Can we trust callblue again??

[ls129]

I realize the world is not free but i love finding new tricks to save a few cents. And I hate being a sucker of FALSE advertisement practiced by Callblue.

I don't understand exactly how UM+ (or the defunct Freeglobalsim) can offer free roaming.

My guess is that Jersey and Lichtenstein have reciprocal free roaming agreements with 80 or so operators around the world. And these 80 operators assume that there are only a handful of Lichtenstein sim cards that are ever going to show up on their network.

With this line of thought, I imagine that once UM+ subscribers pass a certain volume of subscribers, the magic will be over.

Is that why the Isle-of-Mann free roaming sim cards have magically disappeared a month or so ago?
were there too many IOM sim card owners ?

[snaimon]

An interesting idea, but don't the ESTONIAN cards offer FREE INBOUND, too? Now I admit Estonia does not have as many mobile users as say Germany.

Wonder what others think? I am guessing the OUTBOUND payoff to the host networks are lucrative.

Stan

[dg7feq]

Originally Posted by snaimon

An interesting idea, but don't the ESTONIAN cards offer FREE INBOUND, too? Now I admit Estonia does not have as many mobile users as say Germany.

Wonder what others think? I am guessing the OUTBOUND payoff to the host networks are lucrative.

Stan

Well, its a mixture of inbound call fees and outbound revenues.
German mobile carriers take about 10cent/min for calls that are placed to their subscribers. So they could offer free inbound calls for countries that charge 10ct/min or less for incoming roaming calls. Combined with the revenues of outbound calls (which can be very high...) you can make a nice marketing mix.

[ygeffens]

Originally Posted by dg7feq

Well, its a mixture of inbound call fees and outbound revenues.
German mobile carriers take about 10cent/min for calls that are placed to their subscribers. So they could offer free inbound calls for countries that charge 10ct/min or less for incoming roaming calls. Combined with the revenues of outbound calls (which can be very high...) you can make a nice marketing mix.

Slightly off topic, but do you know some rates that carriers in other countries take (minimum) to connect to their networks? eg. for Belgium, UK, Iceland, ...

Voicetrading charges 10c to Germany, so they hardly make money on that, do they?

[Przemolog]

Originally Posted by ygeffens

Slightly off topic, but do you know some rates that carriers in other countries take (minimum) to connect to their networks? eg. for Belgium, UK, Iceland, ...

Voicetrading charges 10c to Germany, so they hardly make money on that, do they?

Poland: "the Big Three" i.e. Era, Plus and Orange and their MVNO's take 0.40 PLN and Play takes 0.65 PLN. At the current exchange rate it makes about 0.11 and 0.18 EUR, respectively. The rates above are exclusive of VAT, of course.

Have you found better rates to Poland mobile? Probably yes. How do they do this?
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fixed_cellular_terminal
Of course, it's illegal here, not by the national telecom law, but by the operators' ownership rights - Polish SIMs are formally properties of the operators and FCT usage is a violating of T&C's of someone's property .
The same trick applies to many other countries .

[ygeffens]

Originally Posted by Przemolog

Poland: "the Big Three" i.e. Era, Plus and Orange and their MVNO's take 0.40 PLN and Play takes 0.65 PLN. At the current exchange rate it makes about 0.11 and 0.18 EUR, respectively. The rates above are exclusive of VAT, of course.

Have you found better rates to Poland mobile? Probably yes. How do they do this?
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fixed_cellular_terminal
Of course, it's illegal here, not by the national telecom law, but by the operators' ownership rights - Polish SIMs are formally properties of the operators and FCT usage is a violating of T&C's of someone's property .
The same trick applies to many other countries .

Voicetrading charges:
Poland (Mobile) 0.0489
with ability to set CLI, so they are probably not using a Sim box.

I understand the working of a Sim-box (the idea behind it), but I still don't understand how Betamax has so many rates that are below 'the possible'.
I can 't believe that they deliberatly loose money to make money on other destinations. Have they found holes in the system? Possible, but how can they keep doing it for such a long time without getting caught?

Maybe Andy knows more ?

[Przemolog]

Originally Posted by dg7feq

Well, its a mixture of inbound call fees and outbound revenues.
German mobile carriers take about 10cent/min for calls that are placed to their subscribers. So they could offer free inbound calls for countries that charge 10ct/min or less for incoming roaming calls.

Not necessarily. The essential value is what is average rate which any specific operator receives per minute. I mean, what if a large part of the overall traffic are cheap on-net calls (=much cheaper than 10 ct/min). As long as the whole thing remains within the home network, that's OK. But what should happen when the SIM is roaming in a foreign network with the termination rate 8 ct/min.? If the call to that SIM comes not from the home network, the operator receives 10 cents which is probably enough to cover forwarding abroad including the termination fee of the roaming partner. But if not, i.e. the call comes from the home network at the on-net rate, let's say 5 ct/min who will pay the difference? Differing the inbound rates depending on the origin of the call is technically possible, but would it be acceptable by customers? Of course, my example doesn't exclude free incomig calls since losses on the inbound calls may be compesated by profits from outbound calls. But such pricing may force some "fair use policies" like limiting the volume of incoming calls or the inboung/outbound ratio...