new UM card with +1/+44 dual number soon

[adam917]

Wouldn't this compete with what Celtrek is offering?

[f300]

It just remains to be seen if the US<->EU travelers attracted by this offer will compensate for the EU<->EU customers aggravated by the .29 EUR connection charge. That is if the +1 offer is good compared to other US prepaids to start with. For me for now all UM offers are quite pointless but I don't travel so often and so far.

[MATHA531]

Originally Posted by f300

It just remains to be seen if the US<->EU travelers attracted by this offer will compensate for the EU<->EU customers aggravated by the .29 EUR connection charge. That is if the +1 offer is good compared to other US prepaids to start with. For me for now all UM offers are quite pointless but I don't travel so often and so far.

Good point (although I think the set up fee is 0,19€, not 0,29€...

Also, perhaps if there is some competition, AT&T and T Mobile USA might consider lowering their asininely high unreasonable international roaming rates (and of course it bugs me big time when I have to pay this international roaming fee on a T Mobile US call when I'm roaming on T Mobile UK (or any other T Mobile owned carrier)...supposedly a big part of this international roaming fee is to reimburse the roaming partner for using its network...in other words T Mobile USA is reimbursing T Mobile UK....that's akin to me taking money from my left pocket and putting it in my right pocket (of course on the way it goes into somebody else's pocket me to pick up some lots of extra cash) and please don't try to tell me they are separate companies. At the end of the day, its Deutsch Telcom one way or the other.

[f300]

Originally Posted by MATHA531

Also, perhaps if there is some competition, AT&T and T Mobile USA might consider lowering their asininely high unreasonable international roaming rates (and of course it bugs me big time when I have to pay this international roaming fee on a T Mobile US call when I'm roaming on T Mobile UK (or any other T Mobile owned carrier)...supposedly a big part of this international roaming fee is to reimburse the roaming partner for using its network...in other words T Mobile USA is reimbursing T Mobile UK....that's akin to me taking money from my left pocket and putting it in my right pocket (of course on the way it goes into somebody else's pocket me to pick up some lots of extra cash) and please don't try to tell me they are separate companies. At the end of the day, its Deutsch Telcom one way or the other.

The roaming charges are partially correct, there is signaling data and potentially voice going to/from overseas even if you call UK-UK with your US mobile while in UK so from the technical standpoint it's not just accounting betweek T-Mobile UK and T-Mobile US. That they could make a profit for a fraction of the price is another discussion.
In any case I don't see THIS making any dent in their bottom line. It might help without your personal bill a bit but a juggernaut like T-Mobile won't care about UM and the like which we have to admit are little more than "apartment companies". And to make things worse UM isn't a good long-term solution for any given place with all the incoming fees/expensive numbers. So you won't be really able to use the UM number as your main number and in effect any UM-based solution would have the added disadvantage of lost convenience.

[andy]

Originally Posted by f300

And to make things worse UM isn't a good long-term solution for any given place with all the incoming fees/expensive numbers. So you won't be really able to use the UM number as your main number and in effect any UM-based solution would have the added disadvantage of lost convenience.

It's fairly unlikely to be intended mainly as a long-term solution for people in only one given place

It's quite possible to use this without telling others the number.

For some UK and all US contract users (particularly those of the latter who haven't arranged cheap forwarding to existing global SIMs) it would come out of inclusive minutes.

Also, for users anywhere who can achieve cheap (e.g. 0 or 2 cent) forwarding to USA it could be quite interesting, achieving close to the Eurotariff in other countries as well, with the added bonus of a landline rather than mobile number for people at home to call it on. Yes, they could instead set up forwarding to a set of local SIMs, but one is simpler than many

[MATHA531]

Originally Posted by adam917

Wouldn't this compete with what Celtrek is offering?

My objection to celtrek (and Maxroam) is they charge you for calls that are not completed........which is also something we will have to watch out for in the UM offer.

[Bossman]

Yes. they do. They charge you for at least 1 min as soon as you answer the callback. Regardless of the number you called. You can call a totally invalid number that never existed or has been dead for god knows how long. You still get charged.

Originally Posted by MATHA531

My objection to celtrek (and Maxroam) is they charge you for calls that are not completed........which is also something we will have to watch out for in the UM offer.