United Mobile - dead, CallBlue - dead, FreeGlobalSim - dead; just ordered TravelSim

[ls129]

Originally Posted by ls129

If anyone can explain the business model behind these free roaming SIMs i'll be happy to learn something.

Again, can someone explain how free roaming works?

GSM operators are obliged to pay per-minute termination fees when their customers receive calls while connected to foreign networks.

how come IOM and Lichtenstein GSM operators are exempt from termination fees ?

is that a reciprocal agreement of no-termination-fees between these particular countries and the 60-130 countries that are listed on "free roaming" sim suppliers sites ?

[MrEd]

Originally Posted by ls129

Again, can someone explain how free roaming works?

In general this is would be commercially sensitive information so you are unlikely to get any detail on this or of particular business models, especially on a public forum.

[FBlack_111]

I have been hearing about those Dual Number UK/US SIM. Does it mean that if I am traveling in Europe with the Dual Number SIM, and a person in the U.S. calls the U.S. number, the incoming call in Europe is a free call?

[MrEd]

Originally Posted by FBlack_111

I have been hearing about those Dual Number UK/US SIM. Does it mean that if I am traveling in Europe with the Dual Number SIM, and a person in the U.S. calls the U.S. number, the incoming call in Europe is a free call?

As general and summary can be found here

[hrgajek]

Hello,

Originally Posted by ls129

Again, can someone explain how free roaming works?
GSM operators are obliged to pay per-minute termination fees when their
customers receive calls while connected to foreign networks.

Yes.

how come IOM and Lichtenstein GSM operators are exempt from termination
fees ?

Liechtenstein Prefix +423 663 is a "premium" number prefix, this means, Caller have to pay a higher fee, to reach those numbers. Liechtenstein Telco gave a higher amount to United-Mobile and therefore they could pay the interconnect till China for example. But there must have been a new Interconnect-Tariff regime, UM decided to upset their pricing and to charge one time even per incoming call.

IoM (Isle of Man) and Jersey Calls are billed as "landline" but they are ending in mobile system. These Islands have unbalanced calls. Less Calls are going TO the island, most calls are going from the islands. So an international mobile phone company attracts lots of incoming callers and minutes.

But those models are very hard calculated and if the ugly customers do not make enough outgoing calls and pay for this (and do NOT use free incoming to set up a external Callback like "Enlinea" or others) then the model gets instable.

[ls129]

Originally Posted by hrgajek

Liechtenstein Prefix +423 663 is a "premium" number prefix, this means, Caller have to pay a higher fee, to reach those numbers. Liechtenstein Telco gave a higher amount to United-Mobile and therefore they could pay the interconnect till China for example. But there must have been a new Interconnect-Tariff regime, UM decided to upset their pricing and to charge one time even per incoming call.

IoM (Isle of Man) and Jersey Calls are billed as "landline" but they are ending in mobile system. These Islands have unbalanced calls. Less Calls are going TO the island, most calls are going from the islands. So an international mobile phone company attracts lots of incoming callers and minutes.

But those models are very hard calculated and if the ugly customers do not make enough outgoing calls and pay for this (and do NOT use free incoming to set up a external Callback like "Enlinea" or others) then the model gets instable.

Thank you for clarifying!

and also thanks to others who explained about the Lichtenstein premium number trick. Betamax charges 0.07EUR/min for calls to the UK Islands.

Regarding the new Vodafone UK 3 months free roaming trial, indeed it seems like a new trend will emerge for European operators.
This is probably sign of recession: less business travelers and those that do, care more about their spending. Resulting profit loss for Vodafone UK probably equates to less than 3 months of advertisement spending and this stunt will likely have better ROI.

[FBlack_111]

Matha531

You said "although the call back services became very expensive and remain so today to +44....". What do you mean very expensive? Callback rates through a +44 SIM seem cheap to me.

[kupe]

Originally Posted by FBlack_111

Matha531
You said "although the call back services became very expensive and remain so today to +44....". What do you mean very expensive? Callback rates through a +44 SIM seem cheap to me.

For me, Callback rates aren't the problem, it's connection reliability. During my last few months using UM, Callback World callbacks to my UM +423 had stopped working completely, and callbacks to my UM +44 worked at most 10% of the time.

Now, using Sim4Travel, I'm having slightly better success with CBW Callbacks, but no better than 50% success. In France for some reason, it's closer to 25% success, regardless of network.

Kupe