Germany - GPRS Data

[ygeffens]

Originally Posted by inquisitor

Solomo pro is also attractive, as they have the same cheap international rates to Belgium as Fonic, but the fact you wanted to buy the SIM "on the spot" hindered me from recommending them to you, as they sell their SIM online only.

My fault. I meant that, when I have to buy it at my place of stay, I want it to work immediatly.
But this offer is great, I ordered it already. It should arrive early next week. This gives me the possibility to setup voip forwarding. I do have a FritzBox (nice device), and I have plenty of local DIDs.

Do you mean, that when I attach my Begian DID to the Solomo Voip account, that I can receive calls on my cellphone (in Germany) at 5ct/m? or is that only on the sip-client? If so, it's not very usefull because I can also attach my DIDs to my own voip-accounts for free.

Anyway, sounds like a good deal, and I think I won't mind the "slower" network.
In Belgium, I'm using BASE as my provider, and they only offer EDGE, so I'm used to the speeds
And EDGE is fast enough to make my Fring client on my iPhone work. I tweaked the iPhone so that Fring also works over EDGE (not only WiFi). So I'll probably be able to make and receive calls for "free" (besides the data-cost for solomo).

I'll write a small report about my findings when I'm back.
Just to be on the safe side, I'll write down some fonic and tchibo addresses to pick-up a sim-card in case solomo is not performing as I expect.

Thanks for all the input to all of you.

Yves

[babble]

Yves,

You also need to know that a solomo pro accout has two credit balances. One balance is for the sim (for normal telephone services). And the second balance is for voip services (at the moment: voip calls, the "iSMS service" for sending cheaper SMS messages over the internet which include your solomo pro telephone number, and perhaps also to pay for tweetpushes in the future). It looks as if a free test phase for tweetpushes will begin in April.

The bad news is that the voip services balance cannot be credited from the sim balance, nor can it be topped up via the internet. The voip services balance has to be topped up via a bank account:

Empfänger: solomo GmbH
Bank: Commerzbank
Kontonummer: 10 443 6100
Bankleitzahl: 443 400 37
IBAN: DE51 4434 0037 0104 4361 00
BIC: COBADEFF443

UserId: xxxx (get this from the voip section of your online solomo account)
Benutzername: 01570******* (your solomo pro phone number)

Best logon to your online solomo account and confirm the bank details. I think you can logon to your account even before you receive your sim in the post.

Originally Posted by ygeffens

Do you mean, that when I attach my Begian DID to the Solomo Voip account, that I can receive calls on my cellphone (in Germany) at 5ct/m? or is that only on the sip-client? If so, it's not very usefull because I can also attach my DIDs to my own voip-accounts for free.

Yes, you can forward your Begian DID to the Solomo Voip account. Online you can set up your account to receive incoming calls either on your solomo mobile alone (5c/min), or on your solomo voip account alone (free), or on both simultaneously for 5c/min (but only pickup on one receiver). Each solomo pro account also has its own voip telephone number (with "98" in the middle) which you can give to people if you only want them to directly phone your voip telephone.

Naked voip over somolo/e-plus is banned, but technically possible. There are a few minor hurdles, but nothing complicated. I won´t give any details because the e-plus network is very, very overloaded at times. Just play around knowing that it is possible. Jump the hurdles!

All solomo sims allow UMTS data transfer, where it has been enabled by e-plus.

Oh, I almost forgot. The solomo service is provided by vistream. In the solomo contract terms and conditions, you have to agree to the vistream terms and conditions, which include a clause allowing vistream to terminate all services after 3 months of account inactivity. No-one has ever reported that this clause has been used, but it is there nevertheless.

[inquisitor]

Originally Posted by babble

Yes, you can forward your Begian DID to the Solomo Voip account.

More precisely: You can forward your Belgian DID through the solomo VoIP account to your solomo SIM.

Online you can set up your account to receive incoming calls either on your solomo mobile alone (5c/min), or on your solomo voip account alone (free), or on both simultaneously for 5c/min (but only pickup on one receiver).

You can set up parallel call, so VoIP and SIM will ring simultaneously if the solomo number is being called. But keep in mind, that the solomo VoIP account can't be registered multiply. So you can't use the VoIP account on your FritzBox and through Fring at once. Before you leave Belgium you need to decide wether you setup the VoIP account on your FritzBox to forward calls to the SIM or if you want to use the VoIP account with Fring.

Each solomo pro account also has its own voip telephone number (with "98" in the middle) which you can give to people if you only want them to directly phone your voip telephone.

That's another interesting thing, I didn't realize. So when you are in Germany, you could call your VoIP-account on your FritzBox from your solomo SIM and so reach your family or setup callthrough for 5 ct/min. Just for clarification: Depending on what you configure online on the solomo website the solomo VoIP account will ring for both: your regular solomo mobile number and the additional VoIP-number (= username of the VoIP account).

Naked voip over somolo/e-plus is banned, but technically possible. There are a few minor hurdles, but nothing complicated. I won´t give any details because the e-plus network is very, very overloaded at times. Just play around knowing that it is possible. Jump the hurdles!

Using VoIP over GPRS/EDGE/3G would only be cheaper than a callthrough-setup through the solomo VoIP-account + FritzBox if you use a VoIP codec, that generates less than 28 KBit/s (including up- AND downstream and overhead).

Oh, I almost forgot. The solomo service is provided by vistream. In the solomo contract terms and conditions, you have to agree to the vistream terms and conditions, which include a clause allowing vistream to terminate all services after 3 months of account inactivity. No-one has ever reported that this clause has been used, but it is there nevertheless.

So far solomo hasn't cancelled account earlier than after 12 months of inactivity and I think it shouldn't be a problem to send a SMS every 3 months.

[inquisitor]

Originally Posted by ygeffens

My fault. I meant that, when I have to buy it at my place of
Do you mean, that when I attach my Begian DID to the Solomo Voip account, that I can receive calls on my cellphone (in Germany) at 5ct/m?

Yes. You just need to configure the solomo VoIP account in your FritzBox and set up a forwarding (or parallel call) for inbound calls (addressed to some of yours DID number(s)) to your solomo number through the solomo VoIP account.

or is that only on the sip-client? If so, it's not very usefull because I can also attach my DIDs to my own voip-accounts for free.

Answering calls to your solomo number by SIP client is always free. The 5 ct/min referes to calls from your solomo VoIP-account to any solomo pro number (including your own one).

I'll write a small report about my findings when I'm back.
Just to be on the safe side, I'll write down some fonic and tchibo addresses to pick-up a sim-card in case solomo is not performing as I expect.

Regarding the separate credit for VoIP, I didn't realize, that solomo has dropped the initial credit of € 5 also for the VoIP-credit. So indeed you will need to topup the VoIP-credit ("solomo online Konto") separately by banktransfer.

That's how you setup your solomo VoIP-account in your FritzBox:

[babble]

I use a commercial "better than G729" codec for continuous 2-way voip over UMTS. G729 "closes" an up or down channel if no-one is talking on it. With G729, when a non-talker starts to talk on an overloaded network, there is sometimes a delay before he can be heard clearly again.

Out-going voip calls are easy. In-coming, always-registered, voip calls require a bit more work to set up correctly. Understandably, some networks make more effort to try and stop external voip callers from dialling in.

Over e+, I need 4MB for 10 mins speech. At 24c/MB, long, out-going conversations may be cheaper via a mobile. For longer voip conversations, a flatrate data tariff may be more suitable. If you have nothing better than G729, I would stay clear of e+ because they sometimes offer gprs speeds instead of UMTS. If you only have G711, don´t waste your time trying e+.

Inquisitor has previously linked to a page that reports UMTS voip is possible with a Tchibo sim:
Germany - Tchibo - Prepaid Wireless Internet Access

Tchibo uses the faster (than e+) O2 network. Tchibo has a cheap prepaid monthly data tariff. It´s something like 10 euros for 500MB/month.

[inquisitor]

Originally Posted by babble

Tchibo uses the faster (than e+) O2 network. Tchibo has a cheap prepaid monthly data tariff. It´s something like 10 euros for 500MB/month.

Yes, but Tchibo charges in 400KB-increments. So those 500MB could be consumed faster than expected. So if you chose Tchibo, the flatrate for € 20 could be the better choice.

[babble]

Yves,

Solomo does not yet allow incoming sip calls to their network. Calls cannot be forwarded using sip-URLs of the format: sip:01570*******@voip.solomo.de.

Originally Posted by inquisitor

Answering calls to your solomo number by SIP client is always free.

No, this is incorrect. If parallel sim and voip calls are enabled (via the solomo account webpage), calls picked up on the voip device will cost 5c/min.