United Mobile--coming back?

[Stu]

I agree with you about the Vodafone rates (and for the record I own an Etisilat SIM for the UAE. I actually own two and one free one that was given to me for the competitor Du). I'm going on a Baltic cruise in August and am using Vodafone instead of my roaming SIM for the Netherlands (transit only), Denmark, Sweden, Estonia, and Finland. I'm still debating what I am doing with Russia. Let's see what Vodafone does in September. Last week, we could have made the same argument about Three.

[hkr]

Let's not forget that the Vodafone UK offer is only a promotion. I am sure there are many more special roaming promotions offered by operators. Not as good that of Vodafone UK, but still, some kind of special roaming deals. But they will all come to an end after the holiday season.

[LBarouf]

Originally Posted by Stu

Don't you think that is why everyone is rolling out dual-IMSI phones and [...]

You probably meant Dual IMSI SIMs, not phones. Unless you meant DUAL SIM phones.....

[Stu]

You're right. Sometimes, my fingers are just too fast for my own good.

[hrgajek]

Matha531,

Originally Posted by MATHA531

.....in the past (pre Eurotariffs) a large segment of clientelle would come from Europe as Europeans cross international frontiers a great deal more than say Americans and the roaming rates when say a Brit went on a short holiday to Spain were large, weren't they.

Your contribution brings it up to the point.

With the advent of very reasonable (and getting more reasonable each year) roaming European rates, the need for the international cards would dramatically decrease.

Absolutely exact.

...an American who might visit three or four European countries on a trip was one number, no need to acquire three or four local sims (although pre riiing, that's the way I used to do it and still have the French, German and Dutch sims to prove it).....

I can imagine this. My career started with "Montel" (VIAG Europlatform) which was a Liechtenstein based SIM with +423-7 Prefix at "normal" mobile rates which had incoming free in VIAG and affiliated networks in .de, .ch, .li and .at
Outgoing tariff was allways the same. Montel was officially closed, the customers-contracts were regularly canceled, as the buyer did not understand the business modell

Then I received a Riiing Card and used it occasionally. Travelling to the US the SIM was not useful for me, due to tremendous incoming fees, there my german T-Mobile (contract) or Simyo (Prepaid) were much more lower in the price for incoming calls.

Riiing converted to UM and seemed to be ok, but in the search for new marketing ideas they loosed base contact. Some Dealers who want to buy and to sell theses SIM-cards asked me for support, they suffered in poor service. UM changed their tariffs, their communication was not quite good, the rest of the story is known.

Given my pattern of travel (mostly Europe from North America), .... I relied on a new vodafone uk sim card because of their roaming free summer rates....

Seems to be a good deal, as Vodafone is one of the biggest mobile phone companies world wide and will sustain for a while. Vodafone UK speaks native english and you can reload it by any Vodafone voucher from the visited country - no matter, if Germany, UK, Netherlands, etc. even Vodafone Egypt should work.

Queen of roaming agreements be Swisscom NATEL, but you have to go there to buy it personally (the want to see yourself and your ID-Card/Passport before you get one) in the local Swisscom-Store, no viable solution for most of us here

the dual US/UK ekit card looks very viable).

I had/have one dual-SIM from UM but I never could check out the US part in the US

[bourbonkiller]

Dear all,

as it looks like, United Mobile as a company came to an end. If you follow the enclosed link, there is a letter published that tells, United Mobile will file bankruptcy. The article further claims, anyone should keep the SIM card as it is still possible, that the +423 number range will be activated somewhen soon.

BK

Amtlich: United Mobile Konkurs / United Mobile bankruptcy 2lounge

[hrgajek]

Hello Prepaid World,

just an update:

United-Mobile AG filed for Bankruptcy, if you understand german language United Mobile beantragt Konkurs - teltarif.de News or United Mobile muss Konkurs beantragen could be interesting for you.

In short words: The President of the Advisory Board ("Verwaltungsrat") made a forensic account check and found out, that there is a big number in the books, but with negative sign before it, they have much more debts than cash at this moment. So they had to file for bankruptcy at the Liechtenstein Court. The Lichtenstein Authorities now have to find a man ("Masseverwalter") who looks in the books again and sees what's going on and what can converted to money.

It depends how fast this procedure will happen and if anybody buys the customer base and the Authentification Servers, he can continue.

Irish Cubic Telecom seems to be out of the game. The deal never was finished, as mentioned before, some People wanted much more money than the 10% which were offered to them.

UK-Jersey SIM-Cards and the area code +44 7937 is still dead, the UM423 SIM Cards are partially still alive you can call me at +423 663 005690 for example.

Lets see what happens next.

[Drlawgr]

In deed... Let's see... please keep us posted!

I really liked the 423 number...

[bbob]

Even if 423 comes back online it's not a good platform anymore. Call rates to the number are high and it looked if the one of the reason was that on the same number block sex and other simular service are active. This is at least what was written in some information.

As long as the call rates to +423 are high it's not an good alternative.

[hrgajek]

Hi Bbob,

the high interconnect rates to +423-663 was the business model of UM. They got more money for each incoming call so You (as an UM customer) had to pay less to nothing for incoming.

The UM+ modell seems more attractive to customers: Low interconnect tariffs for callers, but remains enough money to switch to the desired country?

The Liechtenstein Telekom received a significant increase of Telecom Traffic since the existence of UM. (Can be found on the pages of Liechteneiner Amt für Kommunikation)

I agree with you: The sharing of the +423-663 with "red-light" and or premium-services is a problem indeed, as national telcos intend to block +423-663

a) to protect their local (0)900 "premium" services.
b) to protect customers from surprising expensive calls

One viable solution could the shift from +423-663 to +423-7 which is the "normal" mobilephone numbering range of Liechtenstein.