Isle of Man discussion [split from Cherry Mobile thread]

snidely · 08-10-2007, 01:40

Quote:

Originally Posted by andy

Quote:

Originally Posted by snidely

From message posted by me 6 months ago. It now appears that people "on the inside" knew this was coming some time ago. [Andy replied to the post stating it was pure speculation and I had no other confirmation at the time.]

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13-03-2007, 01:37
Re: IOM rates.
[...]
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 think we remember that

People who know more about the UK and Isle of Man governments and their telecoms regulatory bodies and providers have already tried to correct your unfounded guesswork about tax subsidies, termination fees and whatever else.

Namely, the UK does not subsidize the IoM operator, which is part of a large multinational - and which, rather unsurprisingly but inconveniently for this wonderful hypothesis, is still trading quite normally.

Quote:

Originally Posted by andy

It sounds rather too speculative to me, and the termination and subsidy issues would be on rather different scales if indeed they are the reason.
[...]

Manx is not simply a poky regional operator, but part of a larger firm. I doubt that the person you met has detailed knowledge of any cross-subsidies between the companies and the Manx and UK governments, and whether the regulators have it on the agenda. [...]

Quote:

Originally Posted by RTuesday

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.
[...]

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.

And since this was written, as we now know, 2 companies have launched similar arrangements with Jersey Telecom

And there seem to be some global SIMs appearing with UK numbers. And even before your post, from January in fact, there was an add-on option for O2 UK that was on similar tariff levels as the global SIM cards while in Europe, free incoming, 25p outgoing. What unidentified-source over-simplistic and patronising remarks can you report for them?

Andy -
As you did mention above - people here did say IOM carriers were not subsidized. I tried to make it clear I was NOT told why some (all?) of these IOM cards would be gone "soon". I thought i made it clear my reasoning was pure speculation.
Nobody has posted to this date what did cause this, AFIK.
I only went to this conference because it was in S.F. (my home area). The technology items discussed there were far above my head. The exhibit area was open to anyone on one evening. I happened to see one well known person who spoke about roaming, SIMS, etc. and simply stopped him in the hallway and asked about IOM, UM etc. All he quickly said was that IOM cards wouldn't be around much longer. He didn't say why and wouldn't respond when i asked him.

...mike

andy · 08-10-2007, 11:36

Quote:

Originally Posted by snidely

Andy -
As you did mention above - people here did say IOM carriers were not subsidized. I tried to make it clear I was NOT told why some (all?) of these IOM cards would be gone "soon". I thought i made it clear my reasoning was pure speculation. [...] I happened to see one well known person who spoke about roaming, SIMS, etc. and simply stopped him in the hallway and asked about IOM, UM etc. All he quickly said was that IOM cards wouldn't be around much longer. He didn't say why and wouldn't respond when i asked him.

This phrase seems to be central in what you report he said, and the speculation you derived from it: "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. "

Given that there was no such free ride, in either of those cases, perhaps your correspondent was not as knowledgeable as you hope, or you misheard.

I read elsewhere that the Iowa termination fees were unilaterally increased by certain companies from 5 to 14 cents, and the dispute started from that point. I don't know if that is true, but it certainly does not parallel this case.