Bluefire Wireless - a Manx SIM in transition?

[Jimbob246]

Hi Guys, Wire9 is an MVNO, cloud 9 is the retail? name of their product in MANX, not sure if they have a JV with Manx to share the 3g network of if they own their own radio gear, maybe someone who lives there can do a network scan with netmon or similar running. Bluefire is running on the same platform by the looks. I got a friend who works for an MNO to check and from the GSM world Wire9 appear as VMNO, and they use a clearing house for their roaming agreements:-

http://www.xius-bcgi.com/news.html#Wire
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Wire9 (MVNO) chooses XIUS InstaRoam
November, 2005
Wire9, UK based MVNO has chosen XIUS InstaRoam (Hosted Roaming Service). InstaRoam will enable Wire9 to offer instant international roaming footprint without the need for bilateral. The growing number of operators opting for InstaRoam has reconfirmed the service's acceptance among operators.

XIUS InstaRoam will give Wire9 immediate access to over 400 networks across 150 countries all with a single agreement. InstaRoam is the right solution for Wire9 - a MVNO as it will help in launching roaming services quickly without any capex. Thus Wire9 will be able to compete in the well-established market by offering its subscribers immediate worldwide roaming coverage
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Although I'm sure they will begin to establish their own roam bliaterals as time moves on, these take a while to do.

In the past, it looks like their SMSC may have been within Manx's network which is interesting

Jim

[Murch]

Spain: no problems and working fine, voice and sms trouble free

Switzerland: transit in Zurich. Finding network and it works fine. Nothing more I would expect. Only problem: although it is not stated in the user leaflet of the SIM card I had to see that incoming calls are charged!

India: as I previously said there are difficulties. According to BLUEFIREWIRELESS based on the political situation with Pakistan No idea what they mean

Saudi Arabia: no network login. I have just sent an Email and waiting for response. I will be in Riyadh until Monday and then proceed to Dubai. Let's see what is going on there.

Salam Aleikum from Riyadh

[cloud9]

Bluefire Wireless were originally a Callkey customer but signed up with Cloud9/Wire9 just before Callkey went pop and offered a free replacement for the new Cloud9 sim, which uses a +4478722 number. Cloud9 are a full IoM operator to compete with Sure and Manx but also offering the Global SIM service to distributors directly unlike any other MNO has ever done before, ie providing the distributor the callback switch as well as sim cards. Nifty one stop shop idea!!!

India and Pakistan are problematic due to the political situation and I believe they have a problem in UAE currently as they only use USSD for callback, but everywhere else is good.

There are a few operators with Cloud9 now it seems.

[Murch]

I am trying to use my +4478722 in some parts of the world and can tell:
UAE - not working
Oman - incoming yes, outgoing no
Qatar - not working
Kuwait - not working
Saudi - not working
Bahrain - not working
Israel - o.k.
!Switzerland: incoming calls are charged!
Spain: o.k.
Germany: o.k.
Czech Republic: o.k.

Next week I will try it in Istanbul/Turkey.

If the GCC area remains as of today I will use up my balance and nail the SIM to the wall. It is useless for me if GCC, India and Pakistan are not covered.
Personally I feel cheated by these guys but it's not worth it to do anything.

[WooF]

FREE incoming call countries

Algeria - Anguilla - Antigua & Barbuda - Australia - Bahrain - Bolivia - Chile - Cyprus - Egypt - EI Salvador - Germany - Guam - Hungary - Israel - Japan - Jordan - Latvia - Lithuania - Madagascar - Nigeria - Oman - Paraguay - Puerto Rico - Poland - Romania - Slovenia - South Africa - Spain - Tanzania - Uganda - Yemen Arab - Zambia - Zimbabwe

No roaming in france

Not free roaming in UK

No sms

Iv lost count the amount times there system is down

[Effendi]

I flew with Delta airlines to NYC and back and on their on board duty-free shop they sold also Bluefire Wireless simcards at the crazy price of $ 70.00 (without credit if I remember well). And they were advertising it with "free incoming calls everywhere" which is also totally wrong and misleading...

[albino]

I work on yachts and we have a company called www.gymsim.com that supplies us with a 423 SIM and also with a 44 sim.

For yacht crew the 44 seems to be a good product because of the free roaming in both Europe and the Caribbean, but the system has been pretty spotty - though we have been promised many upgrades in the next few weeks, (I have to give credit to gymsim support, there is a lady there called Sonia who lives to talk to the crew and find out how we are doing and tell us whats happening!!!) they just had a switch upgrade last week. Aparently signalling is one of the big problems, their current signalling/roaming provider is BPL out of india (Is this who Xius use?), and they arent so good.

The new provider is supposed to be TIM out of Italy which they say will make a big improvement...will see how that works out next month.

Texting is also not the best, not sure what is happening with that.

I am still using my 423 number, but thinking to use it less when the 44 number becomes more reliable.

I used my 44 SIM in the following countries, and was usually able to get network connection most of the time, but you have to fight it out, manual network selection, changing networks turning phone off and on - its a royal pain in the ass, but you can do it.

St Martin
Antigua
USA - OK in Florida, had problems in NY
UK - strangley I found it worked on auto network selection better then manual.
France - OK (but can only connect to Orange)
Italy - OK (but doesnt like Vodafone - drops out sometimes)
Croatia
Spain
Greece
Turkey - had lots of probs with turkcell, but was able to connect with cosmote when close to greece.

But yeh, the system needs improvement, may calls sometimes just drop out too - in the meantime im loving my 423, tho you find some people just cant call to the 423 number.

[cloud9]

Originally Posted by easyroam-

cloud9 is only for use (when it starts working) in the isle of man and not for roaming networks.

wire9 who owns cloud9 is the Backbone for the network

For reference, I look after the Wholesale Business for Cloud9. Whilst you will only see the Cloud9 Retail brand in the IoM and also soon in Gibraltar where we have another licence we do offer Wholesale Global Roaming products to resellers who can brand up the products themselves.

Currently the service uses the prefix +4478722 but we do also have ranges +4479245 and +4479246 along with +4477000 in use.

We are also working currently on implementing number portability so we will be able to migrate users from other IoM networks onto our own for resellers.

Our roaming agreements which are offered via our resellers now total 545 networks in over 200 countries (that doesnt include territories such as Christmas Islands, which come under Australia so arent really a country but are in some peoples eyes!) and we are not linked or a joint venture or MVNO with Manx or Sure, but a full GSM licenced operator whilst other group businesses also own GSM operations in Monaco, Central Africa and Cossavo.