Is Maxroam working?

[GadgetKen]

Originally was sent the MaxRoam Israeli card with a "Yackie" discount for switching. Didn't work properly so they sent a Belgian replacement. It does work for send/receive text messaging and for outgoing calls (haven't tried incoming yet). Call placed on T-Mobile did not work with standard direct dial with + or 001 code, but did work with alternate *182*001*******# command on T-Mobile USA to dial my office voicemail. Callback was fairly quick, had very good voice quality, and I was charged 1.01 Euros for a short USA to USA call under a minute. Error message or incomplete calls were charged half a Euro each. Cumbersome dialing method but I can program a few common numbers into the sim phonebook.
Reason for switching sims was given on their zendesk csr system as "We have had a failure of our SIM toolkit on a select batch of SIMs, this is the software on the SIM card that allows you to make cheap and receive cheap roaming calls. Unfortunately your SIM was part of this batch and we will ship you a new SIM, free of charge. If you could please email us with your current address we will see that a new SIM is shipped out to you immediately" rather than a problem with the underlying Israeli carrier.
Most recent zendesk csr response gives some hints on dialing and switching carrier that I found helpful:
"I'm afraid that due to upgrades to our system some parts of the website are unavailable. Unfortunately this includes the reactivation page. The sim card was preactivated though so you can use it to make and receive calls and sms messages. You can also top up by using the following link: https://www.maxroam.com/MyMAXroam/TopUpExternal.asp
I'm afraid that these upgrades are essential as there are some changes to our service. For example, you now have one number for voice and text. On the reverse of your card you will see a number beginning 048. If you put a +32 and remove the 0 from this number you will have +32489XXXXXX. This is your new sms number which you can also take calls on.
We have dropped our priced in 55 countries by 50%. We now cover 26 new countries and your sim is now data enabled.
We aim to have the website running as normal as normal as soon as possible. We apologise for any inconvenience caused in the meantime.
With regard to your issue making calls, Please check your credit balance first of all. If you have enough credit to make a call, then please turn your phone off for 90 seconds. Turn it back on and allow it another 90 seconds to start up fully. Then try to make a call using the *182*phonenumber# format. If this still does not work, please try select an alternative network and place a call. If none of this works, please contact us again."
Bottom line is that the new sim is functional but they really need to do more work to get everything working properly. We'll see whether they can pull this off...

[CellRider]

Curious with other SIM cards has the direct dial worked for you or have you always had to use an alternate *182* type method. Trying to figure out if the issue is my Moto V551 or this lovely Maxroam SIM card.

Originally Posted by GadgetKen

Originally was sent the MaxRoam Israeli card with a "Yackie" discount for switching. Didn't work properly so they sent a Belgian replacement. It does work for send/receive text messaging and for outgoing calls (haven't tried incoming yet). Call placed on T-Mobile did not work with standard direct dial with + or 001 code, but did work with alternate *182*001*******# command on T-Mobile USA to dial my office voicemail. Callback was fairly quick, had very good voice quality, and I was charged 1.01 Euros for a short USA to USA call under a minute. Error message or incomplete calls were charged half a Euro each. Cumbersome dialing method but I can program a few common numbers into the sim phonebook.
Reason for switching sims was given on their zendesk csr system as "We have had a failure of our SIM toolkit on a select batch of SIMs, this is the software on the SIM card that allows you to make cheap and receive cheap roaming calls. Unfortunately your SIM was part of this batch and we will ship you a new SIM, free of charge. If you could please email us with your current address we will see that a new SIM is shipped out to you immediately" rather than a problem with the underlying Israeli carrier.
Most recent zendesk csr response gives some hints on dialing and switching carrier that I found helpful:
"I'm afraid that due to upgrades to our system some parts of the website are unavailable. Unfortunately this includes the reactivation page. The sim card was preactivated though so you can use it to make and receive calls and sms messages. You can also top up by using the following link: https://www.maxroam.com/MyMAXroam/TopUpExternal.asp
I'm afraid that these upgrades are essential as there are some changes to our service. For example, you now have one number for voice and text. On the reverse of your card you will see a number beginning 048. If you put a +32 and remove the 0 from this number you will have +32489XXXXXX. This is your new sms number which you can also take calls on.
We have dropped our priced in 55 countries by 50%. We now cover 26 new countries and your sim is now data enabled.
We aim to have the website running as normal as normal as soon as possible. We apologise for any inconvenience caused in the meantime.
With regard to your issue making calls, Please check your credit balance first of all. If you have enough credit to make a call, then please turn your phone off for 90 seconds. Turn it back on and allow it another 90 seconds to start up fully. Then try to make a call using the *182*phonenumber# format. If this still does not work, please try select an alternative network and place a call. If none of this works, please contact us again."
Bottom line is that the new sim is functional but they really need to do more work to get everything working properly. We'll see whether they can pull this off...

[Bossman]

Direct dial has always worked for me with other sim cards. Not a problem with your V551. Even when the UM+ card will not dial directly from the contacts on a couple of my phones, my V551 was always able to dial direct. Not sure if users in other countries are having this issue, or is it just a USA network thing though.

Originally Posted by CellRider

Curious with other SIM cards has the direct dial worked for you or have you always had to use an alternate *182* type method. Trying to figure out if the issue is my Moto V551 or this lovely Maxroam SIM card.

[CellRider]

Thanks Maxroam surprise was trying to blame it on my phone. Curious to see what others have to say. I am going to give Geosym or another player a try. Seems like no immediate resolution insight with Maxroam. Still getting the old "working hard to resolve issues" line.

Originally Posted by Bossman

Direct dial has always worked for me with other sim cards. Not a problem with your V551. Even when the UM+ card will not dial directly from the contacts on a couple of my phones, my V551 was always able to dial direct. Not sure if users in other countries are having this issue, or is it just a USA network thing though.

[GadgetKen]

Likewise only could get outgoing calls to work with *182*number#. Similar to Bossman, not sure if this is a system issue with MaxRoam or just a US roaming problem. Don't think it's your V551 phone, because similar problem with my Moto Razr using Maxroam (UM+ card I have can do direct dial out but not the MaxRoam card).

Bottom line is that I can deal with the odd dialing out method since just calls home, my office, or to a travel provider number. For occassional use it will do. Don't want to keep buying new callback sim cards due to pricing changes or vendor problems(this negates any cost advantage), so I hope they can work out their technical problems in short order.

On my test call, that was longer than 10 seconds (probably closer to a minute from USSD call-out. Doubt any non-US provider can provide 15 cent/minute roaming unless it's 2 providers on one sim like the experimental new UM card; easiest solution for US really is a throw-away sim card useable on AT&T or T-Mobile (either one of their cards or an MVNO like Beyond Wireless/Jolt or Tuyo).

[CellRider]

Anyone get any updates on this over 3 week old problem now? I still have no access to the website or my account. I still need to assign a US number to my card for my upcoming travels. Not even sure how we can add credit at this point. Maxroam has been quiet and still has nothing on their site saying many of their features are not available. If this was in the US we would could at least have the BBB on their case.

[Grampa]

I got an email that new cards are on the way, and then yesterday I got this:

Dear MAXroam customers,

We are making incredible advances in this upgrade.
We would seriously like to thank you for your patience.
If you weren’t aware you can now recredit/top-up your account/sim easily by going here (link).

You will notice a new MAXroam over the next few days. Rates/data rates and lots of other new features.

Again thanks for your patience we really appreciate it.

Best Regards,

Niamh Hartery


I haven't tried the link -- it would be throwing good money after bad at this point.

[Bossman]

Hope your travels are not real soon. If so, you may want to lok into a backup sim card. Most of us here, that do a little bit of travelling, have more than one international sim.

At this point, I can care less what Maxroam does. I am going on a cruise to the Caribbean tomorrow. I will depend on my UM+ sim and if neccesary my AT&T sim.

Originally Posted by CellRider

Anyone get any updates on this over 3 week old problem now? I still have no access to the website or my account. I still need to assign a US number to my card for my upcoming travels. Not even sure how we can add credit at this point. Maxroam has been quiet and still has nothing on their site saying many of their features are not available. If this was in the US we would could at least have the BBB on their case.