia is usually in Zone 1 Europe and so cheaper than FL from various carriers (actually I have a italian postpaid plan at only 9 ct./min for UE mobiles!). Be careful for incoming calls, sometimes Travelsim doesn't have free roaming

Same here. Have not been able to trigger a call to UM via CBW. I was testing for an upcoming trip. Even a couple of calling cards stopped working to UM. Just plain dead air! Tried my tmobile sim...message says calling to that number has been disallowed. Never thought the problem was CBW (since I was able to get a callback to other numbers), so I contacted UM and they said it depends on what calling card or carrier I am using to make the call to the UM sim. When the UM guy said he called my # from a german landline and it worked and went to VM I figured something is being blocked. So, I gave up.

Finally, I decided to try if I can forward my globalasim to UM. Well, it went through, I let it ring and roll to VM. Guess what? I was charged $0.78. I knew globalsim could not continue to offer forwarding to Liechenstein for free.

Edit: For me, without CBW's very good rates, UM is not much useful. Outgoing calls are not really cheap. Ok, incoming calls are free in a lot of countries, but as we all know, it's outrageously expensive calling a UM number. Most calling cards are upwards of $0.40/min. BTW, I also tried CBW PIN2DEST. It was just dead air...but still got charged on both occassions.

Going to Europe this summer and ..........
 

I will try to use up the balance on my UM card from Germany. Sunk costs. I rarely am called from US on my trips. Will be giving out SIMYO # and probably forwarding calls from Voicestick to that #.

Not sure what I will do after (if) I burn up the existing UM balance. The market in EU is changing fast.

Stan

Handy Tip from UM
 

QUOTE:
Avoid expensive calls back to your current voicemail by changing the message to include your United Mobile number.
END QUOTE

Can't paste in their image, but I am sure you have received the same email.

What a joke!

Why are calls to +423 #s so expensive or impossible to complete?

Stan

Has anyone tried CBW with an Estonian sim? I am not able to receive the callback on mine at all!

It isn't that bad if they are expensive only - after all, calling the CPP satphones is even more expensive;-). But the impossibility of reaching +423 makes the whole thing really useless (or, let's say - "one way useless") :-?

We have discussed this in the past. Most stable routes to +4236 are expensive due to the fact that there are high incoming charges. There are a few cheap routes still available (some callthrough numbers in the UK offer these)

Most Betamax brands are 20 eurocents. Just Voip 9c, DialNow (callthrough only) 10c

I just had 9 out of 10 VoipCheap and JV attempts ring within a few seconds, and the other with a German message about network busy (uncharged)

So don't throw it away yet