Free time: looking for reviews

[SporkLover]

Has anyone tried free time in Germany yet? mrsimcard.com - FreeTime Telecom Sim Card

The data rates aren't as attractive as lidl, but the other rates are pretty attractive.

[inquisitor]

Never heard about these guys. According to their FAQ section the SIM card is based on a Mobilkom Liechtenstein (like United Mobile once upon a time) but has multiple IMSIs. One of them comes from eplus Germany, which explains the low price for the 5GB data pack for Germany mentioned in the article you linked but not offered on their website. Obviously someone has seized United Mobile's last plans, which involved a multi-IMSI SIM and they even already had an agreement with eplus back then. I also remember that UM sought a code monkey specialized in VoIP.
Also "booking a foreign number" seems not to work yet. Anyway I wonder how they want to offer American numbers. With the American bill-and-keep arrangement they won't get a penny for terminating incoming calls, so they will have to charge their customers something for inbound calls at least for US numbers. Even for those countries with the calling-party-pays scheme they will need mobile or premium numbers in order to provide free incoming calls.
Despite the SIM being offered by a German company which according to their T&Cs is also the contractual partner for the actual mobile service and as such subject to EU regulations they violate the price cap at least for Bulgaria. Those € 0.05/min charged for incoming calls in all the other EU countries I checked, are pretty cheap, like rates for many other countries are.

[hrgajek]

Hello there,

I have such a Free Time Telecom SIM-Card.

I have currently three numbers:

+49 1570 360 xxxx (Telogic/vistream virtual network, using mobile network of E-Plus)

+423 661 00 xxxx (Mobilkom Liechtenstein Network)

+1 940 yyy yyyy (Number from Denton, Texas Area, USA)

When ordering the SIM you'll get two (2) numbers minimum, you can choose from a list the xxxx digits are the same e.g. xxxx = 1234 (not my number)

the US number is an option.

Yes you're assuming right, there are some "relations" to former United-Mobile technology

Voicemail sends me message via e-mail (.WAV Format).
Voicemail works at the moment as beta only on the 423 or the international number.

SMS (Textmessaging) is possible to all three numbers, texts arrived within a second on the E-Plus-Network logged in with the Telogic/Vistream IMSI

Company plans to offer numbers in the UK, Russia and more countries.

Recharging is possible via scratch-cards, credit-card or paypal.

I'm in Germany.
If somebody calls me on the US-Number I pay 14 Cent/Minute incoming
If somebody calls me on the LI-Number I pay 5 Cent/Minute incoming
If someboy calls me on the Telogic (vistream) Number its free for me

If somebody wants to make some test calls, please drop me a line

[Klaus Wegener]

I bought a SIM from Free Time Telecom GmbH | SIM Karte Multi SIM IMSIkarte SIMtravel Globalsim im Ausland bis zu 70% Handykosten sparen.

The SIM has 3 IMSI's and came with 3 numbers:

IMSI starting with 262.03 (e-plus)
IMSI starting with 295.05 (Mobilkom Liechtenstein)
IMSI starting with 310.630 (Cellular One)

Amerilink Wireless is now called Cellular One and serving this area: Amerilink Wirless - Local Coverage Map

One can switch between the IMSI's with SIM Toolkit, menu "Multi Account".

Being in Germany, the SIM only registers to a network (e-plus) when switching to IMSI 262.03. The display shows the network-name as "Germany", which is indeed e-plus.

One is reachable by all 3 numbers:

+49 1570
+423 663
+1 940

Would be interesting to which networks - using which IMSI's - the SIM registers in other countries.

[hrgajek]

Hello,

Originally Posted by Klaus Wegener

I bought a SIM from Free Time Telecom GmbH | SIM Karte Multi SIM IMSIkarte SIMtravel Globalsim im Ausland bis zu 70% Handykosten sparen.

Welcome to the Club

The SIM has 3 IMSI's and came with 3 numbers:

Me too

Would be interesting to which networks - using which IMSI's - the SIM registers in other countries.

As far as I understand the principle: The Telogic/vistream IMSI (virtual operator inside E-Plus Radio-Network) works only in Germany.
The Mobilkom Liechtenstein IMSI works in all countries but not in Germany and maybe not in the US.
The US IMSI should work in the US only, it does not work inside Germany (tested

For the caller who wants to call you, this doesn't matter at all. He calls one of these three numbers and reachs you. For the called party i.e. you it depends on the number the caller comes in.

e.g. in germany you will be charged:

0,14 EUR/min if the caller comes via the US-Number +1 940
0,05 EUR/min if the caller comes via the LI-Number +423 661
0,00 EUR/min if the caller comes via the Telogic/vistream Number +49 1570

Hoping this was understandable

[inquisitor]

Originally Posted by hrgajek

As far as I understand the principle: The Telogic/vistream IMSI (virtual operator inside E-Plus Radio-Network) works only in Germany.
The Mobilkom Liechtenstein IMSI works in all countries but not in Germany and maybe not in the US.
The US IMSI should work in the US only, it does not work inside Germany (tested

The following item from their FAQ page (which is not yet available in English) support your speculations.

In welchem Netz telefoniere ich mit FreeTime?

Mit FreeTime nutzen Sie das Netz von E-Plus in Deutschland. Im Ausland nützen Sie die Vertragspartner von Mobilkom Liechtenstein.

translated:

Which network do I use with FreeTime?

With FreeTime you use the network of E-Plus in Germany. Abroad you use the partners of Mobilkom Liechtenstein.

Seems to be a pretty interesting product, although the branding and the website are absolutely subpar. This silly fish and the brand name is probably not very appealing to business travelers. Also the German text is far from perfect - doesn't appear very serious especially as it's a German company, although I accept that there's a serious person behind this company.

Has anyone of you already tested the VoIP functionality? Their SIP service runs on a server called sip.mobispeed.net. The domain mobispeed.net is registered to "Achilles Rupf Unternehmensberatung", Valustr. 3, 8887 Mels, Switzerland, a stone's throw away from Liechtenstein, but it points to an IP address of Mobilkom Liechtenstein (213.33.90.229). This sounds like the VoIP service is well integrated in their MSC and so will run stably.
Will inbound calls also be signalled through SIP? And what tariffs will apply if you answer a call by SIP? (would be interesting if it was free).

[inquisitor]

Another cool feature would be if you could be called on your FreeTime SIP by SIP (through a SIP-URI), which would be charged to the FreeTime customer at a moderate rate. This would allow diverting any existing number to your FreeTime SIM through SIP circumventing conventional circuit-switched termination. I think Telna have such a feature.

[hrgajek]

Hello,

when you log in, you'll get a cryptic Passwort for SIP Operations.
Your username is the Liechtenstein Mobilenumber without 423 eg. 661xxxxxx

The Setup-Procedure is explained in the FAQ session.

Mr. Rupf was former CFO of United-Mobile.

I tested the SIP feature with my Speedport W700V Router (delivered by Deutsche Telekom)
I received calls only when calling my US-number, then the mobile phone kept quiet. (Mobile phone was registered in German E-Plus radio-network) When I switched off the VoIP-Account in the router, the mobile phone rang again.

When the "VoIP-Telephone" rang and I lifted the receiver I heard nearly nothing of the callers party and they didn't hear me, sounded like to less bits for decoding my voice.

I could not make outgoing calls via SIP. I didn't find out, which area codes are necessary, as I do not know, how and where the SIP-Server is connected to the PSTN, if he is. (Liechtenstein, Germany, US, anywhere?)

To be honest: I'm not so familiar with VoIP-Things, so I do not know, if I did all setups correctly.

But lets keep realistic. How should their business modell work, if callers could reach the mobile via SIP for free?

I think, to answer all this questions, you should invest in your own SIM-card

[inquisitor]

Originally Posted by hrgajek

I tested the SIP feature with my Speedport W700V Router (delivered by Deutsche Telekom)

That device is probably not the best choice for a test. I would rather try an AVM FritzBox, which usually delivers best user experience for VoIP.

I received calls only when calling my US-number, then the mobile phone kept quiet. (Mobile phone was registered in German E-Plus radio-network) When I switched off the VoIP-Account in the router, the mobile phone rang again.

It seems like they don't support parallel call (mobile and SIP ringing simultaneously), which I found a great feature with solomo, who however never solved the billing issue of their parallel call feature while roaming and eventually dismissed it.

I could not make outgoing calls via SIP. I didn't find out, which area codes are necessare, as I do not know, how and where the SIP-Server is connected to the PSTN, if he is. (Liechtenstein, Germany, US, anywhere?)

I guess their SIP infrastructure is hooked up to Mobilkom Liechtenstein's core network and so SIP calls are originating from Liechtenstein.

To be honest: I'm not so familiar with VoIP-Things, so I do not know, if I did all setups correctly.

If the phone rang for incoming calls and your VoIP router was not attached to another NAT-router there's few you could have mistaken with configuration. But I wouldn't rule out that there was a problem with audio codecs between the SIP server and your router.

But lets keep realistic. How should their business modell work, if callers could reach the mobile via SIP for free?

I didn't propose free incoming calls on the mobile, but rather the following two features:

1. Receive calls by SIP originating from a SIP-party (no radio network involved): If you're being called on one of the DID numbers or directly by VoIP through a SIP-URI you could answer calls by a VoIP client, which would mean for FTT (or their underlying MNO-partners) they would take the termination fees (at least for the German and Liechtenstein number, where the calling-party-pays scheme applies) but there would be no costs for terminating the call except for the negligible costs of IP transit of the SIP traffic. Inbound pure SIP calls (from a SIP party through SIP-URI answered by SIP client) would of course mean no revenue, but the costs of this is again just IP transit.
   
2. Receive calls on the mobile from a SIP-party (using radio network): If you're called on your SIP-URI but answer it on your mobile (as opposed to your SIP client as above) FTT would of course need to charge their customers for the incoming call. This feature of course would rather target a small fraction of their customers who are VoIP-savvy.

I think, to answer all this questions, you should invest in your own SIM-card

My readiness to invest time and money in beta tests has declined over the past years. I've helped United Mobile to discover some anti-roaming-steering tricks and USSD-blocking in Bulgaria and despite my help they didn't even refund the erroneously billed calls back then. Of course if they gave me a SIM for free I would be happy to test it.

[Klaus Wegener]

It seems that some handsets do have problems with the SIM card. I tried it in a Windows Mobile device (Toshiba Portégé G710) and the phone hangs when switching the IMSI. Hardware reset (pull and plug batterie) is needed.

I also tried it in some Blackberries (I like BB's because of the hidden network monitor which one can activate), here the SIM works well.

The feature "call divert" (see attached screenshot) does not work. I tried it even with "easy destinations" like "Germany landline": dialling US, Liechtenstein and German mobile number - divert does not work.