Hey Andy, well I should have known you'd be one step ahead of me! The idea of the WePay sim had never crossed my mind...even better than free when there is 3p/min leftover from calls! Excellent!
Well, I also am surprised this combination hasn't drawn more interest before. The major advantage of this setup is reliability for at the least receiving calls. Because it's done directly with o2 the reliability issues, that callkey or even UM can occasionally suffer from (in my experience), should be eliminated. There have been a few times, especially in Poland, I've sat there wondering why nobody had called me all day. After investigation I found that my Callkey number seemed like it was ringing to the caller but wasn't ringing at my end. Other times with UM I've found it just didn't ring through at all and of course with me being based in the UK having a UK number makes UM lose to Callkey at least for me.
For outgoing, I've used returncall a bit when I'm back in the UK and it did seem pretty reliable and the caller ID being passed is a great advantage. However, Finarea cheapo calling to UK mobiles can on a small number of occasions be unreliable (>5% I'd say too) so for those occasions that returncall, voipcheap and whatever brand Finarea invent tomorrow fail the backup could be many other options: just as an example Voipfone web or SMS callback are expensive (14p/min) but I've found super reliable for UK mobiles. Even direct dialling on the o2 for the 25p/min isn't too bad for the rare occasion Finarea lets you down.
I checked out the German one the other day actually too but the limit of 100 incoming minutes vs. the o2 UK with 1000 mins kills it for me. Also, having a UK number allows the expansive amount of callback services and for me personally goes with my home country. I'd assume this package is rolled out to all countries o2 (Telefonica Spain isn't it now?) operates in so these might be worth checking out too.
Meir: Excellent idea for the topups from ebay! I hadn't thought of that one! When I get back to the UK next week I'll search some out and load up one of the free o2 sims sitting around in my house.
Now if only I could fine something to replace the Wind Mega No Limit for my now rather high data bills!!! Maybe o2 would like to launch unlimited European data
