Free sim card offer for united mobile customers

[ronwi]

Easyroam-

And, I edit mine. I wasn't suggesting there was anything wrong in editing your post.

I think it is very good that you don't hide the ball on your signup/order page. You state very clearly that not keeping the proper ratio of incoming/outgoing calls is required, and that not doing so is considered abuse.

However, I wanted to highlight that point, and thought that the fact that you were required to start charging for incoming UAE calls would be interesting to those on this board. I think that that a majority of people, even those on this board, are not aware that a large percentage of incoming calls can be considered abuse. For example, I have read discussions of callback services on this site, and don't recall any discussion that callback was frowned upon by the service provider.

Until I saw the caveat on your site, I had always assumed that the cost of delivering the incoming calls to the customer was covered by the amount paid to the mobile service provider by the carrier that delivered the incoming call. I suspect that most on this site had the same assumption.

I assume that it is competitive forces that cause you to have the free incoming calls. A more transparent pricing model would be to charge a reasonable fee for the incoming calls, which might then allow you to lower the price of the outgoing calls, which presumably are now subsidizing the free incoming calls.

Originally Posted by easyroam-

Ronwi.
I edit most of my new posts all the time.

U.A.E was removed due to very heavy abuse and yes it was due to all inbound call traffic, with no or very little outbound usage. We are not talking about 30 minutes a day, more like 6 hours+ a day.

Any of our customers who abuse the system now get blocked and disconnected. Genuine customers are not affected.

This is why most operators have started charging a daily fee or connection charge and removing countries as free roaming.

[adam917]

Originally Posted by ronwi

Easyroam-

And, I edit mine. I wasn't suggesting there was anything wrong in editing your post.

I think it is very good that you don't hide the ball on your signup/order page. You state very clearly that not keeping the proper ratio of incoming/outgoing calls is required, and that not doing so is considered abuse.

However, I wanted to highlight that point, and thought that the fact that you were required to start charging for incoming UAE calls would be interesting to those on this board. I think that that a majority of people, even those on this board, are not aware that a large percentage of incoming calls can be considered abuse. For example, I have read discussions of callback services on this site, and don't recall any discussion that callback was frowned upon by the service provider.

Until I saw the caveat on your site, I had always assumed that the cost of delivering the incoming calls to the customer was covered by the amount paid to the mobile service provider by the carrier that delivered the incoming call. I suspect that most on this site had the same assumption.

I assume that it is competitive forces that cause you to have the free incoming calls. A more transparent pricing model would be to charge a reasonable fee for the incoming calls, which might then allow you to lower the price of the outgoing calls, which presumably are now subsidizing the free incoming calls.

This is exactly what I wondered about when it comes to these global SIMs. They come with a number that costs more than standard numbers to call (though, the numbers they come with are from countries/regions that use the Calling Party Pays model, right?), plus it often costs more to place calls even locally with them, data costs are something I at times find even higher than roaming with my US SIM in plenty of places, so I would expect that _something_ would end up better than at least getting several SIMs and roaming within a few general regions (like a European SIM for roaming within Europe, etc.). Otherwise, wouldn't there be no incentive to buy a global SIM?

[Bossman]

I do not see too many of these global sims offering data any longer. They just cannot compete with most of the local sims. Most of the localk sims have better rates for data even while roaming than the rates for the global sims I checked. The UK sims for example, have reasonable data roaming rates, so I do not see anyone in the EU buying these global sims for data. For us on the US side, the data roaming rates, while expensive, are even better than what some of these global sims are charging.

Again, I just do not see how all these global sim companies in this market that continues to dwindle.

Originally Posted by adam917

This is exactly what I wondered about when it comes to these global SIMs. They come with a number that costs more than standard numbers to call (though, the numbers they come with are from countries/regions that use the Calling Party Pays model, right?), plus it often costs more to place calls even locally with them, data costs are something I at times find even higher than roaming with my US SIM in plenty of places, so I would expect that _something_ would end up better than at least getting several SIMs and roaming within a few general regions (like a European SIM for roaming within Europe, etc.). Otherwise, wouldn't there be no incentive to buy a global SIM?

[adam917]

Originally Posted by Bossman

I do not see too many of these global sims offering data any longer. They just cannot compete with most of the local sims. Most of the localk sims have better rates for data even while roaming than the rates for the global sims I checked. The UK sims for example, have reasonable data roaming rates, so I do not see anyone in the EU buying these global sims for data. For us on the US side, the data roaming rates, while expensive, are even better than what some of these global sims are charging.

Again, I just do not see how all these global sim companies in this market that continues to dwindle.

I actually wonder about this. What is it that causes such high fluctuations with data roaming prices? Why for instance a UK user could pay as little as £3/MB when roaming outside the EU while a US user pays $10--$20/MB anywhere outside the US & a Canadian about $30/MB? Are users really paying what the operators are being charged by the foreign operator or are they perhaps paying an order or two of magnitude higher? I find it hard to believe for instance that T-Mobile USA charges exactly the same rates when roaming on a T-Mobile sister operator as they do competitors when abroad.