Article about UM
 

Take a look guys:

http://www.eweek.com/article2/0,1895,2215895,00.asp

We here all know most of the stuff in the article but interesting part is they claim that by December or January they will have figured out a way to bring down US rates.

Good news may be on the horizon.

What's this about data on UM?

technically data works on UM for quite some time already. I know cause the helpdesk of UM was asking us a lot of questions regarding our USB-EDGE-modem some time ago and they told me that they will officially release it soon. When i remember a talk with a technician from them right which was about a year ago data was also available on the +432-cards on request for big business customers but never officially for all.

Chris

Where does it work? What rates? What settings?

not published yet. when i asked him when he said "soon"... veeery precise.

from the article...

"Although United Mobile has reduced charges, they're still expensive within the United States. "We have mobile termination charges, and we have to pay them because we have no local interconnect," Donhuysen said. However, United Mobile is actively working on entering the US market. "We're just readying our offer.""

Can someone explain? A landline call from Germany to a US mobile on my calling cards costs the same as a landline call from Germany to a US landline -- dirt cheap. So what "mobile termination charges" are they talking about? Why do they need a "local interconnect"?

Stan

He means the charges levied on visitors by the US network roamed upon.

That's why they need an arrangement with a US number instead

I don't know what a "local interconnect" really means here. But, as to "mobile termination charges" - I think it's about the "receiving party pays" part of the roaming fee. When you call a US mobile phone, you pay the same rate as to US landline and the receiving party pays the "mobile part" of the call. But when you call a non-US mobile phone roaming in the USA, you pay the rate to the mobile phone in its "home country" and the receiving party pays the cost of forwarding the call to the US and the cost of receiving the call in the US mobile network. I think that "mobile termination charges" means the money you pay for receiving calls due to RPP rules.
Now, the termination fee to UM is enough to forward the call to many CPP pays without charging the receiving party with any surcharge. But it's not enough to forward the call to the US and to pay the local "receiving party fee". It seems strange since forwarding to the US is (or at least should be) really cheap and the "receiving fee" should be (what I conclude by checking retail rates of US prepaids) somewhere from 10 to at most 50 US cents. So, why the hell, since UM receives a lot a money for calls coming to +423 663 and +44 7937 numbers, it still has to charge to receive a call in the US €0.79 on +423 and $0.99 on +44
on top? Do US operators charge roaming SIMs for receiving calls much more than US SIMs?
I can't see any other explanation for the current pricing...

I think this is the reason. It is also happening in every rpp country. rates are always worse for roaming sims that for local sims.

yes its good money you earn. Some years ago the biggest provider in austria made more profit with roaming sims than with his local customers....