ekit dual number [US & UK] SIMs

[rfranzq]

Originally Posted by adam917

Would dialling 870 from the UK profile cost anything?

I do not think so. And I assume you mean dialing 870 from the UK profile while in North America. I tried it and that is how I activated one of the SIM cards.

[LBarouf]

Originally Posted by Stu

I don't know why they shut down the numbers that quickly. I have a friend who runs a small local VOIP service catering to small businesses. Level Three gives him Michigan DIDs for free. At the wholesale level, they is effectively no charge for these numbers.

My guess is that the numbers are tied to the carrier and they get a cheaper rate doing it this way.

IMSI are linked to CTNs (cellular telephone number). CTNs can be replaced by another one, but never be replaced once the IMSI is deemed canceled. Once you cancel your line, the IMSI is know as retired and can't be reused.

The only thing it could be, is they park your number, the IMSI is still attached to a CTN, but they put a block on it, so the minutes can be use among the other users in a pool. They can then charge you to reactivate. Probably you keep your CTN in this case. If they indeed change them, I don't see rhyme or reason why so.

[LBarouf]

Originally Posted by Stu

I watch numerous forums on prepaid SIM cards. Overwhelmingly, it seems like people are more concerned about the incoming rates rather than the outgoing rates. I'm not sure if this means that everyone is using callback services or informal call back
services ("Mom ring me back at..."), but I am a little surprised. I expect that this group (on this forum) would route the call around the world twice rather than pay 1p more per minute, but more importantly this seems to be the prevailing trend. I would presume that most people would be delighted to pay a fraction of what their home provider charges for roaming, but the numbers don't seem to match my theory.

The folks who hang out on this forum (myself included) pinch every penny they can, but what is your opinion about friends and colleagues.

Hi Stu,

Friends and colleagues rather have cheap outbound calls back home, and cheap local calls to the destination. Incoming is important also, but our case, calls are placed more frequently than received. The SCC sucks, but if it means cheaper calls, I can live with. More and more I found myself, like my colleagues leaning on using local SIMs, and once at destination, give the new CTN to whom we wish to reach us. often it's cheaper this way.

[Stu]

I buy local prepaids when: (a) I am in the country for more than a week; (b) where I regularly visit the country (even if less than a week); and/or, (c) where roaming SIMs charge a king's ransom, but local calls and SIMs are cheap (e.g. Russia, India, etc).

Every situation is unique and I research the situation and try to tailor my solution to the problem. I have an Asterisks box and my Blackberry gives me included data. That means that my solutions may not match other people's.

[glhs509]

Well I just got back and either I have a glitchy SIM card or the service is not living up to my expectations.

eKit did not work well for me in: Czech Rep., Austria, Slovenia, and Croatia. I received a call back about 1 in 6 times in the Czech Rep....never in Austria/Slovenia and about 1 in 10 times in Croatia. I was too busy zipping through Slovakia, so I never bothered to check there. ALL incoming calls to the +44 number all went to voicemail (i.e. the phone never rang). Calls to the local +1 number came through fine (albeit with ~4sec lag in voice quality).

In one instance, I was asked for the PUK since it said I had incorrectly entered the PIN 3 times (which I hadn't). After turning the phone off/on it accepted my PIN fine. Unclear if this is carrier related since I attempted to manually search for networks when I was unable to place calls.

I'm going to have to pass on eKit...it's too bad since the rates were fairly reasonable. The headache with trying to make a simple call outweighs the decent rates.

-Ken

[FBlack_111]

glhs509:

I am curious what type of phone you were using. I had ring back problems a year ago on one of my phones. I took 2 phones with me then. Seems on one phone I had to send a text message to get a ring back. The trick is to send an SMS with just the phone number you want to call in it to 1234. No charge for the SMS. The SIM worked fine in my other phone.

[glhs509]

Originally Posted by FBlack_111

glhs509:

I am curious what type of phone you were using. I had ring back problems a year ago on one of my phones. I took 2 phones with me then. Seems on one phone I had to send a text message to get a ring back. The trick is to send an SMS with just the phone number you want to call in it to 1234. No charge for the SMS. The SIM worked fine in my other phone.

My main phone/PDA is an iMate K-Jam which has been solid for almost 5 yrs now. Ring backs have worked in the past on other SIMs, including most recently Yackie.
The eKit in USA mode (while in the USA) worked fine before leaving. I had also tried the eKit SIM on my wife's Nokia while abroad with similar results.

Unfortunately I had to make several calls in a jam (non-casual) and thus had to resort to my T-Mo USA SIM...waiting to pour myself a stiff drink before I look at the billings (although I'm on the grandfathered [pre-worldclass] and may not be so bad off)...

[Bossman]

Very true that a lot of newer phones, especially smartphones tend to not work well with some of these callback sims. However, that does not explain why all incoming calls to the UK number went straight to VM.

Originally Posted by FBlack_111

glhs509:

I am curious what type of phone you were using. I had ring back problems a year ago on one of my phones. I took 2 phones with me then. Seems on one phone I had to send a text message to get a ring back. The trick is to send an SMS with just the phone number you want to call in it to 1234. No charge for the SMS. The SIM worked fine in my other phone.

[littleyip]

Well, I gave up on Travel Sim UK as they aren't going to offer dual-sim to United Mobile customers and they no longer have free inbound in Brazil, which is 1 of the 3 countries I will be traveling to soon. I had considered Geo-Sim but their dual-sims aren't out yet and their rate for people calling the US number will be 35cents/min compared to Ekit's 19cents/min.

To add my data points:
1) My Ekit US area code is 508, a Massachusetts number. Would have liked a NY number as that is where I'm from, but it doesn't really matter.

2) All of my test calls have been working to and from US numbers.

3) The rate being charged is definitely 19cents/min with no 35cent connection.

4) I deactivated my voicemail and turned off my phone and tried to call the phone, and got that option to send SMS. But, I was not charged for this. Since I will only give my US number to people in the US, they will not be charged anything either. However, it would be nice to turn this option off and make it appear to ring, though the only reason I turned off voicemail is because I am using Google Voice for call forwarding to this phone and voicemail. When Ekit implements free voicemail access from the website, I will probably change my setup.

5) All of the quick 3 digit access numbers I tried worked without any *. Using * did not work, even though the Telestial website for the Passport card says to use *869* for disabling voicemail. Are the * necessary when abroad?

6) I have not tested calling abroad and will not.

I'm going to Paris and worried about Kupe's experience there. Kupe, you said you would go again in early July. Did you go? Did you have problems? =/

[rfranzq]

Ekit has two different SIMple Calling SIMs available on eBay. Both have free voicemail retreval in the US and Canada. The US and UK ekit eBay sellers have different SIMple Calling SIMs. They both have a US and UK number and the non US/Canada rates are each different but comparable to one of the other original UK [IOM] SIM plans. UPDATE: ekit has both SIMple calling SIMs on their website now. Just noticed seconds ago! EBay is the inexpensive place to get these.