Help: President Of Company Needs Global Coverage

[DRNewcomb]

Does he really care how much it costs? Most of the folks here have the life mission of being able to use thier phones all over the world for free but will settle cheap as second best. The idea of blythly paying $2/min to make a phone call gives most of us the shivers, but your boss may not care and is more concerned that it works everywhere and that he doesn't have to understand any details than what it costs.

[MATHA531]

Originally Posted by DRNewcomb

Does he really care how much it costs? Most of the folks here have the life mission of being able to use thier phones all over the world for free but will settle cheap as second best. The idea of blythly paying $2/min to make a phone call gives most of us the shivers, but your boss may not care and is more concerned that it works everywhere and that he doesn't have to understand any details than what it costs.

....and while it may not be true in this particular case with whatever the product is of the company this president is president of, that attitude is why we pay so much for most everything today because all the companies do, of course, is pass these expenses onto their customers.

And just because something is pricey, doesn't mean it is necessarily best or easiest or hassle free.

[Stu]

It would be nice if it worked that way in theory. It doesn't. The old saying about rank has its privileges applies here. I graduate from a public urban University with good grad school programs. When I went to school, the original president was a tight wad saving money for a rainy day. When he left, they replaced him with a new president who spent money like a drunken sailor and is still there. He flies first class everywhere. He stays in five stars everywhere. I know because I knew one of his tech guys, that he uses his mobile exactly the same way when touring Russia as he does back home. The notion that he would have to swap a SIM card or use some sort of callback service to save $3 a minute -- who do you think he is! He has better things to do with his time than worry about this nonsense.

I answered the person's question the way he seemed to want it answered. That didn't mean I necessarily agreed with the person's president. The guy who was requesting our input is some poor schmuck looking for a seemless solution from his president so that he isn't called from Dubai at 3 in the morning from the president on a hotel phone phone wondering why his mobile e-mail wasn't in the hotel limo between the airport and the hotel.

If you ask the president, he'll justify it by saying that if one of their plants in China gets shut down for a day, they could loose hundreds of thousands of dollars. A $12,000 a year mobile phone bill is a small insurance policy to make sure that doesn't happen. Cough, cough, cough.

Stu

PS: When I retire, I'm going to move to "Theory." It is the only place where things work the way they should.

[MATHA531]

Stu....

I was half kidding.....

[Przemolog]

Originally Posted by DRNewcomb

The only phone that will do this is an Iridium satellite phone. This is probably not the solution he wants.

Yes, Iridium works everywhere (except for Cuba and N.Korea, AFAIK) but it lacks indoor coverage (as well as any other satphone). Not a good deal for the person under consideration .

[liquix]

Thanks everyone for your responses. I am learning a great deal about international calling.

Stu, thanks for your detailed responses.

02 out of the UK has the most extensive roaming agreements in the world. At least that is my opinion. I was suggesting that you might want to have your UK office obtain a UK SIM for your president as a backup. It is the gold standard. If need be, you can get a US number which will call forward to the UK number.

The UK location, is merely an attraction and we do not have the abilty to send those employees to obtain a sim card. I would need to order it and send it to me.

You can get an 02 SIM with international roaming active from mobal.com, but they mark up the prices significantly. If you have a presence in the UK, get a UK SIM through your UK office. A good call forwarding number to a UK mobile is from voicestick.com. Not only are the rates reasonable, but the service connects quickly. It also places a recording saying "please wait while I connect your call." Since there is sometimes a small delay before connecting to a roaming mobile, this lets the caller know to be patient a second or two longer.

I like this idea. I looked on mobal.com and found this product, is this the O2 sim you were talking about?

Call fowarding is a huge part of this puzzle. I called Cingular and they cannot foward calls to international numbers. I checked out voicestick but this seems to be catered to people who use their laptops as VOIP devices. Also we would like to keep his current number.

Is there a service that fowards your current number to an international number?

Although the two sim card approach sounds like the best bet, I still have some questions:

Is it better to get a pre-paid sim from Orange or o2, or from a world sim company like yackiemobile?

Do any pre-paids exist where data is also included?

Do pre-paids have thier own voicemail box?

Also would a monthly plan without contract from Orange or o2 that had international roaming on it be more beneficial than pre-paid?

Does he really care how much it costs?

To a certain extent, yes he does care, but as long as it is reasonably and it works, he is ok with costs.

The only phone that will do this is an Iridium satellite phone.

He has already dismissed sat phones because of the call quality. He is not too interested in satellite phones because of the loss or reception indoors.

[Bossman]

Voicestick (VS)will give you a UK or US number of your choice(free). You will forward his mobile number to voicestick, and forward voicestick to any number in the world. Voicestick's rates are even lower than the rates charged by most phonecard companies.

For example, MyVS# is currently pointed to my sister's tmobile UK number. When I need to talk to her, I just call my voicestick#, and get connected at 14c/min. The calling card I currently use charges 24c/min to call UK mobiles. I can change the VS# to point to any number. When I am heading to UK I just point the VS# to my Virgin UK sim so that the family can call me on a local# and reach me. My mobile provider (sprintPCS) charges $0.20c/min for call forwarding, so it's not feasible to forward my mobile to the VS#. I think they are the only US mobile carrier that pull that nonsense! I can also forward my landline to the VS# if I want.

Voicestick's free number:

http://www.voicestick.com/Rates/Plan....aspx?plan=206

[unlocked]

I'm no shill for Mobal--it's expensive and since I pay for my own calls I use Mobal strictly as a backup. But in this case it's pretty close to ideal because of its wide coverage, proven reliability, ease of both purchase and use, and businesslike billing. Except for the known troublespots around the world--like Korea, Japan and some of Central America, where standard GSM isn't in general use--it covers about everywhere.

Yes, it does use the O2 network and you'll get an O2 SIM card.

As others have said, if the UK number is an issue there are cheap forwarding services available so your boss could give out a US number that will automatically forward to the Mobal phone.

BTW, you have to look around the Mobal site some to find it but they do offer the SIM card only (i.e., without a phone) for only $10 shipping, which can't be beat if you have a good tri- or quad-band phone.

[liquix]

Both of these services sound good, especially voicestick, but a major requirement is for him to keep his current number. He has hundreds of contacts that call him and it would be impossible to tell them all to call another number when he travels.

[DRNewcomb]

Originally Posted by unlocked

Except for the known troublespots around the world--like Korea, Japan and some of Central America, where standard GSM isn't in general use--it covers about everywhere.

Japan is just an issue of having the SIM in the right type phone. Korea (South) is pretty much the same story, but today you have to rent the phone at the ariport. Tomorrow, your WCDMA-2100 phone will probably be fine. There are only a few places in S. & Cent. America where you would not be welcome to roam with an O2 SIM & quad-band phone. Not sure that I can think of even one.