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[inquisitor]

No. While Lycamobile obviously uses the technology developed for and proven by the toggle project to evade roaming costs across their markets, Lycamobile has different tariffs which cannot compete with toggle's traveller-friendly pricing.

[peterdoo]

I would say that also with Toggle, a local identity (if present or loaded on the SIM) is used in all 19 Lyca countries. However they do not give you Toggle-Country pricing in all countries, but only in some of them where also a local phone number is available.

Originally Posted by inquisitor

No. While Lycamobile obviously uses the technology developed for and proven by the toggle project to evade roaming costs across their markets, Lycamobile has different tariffs which cannot compete with toggle's traveller-friendly pricing.

As far as I understand, Lycamobile offers some of the home country conditions in all 19 mentioned countries (http://www.lycamobile.co.uk/en/roaming-sim-card):
- Free incoming calls in all 19 countries. I have verified this in some EU countries.
- Outgoing calls at rates that are used in home country in the case when no call bundle is booked. I have verified this in some EU countries.
- Bundles for calls/SMS that can be booked for use in roaming in all 18 countries (EU Plus, UK Plan). Also usable in home country.
- Bundles for data that can be booked for use in some roaming countries (HOME DATA). Some of them also usable in home country.

For some users this offer might be better than Toggle offer especially when no local number is required. For roaming outside of the 19 Lyca countries Toggle has some better tariffs. As always with Lyca do not expect the things to work always. It appears to me that they do not order the necessary configuration (APN,...) from the network operators until the first user tries to use it and complains. At least it happens to me in many countries that for example the APN of other Lyca country is not permited for local IMSI and sometimes the problem is not resolved during the time I am present in a country.

As far as the EU is concerned, it looks like we will be getting some really attractive roaming offers on the postpaid plans. Whoever will have access to those will probably not require prepaid cards for EU-roaming anymore.

In Germany the Telekom included EU-Roaming without surcharge in its higher priced Magenta tariffs. Vodafone Spain removed roaming charges for EU/EEA, Switzerland, USA, Turkey and Albania in all its postpaid tariffs (http://www.vodafone.es/conocenos/es/...e-precios-con/). So one can get 1,5GB data usable in all mentioned countries for 14 Euro monthly:

[ChrisNeedsToKnow]

Does anyone know what the "real" prerequisites for obtaining the Lyca "Feel-Like-Home" service on a normal Lyca-SIM are?

My dilemma:

• I have a Swiss number which I would like to keep AND receive calls on this number internationally.
• Porting to Toggle is not supported

I got a Lyca-SIM, recharged 5 Francs, it's activated and works in the Swiss network. However, I could not even log into any foreign network. Customer Service doesn't care much. I have a feeling Lyca doesn't care about details, as long as the mass-market keeps going.

Long story short: Is there a way to reliably use "Feel-Like-Home"?

[peterdoo]

You should be able to login into foreign networks using local identities like in the case of Toggle. Maybe the phone does not support SIM toolkit correctly. In such a case you should select manually the required identity/country.

As I mentioned before, a recent Lyca SIM that I have tested had 20 identities preloaded that could be selected. Keep in mind that Lyca SIM lifetime is short if not used/recharged often, so you might lose the number if not careful enough. Maybe using call forwarding to Toggle for your existing number would be an option.

[ChrisNeedsToKnow]

Originally Posted by peterdoo

...SIM toolkit...

Wow, that's what I needed to know. I didn't even know this SIM has one.

Will be able to check in Germany on Monday!

Thanks!