Isle of Man discussion [split from Cherry Mobile thread]

[PhotoJim]

This discussion begs the question of how these Channel Island operators can afford to route a call to so many countries within the revenue they're receiving for the call, when larger providers won't do so.

Frankly I hope these services stay viable for a long time (United Mobile came in quite handy for me while I was in Switzerland, Germany and Liechtenstein last month). I like the idea of having a single inbound number I can use on many foreign trips, even if I end up using a different SIM for most of my outbound calling.

[RTuesday]

Originally Posted by PhotoJim

This discussion begs the question of how these Channel Island operators can afford to route a call to so many countries within the revenue they're receiving for the call, when larger providers won't do so.

(just to be picky, the isle of Man isn't in the Channel Islands. It's the little blob between England, Scotland, Wales and Ireland. The Channel Islands are off France).

I don't think larger providers are hungry enough to do global sims, and it's a different business: callback. Where callbacks under a certain cost are paid for by the revenue the sim company receives. These are the free incoming countries (since when you make a call you need an incoming leg of the callback). Above that, they start to charge for incoming.

But I think recent events might prove that their business model doesn't always work and might not be sustainable. A factor in this is probably people like us combining free incoming with another company's callback - so the sim card gets very little income from outgoing calls, which is where the profit is.

This is where a lot of VOIP companies are having a problem also - they attract users who want to save money, who then promptly identify where the VOIP company is overcharging to get profit, and subsitute that part of the deal, so that the VOIP company is just left with the loss-making parts...

(if Truphone is still working then it's clearly a Callkey problem rather than an IOM numbering or regulatory problem, as they have similar ranges).

[MATHA531]

Originally Posted by RTuesday

But I think recent events might prove that their business model doesn't always work and might not be sustainable. A factor in this is probably people like us combining free incoming with another company's callback - so the sim card gets very little income from outgoing calls, which is where the profit is.

Guilty as charged!