Piranha Mobile Sim Card

[rfranzq]

Originally Posted by squawk1200

In the Piranha thread there are claims that Piranha uses Telna as their infrastructure provider.

I think that Telna is a little unique and strange in this business. Not neccesarily a bad thing. It actually owns some infrastructure/tower[s]/frequency licences in the USA. I do not know where or how much. It does allow them a bit more flexibility in making deals with other companies.
In the USA, Piranha uses Telna and T-Mobile for carriers. Until someone actually reports seeing 'Telna' as thie network on their cellphone, I would assume 99.9% of the time will be on T-Mobile in the USA. I assume that Piranha uses Telna to get access to the T-Mobile network. Probably much easier than dealing with T-Mobile itself.

This is my understanding, but not verified in any way to be true. Thus, if anyone _knows_ with more certainty than idle speculation, I would love to stand corrected.

If you go to:::Mobile World Live - Coverage Maps

And then scroll down and click on United States and then scroll down to:
>>Telecom North America Mobile Inc. (telna Mobile)
You will see about all there seems to be available about Telna.

Here is some more from Telna's website.

Questions about Telecom North America, provider of telna Mobile
Who is Telecom North America?
telna Mobile is operated by Telecom North America, a US based company offering long distance service to US customers with international calling needs since 2002, providing dependable high quality service with no hidden fees and fair rates. It's only logical for Telecom North America to accompany these customers when they travel to foreign countries, and continue to provide them with an inexpensive communications solution during their trips.

I've recently heard stories about telecommunications providers going out of business. What about Telecom North America?
Telecom North America has been consistently profitable for many years. We are in business to provide a good service at low rates while making a profit. Most telecommunications providers that go out of business were selling service below costs at one point or another.

Why would Telecom North America be able to offer lower roaming rates than anybody else?
telna Mobile is a licensed mobile operator in Missouri and a full member of the international GSM Association. Our service is provided using a combination of aggressively negotiated roaming agreements, proprietary callback and call routing technology, and Telecom North America's international network with connections to many of the largest telecommunications providers worldwide. While the service is not as inexpensive as international calling from landlines, it is built to provide international travelers with an alternative to traditional cellphones, at a much lower cost than that charged by American cellphone carriers for roaming in foreign countries.

So there you have it. Somewhere in Missouri they have a network. So if anyone happens to be in Missouri with a Piranha SIM, watch your phone.
I know of no links between Telna and Piranha other than this network use.

[rfranzq]

Originally Posted by rfranzq

So there you have it. Somewhere in Missouri they have a network. So if anyone happens to be in Missouri with a Piranha SIM, watch your phone.

El Dorado Springs, MO 64744

417 400 AS 955F TELECOM NORTH AMERICA MOBILE INC ELDORDOSPG

Area code 417 prefix 400 is the only prefix for TELECOM NORTH AMERICA MOBILE in the USA [as best as I can tell]. That is where they are a cell provider.

[DRNewcomb]

Originally Posted by rfranzq

So there you have it. Somewhere in Missouri they have a network. So if anyone happens to be in Missouri with a Piranha SIM, watch your phone.
I know of no links between Telna and Piranha other than this network use.

The FCC licensee database shows three PCS (1900 MHz) licenses for Telecom North America: St. Louis, MO; Flagstaff & Prescott, AZ. They appear to lease spectrum from Commnet in MO and to them in AZ.

[rfranzq]

Originally Posted by DRNewcomb

The FCC licensee database shows three PCS (1900 MHz) licenses for Telecom North America: St. Louis, MO; Flagstaff & Prescott, AZ. They appear to lease spectrum from Commnet in MO and to them in AZ.

This keeps getting better.
I was able to find six prefixes for Commnet in Arizona.
Tucson in the 520 area code.

928 area code: PAGE, TUBA CITY, DILKON, KAYENTA, FT DEFIANCE.
These in the 928 service near or in the Navajo Nation [also possibly the Hopi Nation. Page is outside of the Navajo Nation but on former land of the Navajo.
All these prefixes serve small communities and one prefix is enough for them. Also, there are probably other cell providers in each.
Coverage maps: Commnet Wireless

[depee]

Originally Posted by squawk1200

I would be interested in your experience with Piranha. In the Piranha thread there are claims that Piranha uses Telna as their infrastructure provider. Unless it's a SIM issue, I would expect the same experience as Telna, in the event the claims are true.

I had some family go over to London for the Olympics and Truphone was the SIM i gave them. Other than taking some time to register, it worked flawlessly. I did have to work with Tru as the per minute pricing that I was charged did not match the prices on the web site. They did refund the difference, but it would be nice to not have to do that step.

During my trip to South Korea and the Piranha SIM worked good. The first time the SIM needs to register in a new network takes really long. Round about 30 minutes in South Korea. Back in Germany the SIM needed round about 12 hours to register in a network. During this time I have tried to register with different mobiles.

Does anybody knows what the reason for this is?

The Callback worked really good and the voice quality was also high.

Sometimes I was not direct reachable over the US number. The caller had to try 3 or 4 times to reach me.

The VOIP application worked for outgoing calls good with also a good voice quality. For incoming calls was the voice quality was really bad and I removed the VOIP application from my phone.

SMS are only working outgoing. I' am not getting any incoming SMS. Only the SMS from the Piranha support are working.

The prices are really good and I hope Pirnaha will be longer in business.

[rfranzq]

Originally Posted by depee

SMS are only working outgoing. I' am not getting any incoming SMS. Only the SMS from the Piranha support are working.

I have been testing [playing with] the SIM. I do get SMS sent to my US number. I did not get SMS to my UK number. This was from a US AT&T MVNO and a Philippine SMART SIM. This was done from California.
Sending an SMS from Piranha's web site worked for both the US and UK numbers.

[PSIM]

Originally Posted by depee

During my trip to South Korea and the Piranha SIM worked good. The first time the SIM needs to register in a new network takes really long. Round about 30 minutes in South Korea. Back in Germany the SIM needed round about 12 hours to register in a network. During this time I have tried to register with different mobiles.

Does anybody knows what the reason for this is?

The Callback worked really good and the voice quality was also high.

Sometimes I was not direct reachable over the US number. The caller had to try 3 or 4 times to reach me.

The VOIP application worked for outgoing calls good with also a good voice quality. For incoming calls was the voice quality was really bad and I removed the VOIP application from my phone.

SMS are only working outgoing. I' am not getting any incoming SMS. Only the SMS from the Piranha support are working.

The prices are really good and I hope Pirnaha will be longer in business.

Hi we are glad the Piranha Sim worked well in South Korea for you, unfortunately the incoming VoIP problem is dependent on the routes used by the calling party, we only use premium routing on VoIP and Voice calls which you described as good quality when calling out (thank you). SMS, we have tested your existing number and given you a new number to test SMS, we have sent you test texts from 4 different operators/networks, all of which have been received on your original and test number, please let us know where the texts you are talking about were sent from and the result i.e were you charged etc. Finding network, this is very unusual and only normally happens when a handset is left on flight mode, once we replied your support ticket, it was logged that your handset registered shortly thereafter.

PSIM.

P.S We expect to be around for sometime and thank you again for using our service.

[snidely]

Will be in China for 3 weeks as a tourist in April. For the past couple years I have found using T-Mobile's (U.S.) UMA wifi calling to be quite adequate since wifi was quite prevalent wherever we went overseas the past few years
This time I thought I'd look into an int'l SIM. Piranha seems to be the only provider to provide reasonable rates. Many charge over $1/min. Piranha charges 32 cents/min. for outgoing to U.S. and 19 cents/min. incoming. Question, has anyone here used them in China? The fact they are so much cheaper makes me wonder if I am missing something. The reviews, here, seem quite good. They make use of both carriers in China.
I read a review of China's own prepaids. Excellent and detailed, posting on the "Asia" forum here. Sounds almost impossible for a foreign traveler to make real use of it.

Any China travelers here? Is wifi easily found? Anyone use Piranha or another SIM there?

Thanks.

[Stu]

El Dorado Springs, Missouri - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

[dg7feq]

what is actually the use of these very tiny mobile operators in the US that cover one or two corn fields? Is that more like a network for closed communication (like a petrol company or sth like that) or do they really seriously getting customers?