Quote:
Originally Posted by RTuesday
That really does sum it up - after all this time, users have moved on. Global sims had their window of opportunity - and blew it.
The global sims were always a niche market. But their unreliability and problems like callkey have reduced the early adopter market. The reduction in roaming costs generally is reducing the future mass market. Anything successful can be stomped on by increasing the call costs to the number range they use (e.g. Liectenstein mobile). VOIP/SIP technology is making it easy for anybody to set up cost-effective redirects and inbound numbers, callbacks, etc.
Falling price advantage, poor reputation, shrinking market - doesn't look like the sort of business that has much future. The tiny niche left travels a lot, needs a single number, doesn't want to deal with setting up their own redirects, doesn't care about quality, and is very price sensitive (so not a loyal customer). Good luck to whoever has brought callkey, they'll need it.
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Actually, I might disagree a bit with some of the things that are said although not violently so.
Yes callkey has been unreliable...then we had a few years ago the situation with Ryan Air....but the Estonian cards have been fairly reliable, the Icelandic card has been fairly reliable (although how they have failed to deal with the situation in not having a roaming partner in Switzerland remains mind boggling and beyond my poor power to comprehend), United Mobile from the start has been very reliable....the only problem with these cards, and it has been a problem, has been the higher termination fees that somehow have been applied to them (being the cynic I have always been, I can see the hand of the major telcoms in this who didn't like the competition)...ever since UM+ has gotten rolling, I have found their service reliable.
Now some of us, such as myself, are not technologically gifted...I don't know from betamax or setting up my own network or whatever...I have to rely on the only thing I can do....punch a sim card from its holder, open up the back of the phone, figure out how to remove the battery and find the sim card holder and figure out how to remove one and replace it...that's the extent of my technical ability....I have used the international cards coupled with the ability to use cbw and enlinea to be able to make cheap calls during my frequent visits to Europe...perhaps if the eu really has its way, the cost of roaming in Europe will be reduced to what the Commissioner wanted namely 0 to receive calls and that will essentially be it for the need for international cards.
But as I said, I agree a blank statement that all the carriers have been unreliable is quite accurate.