New Global SIM Card with UK (+44) number

redux

mouseclick wrote: »

To be honest I don't have an issue with you, or my network provider, or Jersey Telecom. However it is hardly a figment of my imagination that charges are usually consistent with the first part of the code dialled. I mean, how would you like it if I have you an 0800 number to call, and you were charged £1 a minute because it was an 0800 1 number?

My point is that this sort of practice will lead to lots of unexpected charges on people's bills. For example, my friends, if I give them my new number. The average person does not know the difference between 07937 099911 and 07936 099911 and they would incur unexpected charges.

Therefore I think it is right that this sort of thing should be brought to OFCOM's attention, so I will write my letter anyway, thank you very much.

I meant that I don't think you can adduce a tariff announcement being provided by the destination.

Note that apart from UK users, this product will be bought by people all over the world

What on earth do you mean by the phrase "this sort of practice" ? I can't understand what your complaint actually is, as nobody has deceived or mis-charged you.

As for educating Ofcom, I think you'll find that there is already information available on their website that can tell consumers which network the numbers are allocated to, though it is easier to use such facilities on others.

Instead of jumping up and down, why not set up a landline number forwarded to this for 4 pence a minute, or perhaps even under a penny with two (one admittedly a bit patchy) forwards. And there's a good chance of being able to call home for the same cost.

mouseclick

all sorted now mate, see above. End of story

redux

Perhaps your real complaint should be against Ofcom for the incontiguous method of allocating the numbers.

You might read this. Although it's about Isle of Man mobile numbers (which also have global SIMs based on them **), I expect that the issues are very similar

http://www.prepaidgsm.net/forum/showpost.php?p=13740&postcount=20


** if you are on O2 or Orange, read the discussion thread on Martin's roaming article

http://www.moneysavingexpert.com/phones/cheap-roaming-calls

http://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/showthread.html?t=231354

jeremygiles

redux wrote: »

Actually it's a Jersey number, so isn't likely to come out of contract inclusive minutes

Calls to Jersey, Guernsey & Isle of Man mobiles do come out of contract inclusive minutes from Virgin Mobile - I have this in writing from their Customer Services.

jeremygiles

mouseclick wrote: »

Further info - I have an O2 contract with Carphone Warehouse. Their customer services seems to think it will be included in my normal allowance.

I guess the only way to find out the cost is to make a call from any given network. I am going to do this, both from T-mobile and O2, and when I find out what I have been billed I will post it here.

Results
T-mobile: 07937099911 International & Premium Calls 00:00:11 £0.078
O2 (Carphone Warehouse): No charge (part of free X-net minutes)

In addition to a Virgin Mobile contract (which does allow calls to Jersey mobiles from inclusive minutes - see my earlier post) I also have an O2 (CPW) contract and received the following email from them this morning:

"I can confirm calls to UK mobiles in Jersey will not be included in your
inclusive allowance as it is not in the UK.

Charges for calling Jersey are as follows;

Standard call charge £0.85 per minute
UK to abroad text message £0.16 per minute."

When you look at their international call charges section on the CPW/O2 website

http://media.phonehouse.com/mediaserver/servlet/AssetServer?id=PAYMPDF221680&ver=3&RD=YES

it clearly shows CI and IOM in zone 1 international along with the republic of Ireland, so I think that it would cost 50p a minute to call a Jersey mobile rather than the 85p they told me (which is for Zone 2 - EU). I've yet to try this out and probably won't, as I will just use my Virgin Mobile contract. However I would advise caution and make a short test call first as mouseclick has done, as there appears to be some discrepancy between between what CPW are saying and what some people have experienced when looking at their bills.

mouseclick

I made the test call on Saturday, and checked on Sunday and there was no charge. However after reading your post, I just checked and now I have unbilled usage of £1.61 - which seems a bit much for a 20 second call! Unfortunately I do not have itemised billing, so I cannot see what this charge is for. I need to ring them to clarify. I made some 0845 calls too. I have had the phone since June 2006 and I was given a special promo of 750 x-net off peak minutes in June 2007. I was told by the Loyalty Dept that 0845s were free but I think I have read elsewhere that 0845s get charged when you upgrade. So I am now uncertain as to what the charges are for, I may have been too premature in saying they were free, sorry, and without itemised billing it may be difficult to find out.

jeremygiles wrote: »

In addition to a Virgin Mobile contract (which does allow calls to Jersey mobiles from inclusive minutes - see my earlier post) I also have an O2 (CPW) contract and received the following email from them this morning:

"I can confirm calls to UK mobiles in Jersey will not be included in your
inclusive allowance as it is not in the UK.

Charges for calling Jersey are as follows;

Standard call charge £0.85 per minute
UK to abroad text message £0.16 per minute."

When you look at their international call charges section on the CPW/O2 website

http://media.phonehouse.com/mediaserver/servlet/AssetServer?id=PAYMPDF221680&ver=3&RD=YES

it clearly shows CI and IOM in zone 1 international along with the republic of Ireland, so I think that it would cost 50p a minute to call a Jersey mobile rather than the 85p they told me (which is for Zone 2 - EU). I've yet to try this out and probably won't, as I will just use my Virgin Mobile contract. However I would advise caution and make a short test call first as mouseclick has done, as there appears to be some discrepancy between between what CPW are saying and what some people have experienced when looking at their bills.

mouseclick

jeremygiles wrote: »

In addition to a Virgin Mobile contract (which does allow calls to Jersey mobiles from inclusive minutes - see my earlier post) I also have an O2 (CPW) contract and received the following email from them this morning:

"I can confirm calls to UK mobiles in Jersey will not be included in your
inclusive allowance as it is not in the UK.

Charges for calling Jersey are as follows;

Standard call charge £0.85 per minute
UK to abroad text message £0.16 per minute."

When you look at their international call charges section on the CPW/O2 website

http://media.phonehouse.com/mediaserver/servlet/AssetServer?id=PAYMPDF221680&ver=3&RD=YES

it clearly shows CI and IOM in zone 1 international along with the republic of Ireland, so I think that it would cost 50p a minute to call a Jersey mobile rather than the 85p they told me (which is for Zone 2 - EU). I've yet to try this out and probably won't, as I will just use my Virgin Mobile contract. However I would advise caution and make a short test call first as mouseclick has done, as there appears to be some discrepancy between between what CPW are saying and what some people have experienced when looking at their bills.

Been a week now, no charges on my O2 phone. So for MY O2 contract, calls to Jersey Mobile are free.

NonGeographicalMan

mouseclick wrote: »

Been a week now, no charges on my O2 phone. So for MY O2 contract, calls to Jersey Mobile are free.

A few more points on the United Mobile +44 SIMs as I am also an ex Riiing customer with a +423 number that rarely seems to work for receiving calls when dialled from the UK with most providers (including lately BT and Post Office Homephone who use Cable & Wireless).

Firstly BT list 07937 in their tariff sheet for specialised numbers as being f rate. You have to look up the fact that 07937 is f rate on page on page 8 (their numbering rather than what your PDF reader will show) of their long tariff sheet for specialised numbers (http://www.productsandservices.bt.com/consumer/consumerProducts/pdf/SpecialisedNos.pdf). Bizarrely this is the one area code listed as being both "Calls to Personal Numbering and Mobile telephones". I would hope that any personal numbers that use the f tariff commence 070 and not 079 though!

But clearly this tariff seems to be a mobile rate for Jersey, Guernsey and Isle of Man mobiles but incredibly the goons at Ofcom allow it to share this with a code also used for personal numbers and to not state that the mobile are all outside the UK. The calling rate from a BT landline on one of the Option 1, 2, 3 plans is 28.5p in the daytime, 19p in the evening and 9.5p at the weekend. This compares with the latest BT rate for UK mobiles for Option 1, 2, 3 customers of 12.5p per minute in the daytime and 7.5p per minute in the evening and weekends. So don't expect to be popular with friends calling you from UK landlines with BT and for friends calling from their mobiles the situation is even more nightmarish if they think you are in their bundled minutes and are charged 50p per minute or more.

However the final sign to your friends that something is definitely up (even for those using Pay As You Go mobiles who can't access individual call history itemisation thanks to useless Ofcom) is that the dialling tone for one of these numbers is a continental single neeeeeeeghhhh ringing tone. I imagine these probably terminate in Switzerland where United Mobile is headquartered and the Jersey code through Jersey Telecom is merely an access route. The fact that you don't get a UK ringing tone is going to get the attention of anyone even calling from outside the UK who regularly makes calls. And this is clearly no use at all for persuading your boss that you are out seeing a client in Devon on Friday afternoon when you have just stepped off the plane in Malaga!

As call charges to Jersey mobiles from outside the UK are probably the same as calls to UK mobiles and call connectivity can hopefully be guaranteed (although for how long if foreign telcos start losing money on the termination) then perhaps this is a more useful and more honest product than a Liechtenstein mobile number. But for UK customers of United Mobile you may con your friends they are calling a UK number only for them to be hit by big charges they later complain about. Perhaps the only obvious improvement is for something like Callback World but I bet they start charging more to this access code in due course.

At the moment www.18185.co.uk is carrying this as a call charged at UK mobile rates but I expect when they see a few call cost bills for carrying calls to these numbers they will realise their error and either refuse to carry calls to these numbers at all or may be charge them at their Personal Number rate.

So in short this new United Mobile SIM is really little better than its predecessor in terms of shunting your call savings on incoming calls on to the people calling you and is far more dishonest for UK callers by making them think they are calling at UK mobile rates when they are actually paying Jersey mobile rate.

As Jersey Telecom's customer services swear blind that their normal customer don't have 07937 numbers it seems that this is a special routing arrangement with United Mobile where the calls are then forwared on by Jersey Telecom and terminated in Switzerland by United Mobile.

So really you are better off using a UK geographic voip number and then receiving calls on that if you want to appear in the UK when you are not as at least then your callers will only pay normal geographic UK call rates. Of course finding a mobile provider who will let you receive Voip calls at a sensible cost is another matter.

Perhaps United Mobile's new data service will provide a solution if and when it is finally ever launched..............

redux

There really is far too much guesswork and poor assumption in this.

NonGeographicalMan wrote: »

However the final sign to your friends that something is definitely up (even for those using Pay As You Go mobiles who can't access individual call history itemisation thanks to useless Ofcom) is that the dialling tone for one of these numbers is a continental single neeeeeeeghhhh ringing tone. I imagine these probably terminate in Switzerland where United Mobile is headquartered and the Jersey code through Jersey Telecom is merely an access route. The fact that you don't get a UK ringing tone is going to get the attention of anyone even calling from outside the UK who regularly makes calls. And this is clearly no use at all for persuading your boss that you are out seeing a client in Devon on Friday afternoon when you have just stepped off the plane in Malaga!

Your imagination leads you astray.

The ringtone comes from the country that the phone is in. If you had called your phone while here you would have heard a UK ringtone in the caller's phone.

At the moment www.18185.co.uk is carrying this as a call charged at UK mobile rates but I expect when they see a few call cost bills for carrying calls to these numbers they will realise their error and either refuse to carry calls to these numbers at all or may be charge them at their Personal Number rate.

Your expectation may fail to be realised. This has not yet happened for the Isle of Man roaming SIMs that have been around for close to 2 years, nor for a variety of other prefixes that do not pertain to the main networks

So really you are better off using a UK geographic voip number and then receiving calls on that if you want to appear in the UK when you are not as at least then your callers will only pay normal geographic UK call rates. Of course finding a mobile provider who will let you receive Voip calls at a sensible cost is another matter.

There are cheap callback and call forwarding services to be found. The Betamax VoIP brands start at 5 cents a minute + vat, and others such as Vyke from under 11p a minute.

NonGeographicalMan

redux wrote: »

Your imagination leads you astray. The ringtone comes from the country that the phone is in. If you had called your phone while here you would have heard a UK ringtone in the caller's phone.

Your overweaning arrogance (a common fault amongst moneysavingexpert forum regulars it would appear) leads you to an incorrect conclusion.

I was calling my United Mobile Jersey Telecom routed SIM card while here in the UK from a BT landline and the phone was here in the UK and showing as being on the Orange network. The ring tone was a neeegghhhhh continental ring tone because the routing table provided by Jersey Telecom for any calls to these numbers directs it immediately to the switch of United Mobile in Switzerland where the call is actually terminated. The phone will always ring with a single neeeggghhhhhh Swiss tone regardless of where in the world the phone is roaming.

Your expectation may fail to be realised. This has not yet happened for the Isle of Man roaming SIMs that have been around for close to 2 years, nor for a variety of other prefixes that do not pertain to the main networks

I find that surprising when my landline phone provider the Post Office already correctly lists this phone dialling code as being in the f rate charging band and charge an accordingly high rate for the calls. This categorisation agrees with that in the table for special dailling codes on the BT website.

Sooner or later these minor call carriers or their intermediate suppliers will realise they are losing money on these calls and change their call classification.

How do you explain to your friend who calls on his mobile and thinks he is calling out of bundled minutes when he finds he has been charge £15 for a half hour call to you? And thanks to useless Ofcom when this happens there is no special message to warn your friend that he is calling a high priced international mobile number and not a standard UK mobile.

There are cheap callback and call forwarding services to be found. The Betamax VoIP brands start at 5 cents a minute + vat, and others such as Vyke from under 11p a minute.

But they will increase prices once they realise these are not standard UK mobile numbers charged at UK mobile call termination rates.