International Phone woes

I bought a new unlocked Motorola V188 phone and a United Mobile SIM card,
for the purpose of maintaining contact with my husband in the US while I am
in France this October, and in other countries in future. As I understand
it, the United Mobile card works on callback principles through
Lichtenstein, and the SIM card has a Lichtenstein phone number.

Naturally, as soon as I had popped the SIM card into the phone, I tried it
out. When I called my land phone from the cell phone it worked just the way
their FAQ said it would. I dialed the land phone number, and after a few
seconds the cell phone began to ring. I answered it, and the land phone
rang.

But when I tried to call the cell phone from my land phone it didn't work at
all. As instructed, I dialed 011 plus the SIM card phone number, over and
over, and sometimes nothing happened, sometimes I got a busy signal, and a
few times it rang once and then stopped. The cell phone didn't ring, except
for one time when, after I had heard about eight rings, the cell phone rang
for less than a second and then "missed call" appeared in the phone's
external window.

I emailed all this to customer service at United Mobile a week ago. The
next day they sent me a case number, but I haven't heard anything else from
them.

Sorry for such a wordy post, but I wasn't able to explain the problem in
fewer words. I hope someone in this forum can help.

Harriett

"Harriett Wright" <harriett@ix.netcom.com> wrote in message
news:5JDIg.14783$xp2.8177@newsread1.news.pas.earthlink.net...
> But when I tried to call the cell phone from my land phone it didn't work
at
> all. As instructed, I dialed 011 plus the SIM card phone number, over and
> over, and sometimes nothing happened, sometimes I got a busy signal, and a
> few times it rang once and then stopped. The cell phone didn't ring,
except
> for one time when, after I had heard about eight rings, the cell phone
rang
> for less than a second and then "missed call" appeared in the phone's
> external window.

Here's my guess. What long distance carrier do you use? Liechtenstein
(abrev. FL) is a very small country and not all long distance carriers
connect properly to FL phone numbers and a number of them seem to have
problems with FL cellular numbers. On top of this the rates to call a FL
wireless number are all over the map. I think AT&T charges something like
11c/min with their international calling plan, while the Sam's Club AT&T
prepaid calling card is something like $1.75/min. So you need to be very
careful about which carrier you use or the UM card could be very expensive.
Check out www.prepaidgsm.net for much more discussion of this subject.

--
Donald R. Newcomb
DRNewcomb (at) attglobal (dot) net

Hi Don,

About 30 seconds after I pushed the send button I got an email from UM
telling me that the problem is most likely with my provider, so I called
them and sure enough, they're the problem. The technician promised to find
out how to fix it and get back to me. If he isn't able to, I guess I can
change providers.

The UM rate for France and many other countries is 49 cents a minute, and of
course lots of calling cards have cheaper rates, but I'm totally beguiled by
the convenience of a cell phone. As it happens, incoming calls in France
and about 80 other countries are free, so I searched the Web for a calling
card with cheap rates to Lichtenstein cellular, and found one with the
astounding rate of less than three cents a minute. A $5 card has 170
minutes of air time, plenty for a two week trip. Of course he'll have to
call me, which means he can punch in all those numbers, and I don't have to
stand in a phone booth punching them in, or get the thing to work from my
hotel!

Harriett


"Donald Newcomb" <DRNewcomb@NOT.attglobal.net> wrote in message
news:44f3b7cb$1@kcnews01...
>
> "Harriett Wright" <harriett@ix.netcom.com> wrote in message
> news:5JDIg.14783$xp2.8177@newsread1.news.pas.earthlink.net...
>> But when I tried to call the cell phone from my land phone it didn't work
> at
>> all. As instructed, I dialed 011 plus the SIM card phone number, over
>> and
>> over, and sometimes nothing happened, sometimes I got a busy signal, and
>> a
>> few times it rang once and then stopped. The cell phone didn't ring,
> except
>> for one time when, after I had heard about eight rings, the cell phone
> rang
>> for less than a second and then "missed call" appeared in the phone's
>> external window.
>
> Here's my guess. What long distance carrier do you use? Liechtenstein
> (abrev. FL) is a very small country and not all long distance carriers
> connect properly to FL phone numbers and a number of them seem to have
> problems with FL cellular numbers. On top of this the rates to call a FL
> wireless number are all over the map. I think AT&T charges something like
> 11c/min with their international calling plan, while the Sam's Club AT&T
> prepaid calling card is something like $1.75/min. So you need to be very
> careful about which carrier you use or the UM card could be very
> expensive.
> Check out www.prepaidgsm.net for much more discussion of this subject.
>
> --
> Donald R. Newcomb
> DRNewcomb (at) attglobal (dot) net
>
>
>