Toggle Mobile

[wolfbln]

I don't know how Lyca treats incoming roaming. But I'm suspicious, when they'd skipped it and are not loosing one word about it And here is a good hint hidden in the ongoing "no roaming costs when travelling to Poland" promotion of Lycamobile UK, see: http://www.lycamobile.co.uk/en/no-ro...avel-to-poland

Quote: No roaming costs when travelling to Poland..... Lycamobile customers now retain their existing tariffs when visiting Poland, eliminating roaming costs and saving you money. All calls back to UK will be charged at our standard local rates, whilst calls to a Polish SIM card will be fixed at our fantastic, standard international rates. Take the stress and the expense out of travelling, with Lycamobile. Here they clearly say, which roaming charges they mean and I can't help the feeling their other promotion is very similar....

Some telcos are clearly doing tricks with "roaming charges" right now and Lyca is probably one of them. They take a very narrow definition of roaming like this: Roaming charges are surcharges to the domestic rate when you are abroad. Well, one can subscribe to this.

And here is the trick: They make a distinction between international and roaming rates. According to this: Call rates for calling abroad are of course not domestic rates, but international ones, which are charged substantially higher. So the high rates calling e.g. from Germany to Spain or within Spain on roaming when you use a German SIM card are in fact no "roaming rates" but your regular international call rates. And these very rates are not inflated by roaming surcharges (they are high anyway).

According to this strange logic: All roaming surcharges apply only between the home and the roaming country, because all other rates are in the international category like IDD calls. The problem in this thinking is, that there are essentially no "domestic" or "international" countries anymore, when roaming charges are really going to be slashed one day.

[gaztelugatxe]

Hello,

I've got a Dutch Toogle number and I tried to activate a local number. It shows Italy as a new country but when chosing Italy it doesn´t allow to get the local number (error: Country alias is invalid).

May be they will implement it for the future.

Regards,

[ChrisNeedsToKnow]

Originally Posted by gaztelugatxe

...I've got a Dutch Toogle number and I tried to activate a local number. It shows Italy as a new country but when chosing Italy it doesn´t allow to get the local number (error: Country alias is invalid)...

Same with UK-Toggle cards: The menu for local numbers now lists Austria, Belgium and Romania. At least Belgium can't be chosen; the other ones I don´t want to try (I have only one number left to be assigned, and I'm hoping for that to be a Belgian one).

[bourbonkiller]

This is already good news. I've been waiting desperately for a Austrian number and tried to register one just a moment ago. It gives an error saying: Country alias is invalid

Will try in some days again...

[inquisitor]

During the last 7 days I used my toggle SIM in Chicago in my Samsung Galaxy S5 DuoS. As my German postpaid SIM includes 500MB of data for roaming including for the US, I used toggle for voice only which why I used it on GSM only.
Interestingly my phone sometimes indicated the T-Mobile network my toggle SIM was registered on as "roaming" network and sometimes not. Initially I though that might be owed to the fact that T-Mobile (like all the US networks) use multiple MCC/MNC tuples of which some correspond to the prefix of my toggle SIM's US IMSI and some not. However I realized that the US IMSI of my toggle SIM start with 311-960 which is Lycamobile's MCC/MNC tuple while T-Mobile uses only 310 as MCC and the last network my SIM was registered on was 310-260, so the IMSI prefix and the MCC/MNC tuple of the used radio access network always differed.
Now that I'm back in Germany I was able to read my toggle SIM's EHPLMN list. The "Equivalent Home Public Land Mobile Network" list allows to assign one or more MCC/MNC tuples to a SIM card which are then treated as home network which - if correctly implemented on your phone - are not considered roaming networks any longer. However the EHPLMN list of my toggle's US identity is empty, so basicly every single network should be considered a roaming network since 311-960 (Lycamobile's tuple) does not exist as physical radio access network - instead it will always use T-Mobile's network with some 310-x tuple.
Now I really wonder why my phone sometimes has not indicated roaming for my toggle SIM. Was that a bug of my phone or do Lycamobile or T-Mobile some magic here? E.g. broadcasting 311-960 as a virtual network from T-Mobile's towers? Afaik it is possible to broadcast multiple MNCs from the same physical RAN however not for GSM but only in UMTS.
Service in Chicago was not very reliable - I could not send SMS to a couple of countries (e.g. to Telekom Slovenia subscribers) and some calls were not connected - instead there was an announcement in American English saying that the call could not be completed and that I should contact customer care if I believe this was a mistake. However my tight schedule did not allow to further investigate this or contact toggle. Also I noticed that for outgoing calls there was a strange sequence of distorted dial tones in the first seconds which sounded like the call is transferred through a couple of systems. That's no serious issue but let me wonder what route my calls went through.

Unrelated to above observation of roaming indication I wonder why toggle don't make use of the EHPLMN feature. Today we have to enable data roaming to use toggle for data service within toggle countries since the toggle SIM IMSIs always differ from the underlying local partner MNO's MCC/MNC tuple. However enabling data roaming for our toggle SIMs involves the danger of forgetting to switch off data roaming once we leave toggle countries which can quickly vaporize our balance if our phones start transferring data in a non-toggle country. Even within Europe there are countries where toggle bills data at horrific rates of more than 10 £/MB.
With all the expertise in SIM card engineering Lycamobile has demonstrated with toggle I cannot understand why they don't use this simple and convenient feature.
Please guys, implement a EHPLMN list for all our IMSIs!

[ChrisNeedsToKnow]

Trying to register a Belgian number now gives a new error:

"local imsi is not greater than max imsi index"

Does that mean it would work, had I not registered too many numbers before?

I have the UK-number and 8 others, of which only 2 others are currently active (UK, German and Swiss active + 6 inactive numbers).

I seem to remember reading here that it's only possible to reset the IMSIS by getting a new SIM? Did anyone suceed in doing this?

And biggest question: Did anyone successfully register a Belgian, Austrian or Romanian number?

Rgds, Christian

[inquisitor]

That error message, as many messages from toggle's system, obviously is linguistically flawed. But it obviously tries to say what has been stated here before - toggle SIMs support a maximum of 9 IMSIs including the original British or Dutch one. I hope toggle will soon come up with a more convenient solution than swapping SIM cards which will probably lead to the loss of all existing IMSIs and - what would hurt me most - the assigned local numbers.
As my IMSI count is at 7 right now, I refrain from testing whether one of these new countries are actually implemented already.

[peterdoo]

Originally Posted by ChrisNeedsToKnow

Same with UK-Toggle cards: The menu for local numbers now lists Austria, Belgium and Romania.

But unfortunatelly Italy and Portugal are not listed although the normal Lycamobile customers seem to get these identities automatically (without a local number) while roaming in these countries.

I visit at least 8 Toggle countries each year, so 9 identities is quite a limitation.

Originally Posted by inquisitor

With all the expertise in SIM card engineering Lycamobile has demonstrated with toggle I cannot understand why they don't use this simple and convenient feature. Please guys, implement a EHPLMN list for all our IMSIs!

Not all, but most of today's phones allow data roaming on networks of the same country without indicating roaming and without respecting the setting for data roaming. There is normally no need for EHPLMN. On my Alditalk SIM EHPLMN is empty. There is no mention of 262 07 anywhere on the SIM. It happily roams on O2 including data without indicating roaming and without the need to enable data roaming (S4 mini phone).

[inquisitor]

Originally Posted by peterdoo

Not all, but most of today's phones allow data roaming on networks of the same country without indicating roaming and without respecting the setting for data roaming. There is normally no need for EHPLMN.

You are wrong. The suppression of the roaming indication can only be achieved by the EHPLMN list (let's ignore the infeasible way of modifying handset operating systems as that usually is beyond the power of network operators).
Since I see your contributions in the relevant threads of the German telefon-treff.de board dealing with the eplus/o2 merger in Germany where a EHPLMN list has recently been implemented by OTA updates, I wonder how you come to such claims.
As you probably also know there is a thread listing phones that don't have EHPLMN support implemented correctly and hence still indicate the other network as a "roaming" network: http://www.telefon-treff.de/showthre...hreadid=571120

On my Alditalk SIM EHPLMN is empty. There is no mention of 262 07 anywhere on the SIM. It happily roams on O2 including data without indicating roaming and without the need to enable data roaming (S4 mini phone).

How do you read the EHPLMN field? Have you made sure that your method is actually working correctly?
My German O2 and Aldi SIM cards both received a EHPLMN list in the course of the merger of O2 and eplus and the associated national roaming. Both now carry 26203 (formerly eplus) or 26207 (O2) in the EHPLMN field as the following example of an O2 SIM proves:

[peterdoo]

I read the SIM with a card reader. Below you can see the results for Alditalk and Toggle SIM.

The Alditalk SIM does not seem to have received any update until now. It however roams in the German O2 network whenever necessary. Data connection works without the need to enable data roaming (on S4 mini original FW 4.4.2). There is also no roaming indicator displayed. I have posted screenshots on the German telefon-treff.de board few months ago when they started testing roaming in our area, where this can be seen.

Alditalk:

ATR: 3B9F95801FC78031E073FE2113574A33052C323400BD
USIM App present (country code: 49).
IMSI: 2620320XXXXXXXX

SPN: 00 MEDIONmobile

HPPLMN: 01

PLMNwAcT:


OPLMNwAcT:
21407 GSM UMTS
21405 GSM UMTS
23210 GSM UMTS
23205 GSM UMTS
23201 GSM UMTS
23209 GSM UMTS
23211 GSM UMTS
23215 GSM UMTS
23203 GSM UMTS
23207 GSM UMTS
20620 GSM UMTS
20601 GSM UMTS
23002 GSM UMTS
20801 GSM UMTS
20810 GSM UMTS
20820 GSM UMTS
27202 GSM UMTS
27203 GSM UMTS
22288 GSM UMTS
22201 GSM UMTS
27099 GSM UMTS
27077 GSM UMTS
20408 GSM UMTS
20416 GSM UMTS
20420 GSM UMTS
26006 GSM UMTS
26002 GSM UMTS
26003 GSM UMTS
22802 GSM UMTS
28601 GSM UMTS
23410 GSM UMTS
23433 GSM UMTS
23430 GSM UMTS
23430 GSM UMTS
23430 GSM UMTS
23430 GSM UMTS
23430 GSM UMTS
23430 GSM UMTS
23430 GSM UMTS
23430 GSM UMTS
23430 GSM UMTS
23430 GSM UMTS
23430 GSM UMTS
23430 GSM UMTS
23430 GSM UMTS
23430 GSM UMTS
23430 GSM UMTS
23430 GSM UMTS
23430 GSM UMTS
23430 GSM UMTS


HPLMNwAcT:
26203 UMTS


EHPLMN not present.

OPL:
26203, LAC:0000-FFFE, Name:01


PNN:
1:MEDIONmobile

Toggle Mobile:

ATR: 3B9E96801FC38031E073FE211B66D0016C040D0060
USIM App present (country code: 47).
IMSI: 2142591XXXXXXXX

SPN: 00 toggle

HPPLMN: 05

PLMNwAcT:


OPLMNwAcT:
23410 GSM GSM-COMPACT
20404 GSM GSM-COMPACT UMTS
26202 GSM GSM-COMPACT UMTS
20601 GSM GSM-COMPACT UMTS
20810 GSM GSM-COMPACT UMTS
21401 GSM GSM-COMPACT UMTS
23415 GSM GSM-COMPACT UMTS
22210 GSM GSM-COMPACT UMTS
23201 GSM GSM-COMPACT UMTS
310041 GSM GSM-COMPACT UMTS
22801 GSM GSM-COMPACT UMTS
28602 GSM GSM-COMPACT UMTS
20205 GSM GSM-COMPACT UMTS
24008 GSM GSM-COMPACT UMTS
24004 GSM GSM-COMPACT UMTS
26801 GSM GSM-COMPACT UMTS
23801 GSM GSM-COMPACT UMTS
26001 GSM GSM-COMPACT UMTS
24201 GSM GSM-COMPACT UMTS
23003 GSM GSM-COMPACT UMTS
46002 GSM GSM-COMPACT UMTS
21670 GSM GSM-COMPACT UMTS
27201 GSM GSM-COMPACT UMTS
65501 GSM GSM-COMPACT UMTS
27001 GSM GSM-COMPACT UMTS
25001 GSM GSM-COMPACT UMTS
42403 GSM GSM-COMPACT UMTS
22601 GSM GSM-COMPACT UMTS
21910 GSM GSM-COMPACT UMTS
36269 GSM GSM-COMPACT UMTS
60202 GSM GSM-COMPACT UMTS
24405 GSM GSM-COMPACT UMTS
40420 GSM GSM-COMPACT UMTS
40411 GSM GSM-COMPACT UMTS
52503 GSM GSM-COMPACT UMTS
50503 GSM GSM-COMPACT UMTS
72404 GSM GSM-COMPACT UMTS
72402 GSM GSM-COMPACT UMTS
72403 GSM GSM-COMPACT UMTS
60400 GSM GSM-COMPACT UMTS
50219 GSM GSM-COMPACT UMTS
51001 GSM GSM-COMPACT UMTS
45406 GSM GSM-COMPACT UMTS
42501 GSM GSM-COMPACT UMTS
33403 GSM GSM-COMPACT UMTS
25501 GSM GSM-COMPACT UMTS
74603 GSM GSM-COMPACT UMTS
23101 GSM GSM-COMPACT UMTS
29340 GSM GSM-COMPACT UMTS
62120 GSM GSM-COMPACT UMTS
42001 GSM GSM-COMPACT UMTS
22005 GSM GSM-COMPACT UMTS
24602 GSM GSM-COMPACT UMTS
24705 GSM GSM-COMPACT UMTS
46692 GSM GSM-COMPACT UMTS
24802 GSM GSM-COMPACT UMTS
45202 GSM GSM-COMPACT UMTS
27402 GSM GSM-COMPACT UMTS
73001 GSM GSM-COMPACT UMTS


HPLMNwAcT:
23410 GSM GSM-COMPACT UMTS LTE
20404 GSM GSM-COMPACT UMTS


EHPLMN not present.

OPL:
23410, LAC:0000-FFFE, Name:01
23426, LAC:0000-FFFE, Name:01
20404, LAC:0000-FFFE, Name:01


PNN:
1:TOGGLE MOBILE