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[akraus88]

Originally Posted by peterdoo

I have seen a recent Lycamobile SIM. In the SIM toolkit menu there are the following 20 selections preloaded:

Roaming
Spain
Netherlands
Australia
UK
Norway
Denmark
Sweden
Germany
Poland
Ireland
France
Switzerland
Portugal
Belgium
USA
Italy
Austria
Romania
Hongkong

All Lyca countries except Tunisia. Obviously they have increased the number of possible identities on a SIM. I would assume that somebody that orders a replacement SIM for Toggle today would get a new SIM without the previous limitation to 10 identities.

I have from the new batch and it has all the countries as an IMSI, however it has only the original countries on the registration online, so it doesn't work in those countries.

[peterdoo]

I would say that also with Toggle, a local identity (if present or loaded on the SIM) is used in all 19 Lyca countries. However they do not give you Toggle-Country pricing in all countries, but only in some of them where also a local phone number is available.

Originally Posted by inquisitor

No. While Lycamobile obviously uses the technology developed for and proven by the toggle project to evade roaming costs across their markets, Lycamobile has different tariffs which cannot compete with toggle's traveller-friendly pricing.

As far as I understand, Lycamobile offers some of the home country conditions in all 19 mentioned countries (http://www.lycamobile.co.uk/en/roaming-sim-card):
- Free incoming calls in all 19 countries. I have verified this in some EU countries.
- Outgoing calls at rates that are used in home country in the case when no call bundle is booked. I have verified this in some EU countries.
- Bundles for calls/SMS that can be booked for use in roaming in all 18 countries (EU Plus, UK Plan). Also usable in home country.
- Bundles for data that can be booked for use in some roaming countries (HOME DATA). Some of them also usable in home country.

For some users this offer might be better than Toggle offer especially when no local number is required. For roaming outside of the 19 Lyca countries Toggle has some better tariffs. As always with Lyca do not expect the things to work always. It appears to me that they do not order the necessary configuration (APN,...) from the network operators until the first user tries to use it and complains. At least it happens to me in many countries that for example the APN of other Lyca country is not permited for local IMSI and sometimes the problem is not resolved during the time I am present in a country.

As far as the EU is concerned, it looks like we will be getting some really attractive roaming offers on the postpaid plans. Whoever will have access to those will probably not require prepaid cards for EU-roaming anymore.

In Germany the Telekom included EU-Roaming without surcharge in its higher priced Magenta tariffs. Vodafone Spain removed roaming charges for EU/EEA, Switzerland, USA, Turkey and Albania in all its postpaid tariffs (http://www.vodafone.es/conocenos/es/...e-precios-con/). So one can get 1,5GB data usable in all mentioned countries for 14 Euro monthly:

[inquisitor]

I'm in the US currently and incoming calls occassionally come with an incorrect caller ID where the international country code is simply omitted.
So a German number starting with +491573.... (a mobile number) turns into +1573... and so appears to be originating from Missouri, USA.
This issue has occured in the past but what's really interesting is what customer care say about it:

Dear Inquisitor,

This email is being written with reference to the caller ID issue.

Further to your email, we would like to let you know that incoming calls may not be identified with the country code sometimes and this sort of connectivity changes can be discussed in a larger context however it is not an issue.

The Destination numbers mentioned on the email are the same.

+491573xxxxxxx
+1573xxxxxxx

Please feel free to contact us for any clarifications/assistance on 0207 132 2322 from any network or by dialling 322 from your toggle mobile; we are available from 08:00 – 20:00hrs GMT and 7 days a week. If you are abroad please call +44 7438 646322 and we will be happy to assist you.

Kind regards,
X
Toggle Mobile Customer Care
SIM cards for Travellers
Find more how to save on roaming costs at www.togglemobile.com

How can it not be an issue when I cannot distinguish which continent is a call coming from?

[peterdoo]

This happens to me when receiving calls from the USA on my German non-mobile number. They very often appear as xxx-xxx-xxxx without the one or 001 in front of them.

[MBK]

This is a general problem with many (all ?) different providers when roaming, depending on the countries.

I guess toggle is saying this isn't an issue because they can't do anything about it on their end?

[bourbonkiller]

I am wondering, what will be the roaming rates for non Toggle-Mobile countries from 1st of may 2016? The calculator at their website still shows the recent prices...

BK

[peterdoo]

Toggle has always been late implementing EU-regulated tariffs. Probably waiting until somebody complains with Ofcom.

In any case, as the calls from UK to UK (and to many EU-landlines) cost 3p/min, calls from non-toggle EU-Countries to the UK should not be allowed to cost more than 8p/min. In many countries they are still listed with 18p/min.

If you look at Lycamobile prices, they seem to have disabled data roaming in regulated tariff, so that one is forced to book a data roaming package which in most of the cases is more expensive than the regulated tariff would be. Not really user friendly.

[ChrisNeedsToKnow]

Does anyone know what the "real" prerequisites for obtaining the Lyca "Feel-Like-Home" service on a normal Lyca-SIM are?

My dilemma:

• I have a Swiss number which I would like to keep AND receive calls on this number internationally.
• Porting to Toggle is not supported

I got a Lyca-SIM, recharged 5 Francs, it's activated and works in the Swiss network. However, I could not even log into any foreign network. Customer Service doesn't care much. I have a feeling Lyca doesn't care about details, as long as the mass-market keeps going.

Long story short: Is there a way to reliably use "Feel-Like-Home"?

[peterdoo]

You should be able to login into foreign networks using local identities like in the case of Toggle. Maybe the phone does not support SIM toolkit correctly. In such a case you should select manually the required identity/country.

As I mentioned before, a recent Lyca SIM that I have tested had 20 identities preloaded that could be selected. Keep in mind that Lyca SIM lifetime is short if not used/recharged often, so you might lose the number if not careful enough. Maybe using call forwarding to Toggle for your existing number would be an option.

[ChrisNeedsToKnow]

Originally Posted by peterdoo

...SIM toolkit...

Wow, that's what I needed to know. I didn't even know this SIM has one.

Will be able to check in Germany on Monday!

Thanks!