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

[snidely]

Originally Posted by ls129

For the past 2 years i've had 3 SIM cards that came and went.
Every time they die overnight and take away any credit in the account and the access phone number.

I put my trust now in TravelSim.

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

It is readily apparent. The roaming is NOT free. The bill for the call shows up on your home or office or customer's bill when they call you. These costs are MUCH higher than making a call to a cell phone with a regular lst world SIM. The costs imposed to call a LIctenstein SIM, were so high that many LD carriers in the U.S. refused to route calls to a Lichtenstein (ergo United Mobile SIM because they had to deal w. outraged customers when they got their bill.
The Estonian SIMS, while imposing high costs upon callers, aren't quite as outrageous as Lichtenstein was. Estonia only double most other countries instead of triple or quadruple.

Bottom line - your friends and clients are paying big bucks so you can get "free" calls.

...mike

[MATHA531]

Originally Posted by snidely

It is readily apparent. The roaming is NOT free. The bill for the call shows up on your home or office or customer's bill when they call you. These costs are MUCH higher than making a call to a cell phone with a regular lst world SIM. The costs imposed to call a LIctenstein SIM, were so high that many LD carriers in the U.S. refused to route calls to a Lichtenstein (ergo United Mobile SIM because they had to deal w. outraged customers when they got their bill.
The Estonian SIMS, while imposing high costs upon callers, aren't quite as outrageous as Lichtenstein was. Estonia only double most other countries instead of triple or quadruple.

Bottom line - your friends and clients are paying big bucks so you can get "free" calls.

...mike

But it wasn't always this way.....I remember a trip I took in 2005 to Central Europe...I used call forwarding on my Verizon landline through my ld carrier AT&T to my riing (UM was called that then) +423 number. At the time, AT&T charged 10¢/minute for calls to Liechtenstein with a termination fee of 1¢...also the callback carriers for outgoing were charging 12¢/minute...what a bargain! Others kept telling me of the high termination fees to Liechtenstein but I sat back very content.

It was shortly thereafter the termination fees to Liechtenstein shot through the roof even on AT&T so much so that it forced UM to move its prime business to Jersey (+44) where I was paying the usual termination charge to +44 numbers although the call back services became very expensive and remain so today to +44....so I switched over to O9 for a while...I was paying 16¢/minute well through this past winter on O9 to call back to the USA using either a couple of local sims I had or UM for reception. I, of course as I have said, am the classic case of taking but not giving.....

But to me it has become abundantly clear that a major part of the business model has been lost by Europeans who travel within Europe not thinking it really necessary to use anything but their own networks due to the capping of roaming rates by the eu.

Now, we have the vodafone three month promotion of its passport service with free roaming throughout almost all of Continental Europe plus the added benefits of Australia and New Zealand. Quite a discussion going on in the European section....while the offer is only from Vodafone UK, I can't believe the other vodafone subsidiaries will not be forced to match as well as the other British carriers.

At least for this summer, if travelling within Europe, the vodafone offer seems to be the way to go...and with vodafone UK sim cards available for next to nothing or even for nothing, how can you go wrong even if it's only for this one summer?