After United Mobile
 

The only real options seems to be the iom sims.

GT-Sim is not an option, just because of this:

How long will the card and the balance on the account remain valid (only for Prepaid customers)?
If there are no calling activities within a period of 3 months, a rental charge of Euro 9,95 for the number will be automatically deducted from teh account. To avoid these charges simply top up your account by Euro 25.00 and the life time of your number will be extended for another 3 month at a time. If you would add another Euro 100.00 your life time of your number would be extended for another 12 month.

Estionian sims are nice but I just don't like the access number and can be hard to reach using voip providers.
09 iceland, same problem calling direct. Yackie, what more needs to be said, so many changes that you can't keep up exchanging sims.

So not many real working alternatives anymore.

That said um +44 outside the eu might still be a lot cheaper than using your standard sim. But it's nices to have 1 sim for where you are going, not having to swtich card every country you visit.

I have ordered the easyroam card, will hopefully get it today and enjoy free roaming again. UM is really pricing themselves out of the market this way. But the biggest question is, why did they do this. Was it needed to cover increasing network cost ? were they making to little money ? Time will tell.

@ bbob: well, yours seems to be a good analysis (maybe those who have Travelsim and/or 09 can say if they have problems with incoming calls).

Now, I'm looking forward to reading your report on easyroam :)

It would be nice to know... I only hope other providers won't do the same.

Most MVNOs/MVNEs seem to use Jersey Telecom as their MNO partner. UM used FL1 for the +423 and JT/Wave as their +44 partner. Who knows... maybe UM was too hungry and signed an agreement for too many line, now they have to recoup the loses... if it's JT that jacked up the prices...we will find out pretty soon, others will have to increase their prices.

Anyhow, I hate United Mobile so much now. Strange...no one ever mentioned the customer service that I find horrible. no more 24h/7d....:mad:

See the other thread...O9 is now apparently the late O9...the Icelandic economy is in the toilet.

Easy roam is another of the Isle of Man sim cards that make you pay a renewal fee every year........to me a downer.

Here's my question and I go back on this international sim thing to the days of HOP and Ryan Air which were revolutionary at the time....

I do wonder how much the eurotariffs for roaming have cut into the business of the international sim cards....if you're only going to have to pay say 0,19€ to receive calls within the eu, do you really need the international sim card.

Of course for those of us from North America, it might pay. But especially with British sim cards being so cheap (they are literally giving them away), for a three week trip through Europe from the USA, I can probably do just as well using eurotariffs using very very cheap calling cards and very cheap receiving calls.

I do wonder if this is one of the reasons for the sudden spurt in pricing.

I will say that for several years I swore by UM not at them. I remember a trip a couple of years ago throughout Eastern Europe (Poland, Hungary, Czech Republic) which finished in Germany, France and the UK. I had acquired German, French and UK sim cards but while in Eastern Europe, UM +423 functioned perfectly. And at the time, my ld carrier in the USA charged 10¢ US/minute for calls to +423 with a 1¢ (not a misprint) termination fee to a +423 mobile. I thought I was in pig's heaven using callbackworld for the outgoing.....I couldn't believe how cheap it was...

And then calls to Liechtenstein increased ridiculously so and they even added on asinine termination fees so I migrated to the +44 UM...no where near as cheap but the call forwarding to the +44 number was reasonable (not 11¢/minute but what the hell)...and I had no problems with them. Enlinea kept very cheap call back rates to the Icelandic mobile (O9) and I was paying something like 16¢/minute to call back to the USA on O9. Call quality wasn't as good but acceptable.

Now....well as the song says those were the days my friend, we thought they'd never end.....

The only hope now is that the eu gets its way and eventually we get the free reception of calls with an eu sim throughout the eu!

The problem is with countries outside EU. The cellurar providers in my country have recently increased their rates when using roaming in many countries outside. So, for these countries an international sim is still a perfect option.

According to this document termination fees to Jersey Telecom's GSM-network are £ 0,08008 (day), £ 0,04368 (night) and £ 0,02968 (weekend). I don't believe, that these earnings do cover the forwarding-costs to a lot of roaming networks, especially now that the Pound Sterling has weakened. So it had always been quite obvious, that UM does subsidize the free incoming calls by the earnings from outgoing calls. Presumably due to some users (including me), who have a very assymetric ratio between incoming and outgoing calls, UM was forced to introduce the connection fee. Of course that's disappointing, but from the entrepreneurial point of view it's a reasonable decision. Anyway I will abandon UM in favor of solomo, who offer incoming calls in European countries for € 0,10-0,15/min, as soon as my contract with O2 has finished and my number is released for porting.

Two points regarding the posts above:
1) the travelsim (i have a airbalticcard) worked very well in russia and kazachstan. In February we will use them in Vietnam as well. The reachability is ok if you accept not to use the cheapest providers

2) the problem with the EU tariff is exactly as prion said: since we have the EU roaming tariffs for example Vodafone DE charges 5 Euro per minute in&out in "world 2" zone (for example in australia, south africa etc.) riddiculous!!

Chris

Yes, Sim4travel also use Jersey, but I think you'll find that there are also several on Manx Telecom and Cloud9/Wire9 in the Isle of Man, plus those Vistream brands with eplus in Germany, Celtrek and Maxroam using an Israeli SIM. In addition, 09 Mobile in Iceland, Travelsim in Estonia, the first a main network, second I don't know