Xfone, prefix 07822
 

http://cgi.ebay.co.uk/Xfone-Mobile-F...QQcmdZViewItem

Is this a new product? Seems to be a sim with prefix +447822.

There are three possibilities:

- maybe it's a product that isn't quite on the market yet. I'm expecting a launch of something soon that may have such numbers, but I don't know exactly what the product is yet, or if this firm would be reselling it.

- or the number is forwarded to another. This might be tricky, as the provider I'm thinking of doesn't cover calls to IoM and Jersey mobiles.

- who knows?

I'll look into a couple of things ...

According to numberingplans.com:

Information on phone number range +44 78221XXXXX

Number billable as mobile number
Country or destination United Kingdom
City or exchange location
Original network provider* Swiftnet Ltd

And http://www.swiftnet.co.uk/ says that it's a 'an Xfone company'.....but no SIM offer on their website...

I think the first is nearest

As pointed out above, 07822x includes various providers, and another has hinted elsewhere of a new product soon, so that is what I thought at first.

Swiftnet have a number of brands and products, and they don't sell on eBay ...

There are more than one companies that offer numbers under this range (07822).

For example: Swiftnet (078221), opal telecom (078222), Coulomp (078223) and some others. BT generally does not charge this Band at high rates, the higher being 078221 (17,86 peak).

There are a few sub-divided codes like this, mostly VoIP (eg wi-fi) providers with a couple of other services too. Coulomb is now known as Noodle

For UK users, the question will occur whether calls to these come from contract inclusive minutes. Also, whether T-mobile will bar the numbers completely in a dispute over termination fees, which they have done in other cases, apparently offering 0.21 pence a minute to Truphone

This has now officially launched

http://www.xfonemobile.co.uk/home.aspx

Xfone/Swiftnet have been previously selling the IoM SIMs from their UK-based Auracall and Story brands, plus a reseller of theirs called Simply-Fone. They have a range of other services including several calling card and other callthrough arrangements, so they aren't beginners.

This is an actual UK mobile number, in a range allocated to a wi-fi and other non-standard providers though, so some international providers with a range of tariffs will charge more eg Voicestick, while most will be the same for all +447n (n not 0) numbers. For British users, it will be interesting to find out if calls to these 078221 numbers come out of contract inclusive minutes, and whether such calls can be forwarded to the SIM.

I'm browsing through slowly to compare rates. There are plenty of countries with free incoming calls, though it sometimes varies on different roamed networks within a country.

There's a phone (I don't recognise, but quad-band) included on an offer for the first 100 customers, £39.99 with £25 credit, and I have email details of this which I could forward.

Just for fun, I called 3 "random" +44 78221 numbers from a Polish Telecom payphone, namely 123456, 113355 and 115599. Each time I was connected and heard a recorded message in English (male voice): "Sorry, your call cannot be completed at this time. Please try again later". And, each time I was charged :-P.


They are a bit funny about roaming in Poland.
They distinguish mobile, mobile Centertel, mobile Era, mobile Polkomtel and mobile TPSA. Centertel and Polkomtel ar3 just companies's names serving Orange and Plus networks, respectively, and TPSA is a nonsense. TPSA is a Polish abbreviation for Polish Telecom which is owned by France Telecom and owns Centertel :-).

The whole thing resembles me VoiceSim from VoiceServe about which I told elsewhere. They both use *117*00CountryCodeNumber# format for making outgoing calls and they both don't support SMS....