Chart comparing Roaming Rates for 4 intl. SIMS in 190 countries

[bones_boy]

Snidely, that is indeed some effort you've put forth. Thank you very much.

[VladS]

Great job! Thanks!

I have two questions:

Who reliably terminates to the United Mobile numbering range for $0.30 a minute? (CBW excluded).

What leads you to believe the cost to terminate calls to the IoM numbering ranges (07624 and 07924) will go up?

[snidely]

Re: IOM rates.
There was a "high end" telephony conf. about 10 days ago in S.F. sponsored by oreillynet.com. There were at least 200 people there from all over the world.
No - I didn't spend the $2K to attend. However, I did go one afternoon and evening when you could sign up and get into the Exhibit Hall for free. I couldn't help it if I accidentally walked in on a couple of conferences. Many/most of the sessions were WAY above my head.
Anyway, I wound up talking to someone w. a UK accent - a person who is somewhat well known in "telephony circles" in the U.S., (he was interviewed by Reuters about an hour earlier). I asked him about the IOM "carriers". He said that the free ride for the IOM resellers will probably end soon - for the same reason the Iowa "free calling to Europe" operations were shut down.
[An aside, there is still one of those free calls to many countries operations with a Minnesota number 218-339-1990. At least it was still working last Friday.]

He didn't tell me the exact reasons and I didn't know anyone else to verify this with.
My guess is that either (1) the central UK govt. subsidizes the IOM operator and/or (2) there is a much higher termination cost for calling an IOM number that the carriers either (a) don't know about or (b) do know but their systems can't distinguish between calls going to diff. UK - +44 - systems.
I do know that some operators can't distinguish between calls going to the mainland U.S. and countries in the Carribean w. +1 numbers for setting rates.

So, for now, this is just a RUMOR. I have seen this mentioned either here or elsewhere in a forum.

...mike

[snidely]

Re: Calling a +423 mobile.

Our landline LD carrier is: IDT. (idt.net).
From their web site: Liechtenstein 423 9¢ 9¢

They make no distinction between landline and cellular! 18 months ago when I had a UM card, I made a test call and was billed that amount (or maybe it was even a cent more at the time).
Wouldn't do me any good because, unlike Verizon, PacBell doesn't allow forwarding to intl. numbers.
Voicestick would charge 36 cents. Kall8 92 cents!!. Others in the past, here, said ATT LD only charges 10 cents. CBW - 14. Onesuite 25.

So, I picked 30 cents.

As for Estonia - CBW is 22, Voicestick and IDT, 23. However, Kall8 is 52. My usual dial around carrier, Onesuite, is 40.

IOM was a last minute addition. Rates I found for calling a UK mobile are:
Voicestick-16, IDT-40!, Onesuite-18, CBW-40. I should look up the rates for the other, major U.S. LD carrier-MCI?

Now that I look at all this - none of the pricing makes any sense!!! My main objective was to make sure people took all factors into consideration. Eg. UM is the only one to charge a "connection fee" on outgoing.
AND the main point is: Free Incoming is far from free. The cost simply shows up on a different bill.
"Foreigners" try to tell us 'muricans that we are at a disadvantage because their incoming is free. They neglect to factor in the 12 to over 20 cent per min. cost that shows up on their landline bill. Here, for $50, I can buy 3000 min. anytime airtime for less than 2 cents/min. It is FREE for the caller to call me.

I am open to suggestions as to what figure should be shown for the "average" user - not the cheap (frugal?) people here.

...mike

[RTuesday]

Originally Posted by snidely

Re: IOM rates.
...
My guess is that either (1) the central UK govt. subsidizes the IOM operator and/or (2) there is a much higher termination cost for calling an IOM number that the carriers either (a) don't know about or (b) do know but their systems can't distinguish between calls going to diff. UK - +44 - systems.
I do know that some operators can't distinguish between calls going to the mainland U.S. and countries in the Carribean w. +1 numbers for setting rates.

The UK government doesn't have anything to do with Manx Telecom (apart from anything else, MT is now a division of Telefonica of Spain). Nor does it have any direct control over phone systems in the IOM, that's the job of the Isle of Man Communications Commission.

The IOMCC does have to deal with the UK's Ofcom for number ranges, much like countries like Caymans +1 345 have to deal with Nanpa, because the country code is shared. But Ofcom doesn't control the rates or how the numbers are used.

I don't think there's any reason other than lack of will (or number availability, or regulation) why any UK based mobile company couldn't do something similar to what is being done with Manx number ranges. It costs so much to call any UK mobile number that there is plenty of room for the forwarding/roaming cost.

Indeed many of the UK 0844/0871 etc international callthrough numbers like pennyphone.co.uk (similar to the Iowa numbers) do already forward calls internationally at rates to the (domestic) caller that are lower than calling UK mobiles.

There's no loophole or subsidy being exploited anywhere for the Manx numbers - they are simply using the high incoming charges to "UK" mobiles to pay for the forwarding/roaming. Same could be done with UK numbers, or Jersey/Guernsey.

On your last sentence - I'd be amazed if any carrier charged the Caribbean at US rates, other than as an initial error. With all the premium rate numbers there they wouldn't last long...

Thanks for doing the chart, I'd be interested to see it, but I currently can't reach the chart with either link.

[GadgetKen]

Originally Posted by RTuesday

Thanks for doing the chart, I'd be interested to see it, but I currently can't reach the chart with either link.

Here's the chart snidely so kindly put together (zipped pdf file attachment).

[RTuesday]

Originally Posted by GadgetKen

Here's the chart snidely so kindly put together (zipped pdf file attachment).

Thanks for that. Very interesting chart, although it shows up how complex (and specific to each user) all this is - since it's geared to being called from the US (especially with the "real costs" surcharges).

But there's no practical way to make anything more universal (other than via a web application, which would be very hard to keep up to date). Especially when you start to factor in voip (and other) forwards, callbacks, where the main inbound callers like to call from and to, etc - plus of course many published rate lists are not accurate...

[prion]

Originally Posted by RTuesday

There's no loophole or subsidy being exploited anywhere for the Manx numbers - they are simply using the high incoming charges to "UK" mobiles to pay for the forwarding/roaming. Same could be done with UK numbers, or Jersey/Guernsey.

I want to add that there are carriers (Like OTE, the Greek main TELCO) that charge higher rates for calls to some mobile ranges in the UK, including the +447624 and +447924 prefixes. Rates are twice as high than normal mobile operators (Orange, vodafone, Tmobile, O2).

When they were asked about this they claimed that they pay higher termination fees to these Uk carriers....

[snidely]

Originally Posted by RTuesday

Thanks for doing the chart, I'd be interested to see it, but I currently can't reach the chart with either link.

Send me your email. I am hoping the moderator will post the PDF file here. Less than 30K.
I'll post the. xls file at those other sites tomorrow. It is 69K.

...mike

[crossag]

Originally Posted by snidely

Re: IOM rates.
There was a "high end" telephony conf. about 10 days ago in S.F. sponsored by oreillynet.com. There were at least 200 people there from all over the world.
No - I didn't spend the $2K to attend. However, I did go one afternoon and evening when you could sign up and get into the Exhibit Hall for free. I couldn't help it if I accidentally walked in on a couple of conferences. Many/most of the sessions were WAY above my head.
Anyway, I wound up talking to someone w. a UK accent - a person who is somewhat well known in "telephony circles" in the U.S., (he was interviewed by Reuters about an hour earlier). I asked him about the IOM "carriers". He said that the free ride for the IOM resellers will probably end soon - for the same reason the Iowa "free calling to Europe" operations were shut down.
[An aside, there is still one of those free calls to many countries operations with a Minnesota number 218-339-1990. At least it was still working last Friday.]

He didn't tell me the exact reasons and I didn't know anyone else to verify this with.
My guess is that either (1) the central UK govt. subsidizes the IOM operator and/or (2) there is a much higher termination cost for calling an IOM number that the carriers either (a) don't know about or (b) do know but their systems can't distinguish between calls going to diff. UK - +44 - systems.
I do know that some operators can't distinguish between calls going to the mainland U.S. and countries in the Carribean w. +1 numbers for setting rates.

So, for now, this is just a RUMOR. I have seen this mentioned either here or elsewhere in a forum.

...mike

I'm not sure what is meant by a 'free ride' by IoM carriers. Operations from IoM work on a fully regulated basis and within standard contracts. Any offers that are made are the result of normal 'blending' not by exploiting any loopholes.