SaverSim and Wizz

[prion]

I must say that I agree with Bbob in regard to the need to state exactly the rules for the free incoming calls. They should be very clearly stated in the rules and not be flexible. The company can set a rule known to everyone and then, if the company decides, they can be flexible on that and not terminate a sim when a customer violates the rule. But there must be a rule.

In regard to th reseller part of bbob comment I think that a signature is enough to show the affiliation of a pgsm member.

[bbob]

Originally Posted by dg7feq

Hi John,
i can 100% understand your position.
The problem i have with many providers is that they put a huge sign "FREE INCOMING IN XXX COUNTRIES" on the website -- and a limitation ratio or whatever in the smallprint of the smallprint in the imprint.

Free incoming is free incoming. No matter if 1 minute or 10000 minutes.
Otherwise you can write "100 free incoming minutes per month" or "5 free incoming minutes for every minute of outgoing calls" or something like that.

The same discussion was here with internet providers who offer a data FLAT RATE but start to whine if a user uses 500 GB a month. These now have to name it "fair use flatrate" and quote the traffic cap clearly on the 1st page of the offer.

Chris

I can only agree with you. Free is Free and unlimited is unlimited, fair use = never unlimited. If you advertise free incoming and there is a limit, it should be on the same page saying there is a limit and not in the small print. But this is marketing or is it really misinforming people as many don't read the small print ?

I see the same thing here for internet products, they advertise unlimited and the small print says free use. Take a dictionary, unlimited is unlimited and nothing else. Fair use is something completely different.

Fair use is also a nice marketing tools as it does not say anything. What is fair use and who decides what that is. 1 thing is for sure, not the customers and he nevers really knows what the seller means whith fair use. Fair use only creates discussions.
I don't think that most user have no problems if there are any limitations, say 200 gb per month for internet should be more than enough for 98% of the users. The same for other services.

[andy]

Originally Posted by snidely

I have always assumed that the LARGE termination costs imposed by virtually all carriers outside the U.S., Canada and a few other countries all go to the carriers. Somebody can correct me if i'm wrong. As I mentioned above, it would be more fair if they shared some of that largess w. "resellers" like you. Unfortunately they don't.
We in the U.S. are spoiled in that it costs no more to call a cell phone than a landline. We can get unlimited calling, incoming/outgoing for under $100/mo. T-Mobile includes unlimited SMS w. that. Discount carriers that only cover limited geographical areas charge $40/mo. for unlimited voice. An ever increasing number of Americans have given up their landlines. You "foreigners" couldn't do this.
The fact that overseas cell carriers charge 10 times (or more) than a landline to terminate a call seems outrageous to most Americans.
I should mention extra charges for long distance within the U.S. have all but disappeared.
End of rant.

...mike

If you must keep lecturing us about how expensive our phone systems are, at least get some information a bit more in proportion

For some countries, a large chunk of the termination fees is taxation. As complaints on other forums show, rates to Pakistan have jumped significantly upwards twice in the last few months.

But perhaps many rates are not quite as high as you think. The wholesale termination rate to most UK mobiles is said to be just over 5p and is heading down to 4p within 2 years (that might be plus VAT). If your provider charges 22 or 30 cents, perhaps your complaint should be re-aimed.

I'm sorry to hear that your unlimited packages are so expensive [are they truly unlimited, or with a fair use policy?] I have 650 minutes a month, 500 sms, free internet access in UK, free incoming and 25p outgoing roaming in Europe (1000 minutes fair use policy on this bit). That's £20 a month; if I'd wanted 1200 minutes it could be £27. Without a new phone every 18 months save another £150, so rates could average under 2p. And that includes calls to IoM and Jersey global SIMs ...

Some business contracts now have international calls (dialled from home country) in the inclusive minutes. Can any American call international including European mobiles from their minutes? Your T-mobile has put its international calls up from 29 to 69 cents. My O2 is still 17p to many, including European mobiles, and can call forward at that, so was always one possible route to cheaper mobile calls when abroad even before the advent of global SIMs and the Eurotariff.

But we're mostly trying to consider prepaid on here, of course, instead of boring each other with contracts. The cheapest UK prepaid mvno rates to all UK mobiles are 8 and 9p a minute; they don't need the equivalent of $100 added to get the best rates, or to stay valid longer than a month or two, and don't use credit for incoming calls. So it's just about possible they might be better value than prepaid US SIMs. You may be telling UK customers they're being ripped off, but perhaps they won't agree.

Some mvno and main network prepaid brands here have European mobiles from 10p. USA is from 2p to 5p on at least half a dozen or probably closer to ten brands. Do you have any US brands with 3 cent rates to UK, not an extra cost for separate callthrough, but the total direct-dialled tariff?



Back a bit closer to the way this topic has developed: if main networks such as O2 and Wind can equal or undercut global roaming SIM rates in Europe, even specifically Bulgaria a mentioned, would they be actually losing money?

As for the outbreak of providers' accusations of unfair use by customers, and difficulty earning anything from some of them, I can receive calls free on my UK phone in for example Germany, its outgoing rates are cheaper than most global SIMs including this one, or I could make outgoing local and int'l calls for 8 or 9 cents using a German SIM. So I don't seem to need a global SIM there at the moment, but others might have forwarded incoming calls to theirs and have a local one as well.

Vodafone has had its Passport scheme for a while now, which lets its contract customers use their inclusive minutes while abroad, plus just a connection fee. Lots of short calls would be painful, but a one-hour received one would still be only 75p for UK Vodafone, and the caller if also on Vodafone might have only 3 minutes off their monthly allowance if calling off-peak. 2 x O2 UK prepaid SIMs can have 1000 minutes of calls a month from one at home to the other roaming in Europe for £15 between them. Are they really throwing money away? Global SIM providers might reckon they don't want these customers, but one wonders why the main networks would make these offers.

Perhaps the global SIMs and the main networks could still find ways of making their outgoing roaming rates a bit closer to indigenous ones. It shouldn't be so difficult; Orange UK was managing it over 10 years ago (e.g. about 3 or 5p within or home from Hong Kong or Singapore), before it joined the club of increasing roaming rates; back then, their calls home from Belgium or France were actually slightly cheaper than extra calls within the UK.

Maybe someday, maybe soon, instead of just development rumours and hopes, someone will actually launch a multi-ID SIM with cheaper rates based on it being local in a few or plenty of countries. But they need to be well chosen. Someone said to me months ago that in theory 100 IDs can be on one SIM; the trouble with this is that it might take 20 or 30 minutes to register on a network.

[bbob]

It's like you say and normal provider do seem to make money somehow even at low rates.

So you would aks yourself is it really needed to put in crazy ratio's in term ?
When offering free incomming sure there will alsways be users that use it more compared to other ones. Like any business you have products that make lots of money but you also have lots that make little money. If a supermarket would take out all the products they make little money on or just a bit it would get really empty. They need those products also so customers will buy the more profitable ones.

The same with ratios. By having them you scare away customers that might nog even go over these ratio's. On the other hand you will have customers that will go over it if you don't have them. The trick is to have just a few of these customers and the rest will compensate for the few.

But by choosing ratio's and crazy terms you scare away customers that would normally not go over these ratio's but just because they are there the might not choose your service.

[MATHA531]

Everything changes over time...many years ago somebody showed me a computer system they were buying and if they were getting a good deal. I told them yes and they bought the system. Well of course you know what happened, six months later the system was almost junk and my friend almost never talked to me again. Trust me at the time it was a good buy but time and technology and whatever march on.

The US cell system developed in a sort of erratic manner. I remember my first cell phone...it was large and bulky and analogue (sp.)...I had a very local calling area in the New York City area (it included metropolitan NJ and Long Island larger than NY Telephone was providing) but I had something like 30 minutes a month, was charged very high rates for any calls outside my local calling area and when I roamed outside my home area, forget it...

Then Sprint began advertising national long distance at no extra charge and no roaming fees wherever they operated. In other words I was ecstatic, I could receive calls in Los Angeles at the same rate as receiving calls at home. Within six months, every carrier had to have those features to remain competitive. Today, it is almost taken for granted on US cell plans there are no local calling areas, all calls within the USA cost the same and come out of minutes and you can roam almost at will throughout the USA.

In similar manners, European mobile service developed with some slightly different concepts. As I understand it, one of the first decisions was to go with GSM as people were constantly going from one country to another and roaming rates were frightfully high so the ability to simply change sim cards was almost a necessity in Europe given the size of most of the countries. We also had the idea prevelent with European mobile companies that caller pays so receiving calls while not roaming again became almost a given and the idea of paying a termination fee to call a mobile phone well that was the accepted way it was just like in the USA it is accepted that you pay to receive calls out of your minutes, as large as they may be, and therefore nobody is charged a surcharge to call a mobile phone....it also meant that mobile numbers remained indistinguishable from landline numbers...area code+xxx xxxx so that today if you are in Europe and call the number +1212 555 1212, you have no idea of just whether or not it's to a mobile, pager, or land line. So therefore even though it's possible, calls to USA numbers for the most part cost the same whether it is to a landline or a cell phone or a pager....(just mention my only complaint with the North American telcom system is there is no way unless you have memorized all the area code to tell whether you are calling a USA number or a Canadian number and of course unless you pay extra up front, calls from USA mobiles to Canadian numbers do not come out of inclusive minutes and long distance charges apply but I stray off topic).

Now, as I've read it, one of Ms. Redding's point about this whole eu tariff bit is that it should be the same throughout the eu as it is in the United States at least as far as roaming is concered. In her world of the future, receiving calls will be free on eu mobile throughuot the eu. She's gotten it down to what, 0,24€ per minute and I think it is scheduled to drop further. This has come despite the resitance of the European telcoms who knew a cash cow when they saw it. It has also helped lead to some of the reduced tariffs some comapnies such as O2 UK have introduced to avoid further reductions in rates imposed by the eu.

This has no doubt cut down on the viability of some of the international sim cards. O9 has apparently already gone under. They were great for me last summer as their inbound rate with my call through ld carrier (enlinea) was something like 16¢ US from most anywhere in Europe to the USA. I used them constantly, every so often made a call through their naitive service just to make sure I kept the account active. Was I cheating them? Did I help cause their demise? (Enlinea was great on this one...they gave me a US toll free number to give my friends which went to the sim at the above noted 16¢/minute rate) I never gave it a second thought that I was "cheating".

The point is nobody knows what's coming next. Obvious 3g and 4g will change things although, at least for pure voice communications, I do think 2g GSM will be around for a while. But obviously the era of real cheap calls via the international sim are fast coming to an end.

It's too bad...it was great while it lasted.

[Roscoe232]

Hello again all ( and yes for those who didnt read my FIRST line last time I AM a director of SaverSIM!)

Its always nice to see some debate - even with various levels of expertise and intelligence behind it!

We havent tried to deceive anyone and the actual wording on the site is this:

11 Fair use Policy
Bruin Communications operates a fair usage policy for its Wizz SaverSIM® product in relation to inbound calls. If free inbound calls exceed paid for outbound calls by a ratio of 5 to 1 over a period of a month then a charge of 10 eurocents per minute will apply to those inbound calls. If misuse continues to occur where the customer if making no outbound calls Bruin reserves the right to disconnect users.

I think some people need to refresh their browsers and delete their cache as the copy being referred to was changed some while ago.

We stand by our service and have many many happy customers all over the globe made up of corporates and individuals and we also stand by the fact that compared to other Roaming SIMS - ie not some voip service, or other prefix dialling service which may well be cheaper - ours offers the best calling rates rates and best other services too. Call forwarding, for example, is FREE with us in most countries too!

Not everything can be free - so we offer the best deal we can and leave it to the customers to decide.

And to be picked up on a pdf that has a slightly different price than the calculator is - well - lets just say pernickety! I am sure you have all been wacthing the news recently and realise the massive fluctuations in currency that have occured with the dollar, the Euro and especially the pound. It is therefore impossible to keep printed material up to date - even pdfs - or we would literally be changing them every day!

The call calculator, however, converts LIVE and accurately and is therefore the one to trust!

As ever in life you must make your own choices and I trust whichever roaming service you choose - ours or someone elses - you'll be happy with the service and it will make, in some small way, your life better!

Stay safe and well all and just for those people who dont read the beginnings of postings:

Ross Samposn
Director
Bruin Communications Ltd - provider of the SaverSIM.

@ Roscoe232

... all I read is yadah, yadah and yadah.

You are hooked up on the old Callkey websites and you do praise your product like there is no other, that´s to much glitter for my taste. Haven´t you enough money to build your own website?

And why can´t you keep your PDF´s on an actual level? To much work? Oh, please ...

Come on, your prices are sh.t. So lets have a look how long you will stay in the market ...

[snidely]

Reply to Andy's post above -
I enjoy this (and other forums) to learn and share ideas.
Thanks for reminding me that a lot of countries impose HIGH taxes on incoming intl. phone calls. I forgot that.
I had assumed that since virtually every LD carrier charges at least 20 cents to call most overseas mobiles (the UK is a few cents more than most of Europe) that the carrier handling the incoming call imposed the charge. These same carries charge 3-5 cents to call a landline - so this is a reasonable assumption. The fact LD carriers world wide all charge very HIGH fees to call +372 and +423 numbers would indicate that it is the carriers on the receiving end collecting the money.
What does it cost you, from a landline, to call a mobile in France or Germany?
My main point was that IOM termination is slightly higher than main UK numbers. Whatever amount that may be - wouldn't it be fair for the IOM carrier to share some of that money w. the resellers of their service?

...mike

[prion]

Originally Posted by snidely

Reply to Andy's post above -
I enjoy this (and other forums) to learn and share ideas.
Thanks for reminding me that a lot of countries impose HIGH taxes on incoming intl. phone calls. I forgot that.
I had assumed that since virtually every LD carrier charges at least 20 cents to call most overseas mobiles (the UK is a few cents more than most of Europe) that the carrier handling the incoming call imposed the charge. These same carries charge 3-5 cents to call a landline - so this is a reasonable assumption. The fact LD carriers world wide all charge very HIGH fees to call +372 and +423 numbers would indicate that it is the carriers on the receiving end collecting the money.
What does it cost you, from a landline, to call a mobile in France or Germany?
My main point was that IOM termination is slightly higher than main UK numbers. Whatever amount that may be - wouldn't it be fair for the IOM carrier to share some of that money w. the resellers of their service?

...mike

In regard to Uk mobiles I think that there is not a certain ammount everyone is paying for calls terminating to certain prefixes. For example calls to Jersey mobiles are higher even within the Uk (07937 prefix). Also calls to 07924, 07937 numbers are higher from abroad in many cases (not all of course). In Greece the Greek Telecom organization is charging 0,70 euros/min to terminate to those prefixes (whereas for o2 charges 0,3/min). When I have oficially (in written form) asked them about this they have answered that this is due to higher termination rates imposed on them by the British networks. So I assume this charges have to do with specific routing being used
Not to mention +423663 numbers. The Greek telecom organisation charges 2 euros/min to connect to those!!

[bbob]

Originally Posted by prion

When I have oficially (in written form) asked them about this they have answered that this is due to higher termination rates imposed on them by the British networks. So I assume this charges have to do with specific routing being used
Not to mention +423663 numbers. The Greek telecom organisation charges 2 euros/min to connect to those!!

What they tell you isn't always the truth. For them it might be a political decision to raise prices to these numbers. Why can other countries have lower rates than the ones in greece. 2 euro seem like crazy and even 70 cents is a to high rate. I think it's more their decision to raise prices.

If termination would be that high other carriers would be loosing massive amounts of money.