After a number of trials, T-Mobile has finally properly unveiled its home phone service. From next week, all of those T-Mobile users who really can’t bear to part with their home phone can sign up for the @Homer service, which promises unlimited nationwide long-distance calling (and other features like voicemail and call forwarding) for $10 a month.

T-Mobile customers will need the landline phone they normally use, a broadband connection, and the T-Mobile @Home HiPort Wireless Router with Home Phone Connection, available from T-Mobile for $49.99 on a two year contract.

It looks like a nice add on for T-Mobile customers and chances are it’s going to end up cheaper than whatever home phone option they had before. But signing up for a two year contract seems a little bit of a big ask, especially when the likes of Skype aren’t so pushy and offer a similar service.

Today T-Mobile announce a commitment to customers on their £30 per month Solo 30 and Combi 30 tariffs to match any other operator’s offering of minutes and texts - although notably it’s not offered on their popular Flext tariff which provides a flexible allowance to use on either SMS or voice calls.

Described as ‘ground breaking’ it appears T-Mobile are hoping you won’t remember the  ‘Orange Value Promise’ which was offered a few years ago until the point where Orange became so terrified that anything innovative or market-leading would steal their soul.  However, it’s a welcome offering that means T-Mobile customers will always be able to demand whatever the market-leading tariff offers irrespective of who is offering it - what’s not clear is if this will be automatic or whether consumers will need to ask for matches when they notice they’re no longer getting the best deal… Can you guess?  I reckon I can.

While probably a good sales headline what would really impress is if T-Mobile extened this offer beyond voice and minutes - an area where consumers can already cheaply access huge amounts already… So come on T-Mobile… really impress us and extend this pledge to data and roaming costs too… dare you!

T-Mobile’s venture capital arm, the not very surprisingly named T-Mobile Venture Fund has decided to put its money where its mouth is with location based services. The fund has announced that it’s investing $6 million in LBS company deCarta, which says it’ll be announcing more investors soon.

deCarta says it does the whole gamut of LBS services from “off-board, server-based applications offered by mobile operators through to “connected navigation” — the ability to integrate personal navigation devices and smartphones through real-time two-way mobile connectivity to a variety of dynamic data sources and local search services “.

deCarta has an impressive list of operators onboard but what’s even more heartening about this announcement is that deCarta really seems to be out to charm the developers to its platform. Looking forward to seeing what deCarta (and the developers) have in store.

It’s been a long day, but this is just too exciting not to post before bed. News just in from T-Mobile:

T-Mobile today expands its Mobile Jukebox service by offering albums to download, from only £6. The albums will be accessible on over 50 handsets to both pay as you go and pay monthly customers. Over 100,000 albums will sit alongside the 1.2 million singles on offer. Using the 3G network albums can be downloaded within one minute.

To celebrate the launch of album content, T-Mobile is offering a free album download from Mobile Jukebox when customers join, renew or upgrade their contract. The offer is available from T-Mobile stores and online between 2nd June and 31st July 2008.

Mobile Jukebox albums and single tracks are ‘dual download’, so there are two versions of each music file for the price tag. T-Mobile sends one version - compressed for a fast download - to the mobile phone (AAC format), and the other to the customer’s PC (WMA format) to store, burn to a CD or swap onto an MP3 player.

At last! A way to download songs electronically to my telephone for about £1 a track or £6 to £10 per album! It’s IE-only on Windows and uses Microsoft DRM. Thank goodness no-one else thought of doing this - especially not any other network operators.

If you must: https://www.music.t-zones.co.uk/

After a bit of rumour mongering, it seems T-Mobile is finally ready to show off its shiny new 3G network, which has now gone live in New York. Only a few years behind the rest of the world, then. There’s no HSDPA handsets available for the network ye either, although T-Mobile is promising they’ll be along soon.

It’s also still got an eye on its wi-fi business: in the press release talking up the 3G network, T-Mobile has promised it won’t get distracted by all this mobile telephony and will keep on adding new hotspots to its wi-fi network across the US.

Its approach to 3G data is a bit of an odd one: the operator said “T-Mobile expects its high-speed data network will be available in those cities where a majority of its subscribers currently use data services”. Surely, turning on 3G is just what’s needed to get more people using data? Holding off from turning on high-speed services doesn’t exactly seem to be the best way to get more T-Mobile customers ready to pay for mobile email and the like.

According to a number of reports, T-Mobile is finally - finally! - launching its 3G network in the US from today.

The 3G network will be switched on across 20 cities this year including Las Vegas and Los Angeles, with New York being the first to get the third-generation nod, and those hungry to test out the service will have a choice between four 3G handsets.

Given it’s taken T-Mobile ages to get this up and running, if this latest snippet about the switch-on is true, it sounds like madness: according to endaget, T-Mobile will launch its 3G network without data. Yep, 3G will be kept initially for voice, with EDGE acting as data carrier. Without data capabilities, this 3G rollout is looking like a dangerously damp squib.

I go on about T-Mobile UK a lot. I recognise this.

So here’s some good news for a change.

I walked into the T-Mobile shop on Oxford Street for a look around. They had an internet cafe (6 laptops, secured to the table with mobile broadband cards) but alas nobody using them. I reckon they should move the internet cafe to the front of the store a la Apple shops.

Anyway I spotted this:

£4 per day for unlimited mobile broadband. All you do is buy the £99 USB modem from them on a pay as you go basis. I like that.

Following on from my MISERABLE experience in Starbucks this morning where my US sodding WiFi account wouldn’t work, I have NO PLEASURE in reporting that T-Mobile UK WiFi reckons that an international mobile phone number looks like this:

00447940123456

I kid you not. I found this when I was signing up for a 24 hour pass (yes I was that annoyed and pissed off that I paid a tenner to get access. Getting up and walking out to the office was far too ridiculous a notion.)

Here’s the sign-up form:

Since when as an international mobile code included two zeros in front of it?

I typed in my number as 4477… and I got the confirmation text fine.

Goodness me.

There are a good number of SMS Text News readers that, it seems, get a substantial amount of pleasure out of reading about my T-Mobile billing issues.

Every time I post on the subject, I get dozens of emails. Most of them say ‘change to Vodafone’ (done that) and a lot of them express outrage or disbelief together with empathy.

So for those readers, here’s the latest update.

That’s me screwed again.

I’ve got two T-Mobile accounts: a “main” one and a secondary one.

The secondary one has been causing me no amount of annoyance. I tried to put it on direct debit. Couldn’t. Can’t. The system can’t hack it. Tried to pay for it with my bank card. Can’t. Because I’ve got that card ‘locked’ (for ’security’) to my main T-Mobile account.

Blah blah blah. [Insert more rubbish experiences here.]

I *thought* I had finally got it on to direct debit so I didn’t have to worry about paying it. Every time I get a ‘You haven’t paid us, you scoundrel’ demand from T-Mobile’s computers, I go nuts.

Well. Got another one. Another sodding demand. £25 pounds. Clearly the direct debit function on the T-Mobile billing system didn’t actually work.

You’d think someone would do something about this.

I’ve tried phoning them. The last time I phoned, the chap on the other end of the phone did the virtual equivalent of resting his head on his hands, shoulders on the desk, staring at me.

“Do you have another bank account?”

“No,” I say.

I do, but I want my T-Mobile payments to come out of one bank account.

“Er, well since this account is also paying for your other T-Mobile account, I don’t think the system will let me do anything.”

“Right,” I say.

“Yeah,” he says.

[Insert silence]

“Ok, thanks for that then. Byeee.” I hang up.

We move on.

The, er, case continues.

This shocked the hell out of me.

I was packed into a tube train on Sunday with thousands of others going to watch the London Marathon. Angus, a friend, was running. Support is the way ahead. I’m told that it’s inspiring to see your friends waving you on — so I was heading to the 11 mile mark to wave at Angus.

Whilst pressed against a hundred other bodies, I did what any self respecting Londoner does: Read the adverts.

I quickly located the T-Mobile one and had a look:

You what?

I had to look twice. Three times, actually.

US & European mobile/landline calls INCLUDED in your minutes?

The race to zero has begun!

It’s such a shock because I can’t even call internationally on my Vodafone account. I haven’t enabled it. You have to enable international calling if you’ve got a new contract. In fact, it’s SO expensive that Vodafone will take a real close look at you, check if you’re wearing new shoes, see if you’ve cleaned your teeth and the like, before deciding on whether to allow you to pay them ridiculous amounts of money to call internationally. I’m actually using RebTel to make my international calls at a whopping 0.8p per minute to the States (good deal, eh?) via an 0207 local London number. That avoids me paying the 135p per minute or whatever it would be, if I had international calls activated on my handset. So this is on extreme.

The other extreme is T-Mobile. Often the leader in market innovation, T-Mobile is now offering businesses (or those with a ‘business’ account), inclusive international calls.

So if you’ve got 1,000 minutes (for 20 quid a month, per line), you could, theoretically, use them to call the States. Or mainland Europe.

I’m assuming that ‘Europe’ means ‘Old Europe’ (as the US Whitehouse liked to call it — France, Germany, Spain). I reckon the more exotic European countries might not be inclusive.

So. Interesting.

That’s the first time I’ve seen a UK operator offering international calls as part of your ‘minutes’ bundle.

Yes, you have to be a ‘business’ customer, I think, in order to qualify, but that is phenomenally good.

It also makes sense. Global economy and all that.

It’s a rather good marketing ploy too. How long before I start staring at my Vodafone-branded Nokia E90 and think that I really am being screwed against the wall with my Vodafone price plan?

I obviously have to then remember the uber-annoyance I felt when my T-Mobile calls kept on hanging up all the time.

T-Mobile UK customer, still?  Well, get on the phone to them and see if you too can benefit from reader Steve’s experience.  Not only did he get winning (and, I have to say, quite surprisingly good) customer service, his girlfriend also got what can only be described as a deal of the century.

Although I’ve got issues with T-Mobile’s voice service whilst in the UK, I always found the data to be pretty reliable and I still have two accounts with them.  Whenever I’ve spoken to customer service there, I’ve also found them reasonably helpful.

I’ve reproduced Steve’s comment from this post below:

- - -

Blimey it really is hair pulling stuff. Anyone who has read my rants knows I hate customer support lines too. But the other day I had a sweet and lovely experience with T Mobile…

I called 150 and am straight through to a lovely lady who asks my mobnum and password and then says “how is you day steve, can I call you steve?”. I say my contract is up but am considering staying. She tells me that I’m paying too much!!!!!! I think you’d be better staying with us but moving to Flex 20 given your call pattern, and then it will only cost you £20/month instead of 40 ’odd you’re currently paying. Great, I will do that then.

Next day my girlfriend calls as her a/c is to also expire in one month and says “I’d like to move to flex 20 because my boyfriend is and we’ve both decided it is the bext tariff for us. but my a/c isn’t up for another month”. “no problem” comes the reply. “better still if you extend for a further 18 months I’ll do Flex20 for £5/month instead of £20″.

“Erm what’s that catch?” asks my girlfriend. Nothing. obviously we want you to extend for 18 months but at £5/month that is a mere £90 total for an entire 18 months for the flex20 tariff.

Well yes I’d love to she says, but my boyfriend wasn’t offered this. I’ll only take it if you give him the same deal.

“ok what is his number?”. tap tap, tap. “yes he can have it to”.

Now I have an in-built physchological issue with signing up to anything for 18 months. But at £5 per month how can I go wrong.

So there you have it: no IVR system, a lovely friendly support lady, willingness to offer great deals to both of us. Yes I am in a state of shock at the moment.

And then the next day after another call to T Mobile to rectify my MMS settings which I’d mucked up, they called back an hour later to “check if your MMS is now working ok Steve”!!

Believe me, I do not recommend any mobile operator as I think 666 should be the number they all use for their sales departments. But based on this experience, T Mobile are definitely winning the customer support stakes at the moment.

- - -

Very good news for the industry and for T-Mobile.

Remember this from yesterday?

Link: SMS Text News » Archives » Nokia E61 just ’stops’ working with mobile data

Has anyone experienced this situation? A reader emailed me telling me that his Nokia E61 just stopped working with mobile data recently.

Completely stopped.

The phone works fine, mobile data is screwed. He can’t get anything working at all.

He phoned T-Mobile UK (oh dear) and the polite people on the end of the phone explained that he had his mobile data settings configured incorrectly.

Absolute tosh, he did nothing to the device and the settings are all there, fine and dandy.

Turns out T-Mobile simply, er, disabled mobile data services on the sim card… by mistake. For some reason. Who knows.

It’s re-enabled now, the reader tells me. And working.

Deary me… I wonder what happened there?

Has anyone experienced this situation? A reader emailed me telling me that his Nokia E61 just stopped working with mobile data recently.

Completely stopped.

The phone works fine, mobile data is screwed. He can’t get anything working at all.

He phoned T-Mobile UK (oh dear) and the polite people on the end of the phone explained that he had his mobile data settings configured incorrectly.

Absolute tosh, he did nothing to the device and the settings are all there, fine and dandy.

The device just won’t connect to mobile data services at all.

I had him put the SIM in another (unlocked) handset. Same problem. The device automatically retrieved the T-Mobile internet settings (you know, APN etc) and woosh… no data. No data at all.

Any thoughts?

I reckoned it’s got to be something to do with the sim card and the profile at the network level since he’s getting the same trouble on another unlocked handset.

T-Mobile has revealed it’s the lastest mobile operator to flirt with femtocells - a kind of mini base station for the home - by investing an undisclosed amount of cash in femtocell maker Ubiquisys. The investment, made by T-Mobile Venture Fund, comes ahead of an expected commercial launch of a femtocell service later this year.

Femtocells will let operators “more effectively bundle mobile and fixed broadband services, and to differentiate themselves by offering a new generation of web 2.0 mobile applications based on home presence and sharing data with the home network” according to T-Mobile.

Femtocells really hold a lot of promise. Not only do they boost indoor 3G coverage, but they open up the promise of all the converged services that BT Fusion tried to, only without the need for a special dual-mode handset. With the amount of interest femtocell technology is generating among operators, I get the feeling it wont’ be long til we all have base stations at home.

Does anyone have a CLUE what this text means?

BAN has changed its payment type. The Privileges for the phones on this Billing Account have been reset.

I logged into my T-Mobile UK account today just to check things out. This is fast becoming a fascinating experience. No two logins are the same. There’s always something that makes me wonder why I’m paying them money.

So all looked ok, except for the fact that I’ve got one penny outstanding on my balance. I’m not sure how. I must have got my sums wrong again.

All good, until I caught this ‘alert’ top right of my billing page:

Someone by the name of BAN… has changed its payment type. Who? What?

I THINK this might mean I have finally succeeded on getting my account on to direct debit. Who knows.

OR, it might mean that (”my privileges have been reset”) I’ve been converted to a pay as you go? But it does say I’m on a 12 month contract too.

Weird.

And wonderful.

[I am, right now, also lodged on the Vodafone homepage giving serious thought to signing up with them again. The data thing is still an issue for me. 120mb of sort-of mobile data.... give me open access ... please!]

Motorola only recently announced the ROKR E8, an admittedly hot little candybar sporting a pathetic 2 megapixel camera, though also toting 2GB of internal memory and quad-band GSM. The cool part of the phone is the haptic touchpad that also changes keys depending on what menu is currently being used.

Ewan was quite taken with the device when it was shown off at CES, and it seems that T-Mobile US feels the same way. Photos have come up with the device showing off a back-tatt from the U.S. GSM carrier, along with the MyFaves logo.

Considering that they don’t have their own music store OR a specific partnership in line with any of the popular music services such as Napster or Rhapsody, T-Mobile sure does release quite a few music-centric handsets. Other recent music handsets include Nokia’s 5300, the Samsung ‘Beat’, Nokia 6263, and the Motorola RAZR2.

One can’t help but wonder what exactly customers are using for their music fix, if anything.

Yahoo has pulled off another coup at Mobile World Congress: it’s displaced Google in T-Mobile’s affections. According to the operator, Yahoo will now be its exclusive mobile search partner starting from next month.

And there’s more to come: Yahoo and T-Mobile will be working together to bring Yahoo services including Flickr, Yahoo Messenger, as well as mail, weather and finance to T-Mobile users - no doubt somehow tied in to its web’n'walk data service.

Yahoo is breathing some serious life into its mobile strategy at the moment, with oneConnect and this deal as a couple of notable highlights. Microsoft is also seemingly rediscovering its mobile mojo - more signs that the mooted union between the two could soon be consummated?

You know I’ve been having so much trouble trying to PAY T-Mobile? The issue being that their STYOOOOOOOPID customer management portal has far too many stupid, stupid, rubbish rules and hoops that makes it really difficult for me to actually give them money.

You can ONLY pay with one card. Fair enough. But I’ve got two accounts. So I can pay for one account with no issue. Try using that card for the second account and BOOOOM there’s a problem. SECURITY issues. Might be fraudulent.

What absolute monkey thought that one up?

Next issue: I thought I’d use a different, different card — a credit card — to pay for my 6.91 pounds outstanding bill.

Mistake.

Their stupid system prompted me with IDIOT errors every time I tried to pay.

On the third time of trying, here’s what I got:

The card registered
The number of payment attempts has reached the maximum allowed. Please hold while I transfer you to someone in our team

Some MUPPET has actually just cut and paste that from the telephone billing system. That’s…. almost helpful. You can do all the branding and marketing you like, but at the end of the day, silly thinks like this demonstrate that at T-Mobile UK headquarters, the lights are most definitely on, but no one is home.

“Please hold?” I’m on the WEB, you MONKEY.

After the O2 ‘we didn’t sell as many iPhones as people expected but we’re still happy about it’ shenanigans, it’s now T-Mobile’s turn to sing a distinctly similar tune. Rene Obermann has been doing the talking, and revealing the German operator has now shifted 70,000 of the devices since launchIt’s not a number that’s gone down well with the number crunchers though, with Hannes Wittig, a JP Morgan Chase analyst telling Bloomberg: “The number is lower than what I expected” and predicting that T-Mo should have said goodbye to 150,000 iPhones. Ouch. It’s not all bad news for Rene, though - apparently iPhone owners spend three times more on data than the average subscriber. A sign of how to increase data consumption or an indication of people who left the email app on when they were on holiday?

Today Yahoo! announced that it will be the exclusive provider of graphical ads for T-Mobile UK’s Web’n'Walk internet service. Web’N'Walk was introduced in 2005 as the first mobile internet experience with access to the entire web. Along the way it has also come to offer pre-paid users the freedom of unlimited mobile internet access. I had the pleasure of using it when I was in London late last year and it worked great, offering me unlimited HSDPA access on my Nokia N95 for 1GBP/day (T-Mobile now offers a 5-day pass for pay-as-you-go for 2.50GBP).

The Yahoo! partnership will enable UK advertisers the ability to directly target these users with contextual graphic ads, and should roll out in the first half of 2008. This is a big win for Yahoo! and its advertising departments against Google, who will not have access to these highly mobile customers.

Hopefully, eventually this will work to reduce the price of Web’n'Walk to consumers, though there was no mention of such plans in the press release.

Every month it seems, I’m knocking my head against the wall with annoyance.

Some total ARSE has programmed T-Mobile UK’s website to ONLY accept a unique credit/debit card.

So if you’ve got two T-Mobile accounts — like I do — (and you obviously want to pay for them) you’re screwed. I’ve been trying to stick it on to direct debit every month. But you can’t do than online until you’ve cleared your balance, which you can’t do if your card is held on another account. So you need to make a bank transfer. Or find another card to use.

Every sodding time I want to make a sodding payment, there’s some kind of SODDING impediment. They really, really don’t make it easy.

You’d think they’d want to specialise in taking money from me. I’ve missed the odd payment date because of this rubbish. I really can’t stand having to bend around them.

Because some jobsworth in a stuffy meeting room in the bowels of T-Mobile UK HQ made this ‘unique’ decision, I need to go and find another card to use. What if you’ve only got one card?

Gah.

NOTE TO SELF
Cancel T-Mobile. Cancel T-Mobile. Cancel T-Mobile. Cancel T-Mobile. Cancel T-Mobile. Cancel T-Mobile. Cancel T-Mobile. Cancel T-Mobile. Cancel T-Mobile. Cancel T-Mobile. Cancel T-Mobile. Cancel T-Mobile. Cancel T-Mobile. Cancel T-Mobile. Cancel T-Mobile. Cancel T-Mobile. Cancel T-Mobile. Cancel T-Mobile. Cancel T-Mobile. Cancel T-Mobile. Cancel T-Mobile.

Link: T-Mobile offers free Wi-Fi to subcribers — Netimperative

Mobile network operator T-Mobile is offering free access to a Wi-Fi network to its Web’n'walk subscribers.

As of today, the operator will give all new Web’n'walk mobile internet customers access to all T-Mobile Wi-Fi HotSpots at no extra charge.

For an extra £12.50 per month, on top of any Flext price plan, T-Mobile customers will now have access to both a 3G network nationwide, and what T-Mobile claims is the world’s largest Wi-Fi network.

This offers more than 39,000 Wi-Fi HotSpots across the globe (and 1200 HotSpots in the UK) including the Starbucks chain of coffee shops, airports and some rail services.

Well this is fantastic news. It’s about time.

I don’t know what it is with me.. I seem to be living in the future.

Witness my post on September 6th, 2006 — Getting rogered for 75p/min by T-Mobile HotSpot.

Fast forward 21 days to a survey by T-Mobile saying people want More access to Wi Fi.

The next month, T-Mobile announced unlimited usage of it’s Wi Fi network for a tenner a month for existing customers. This, I took advantage of. I’ve been a subscriber ever since.

I’ve not been that happy at having to pay T-Mobile even more cash for access to the internet, just because it’s via wireless internet as apposed to mobile data. If anything, I thought it should be much, much cheaper for T-Mobile to administer a network of wireless routers plugged into broadband sockets than it is to manage a huge range of base stations.

And well, there you go. Today - just over a year later, T-Mobile have made it free, provided you’re a 12.50/month Web’N'Walk subscriber.

Good news. I’m delighted!

At the Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas, T-Mobile and Panasonic have teamed up on a digital camera in Panasonic’s LUMIX line that will allow users to upload photos directly to Google’s Picasa service from any T-Mobile HotSpot. The camera comes with 12-months of free HotSpot access, and that’s about all the information we’re given.

T-Mobile has made some pretty killer deals with their HotSpot service here in the U.S. recently. The Apple iTunes Store, available via WiFi on the iPod Touch and iPhone, is free at Starbucks in select cities. Starbucks uses T-Mobile’s HotSpot network. We’ve now also got this new Lumix camera using T-Mobile’s HotSpot service. Let’s also not forget T-Mobile’s recently launched @Home service, which allows compatible handsets to seamlessly transfer a call from the GSM network onto T-Mobile’s HotSpot WiFi network.

Seems to me that T-Mobile is doing an excellent job leveraging this massive WiFi network they’ve built. Perhaps this explains why they’ve taken their sweet time launching a 3G network.

I hope that won’t screw up my 3UK service. I’ve been a lot happier and more content with service via 3UK than I have with T-Mobile. Although I do thoroughly appreciate T-Mobile leading the marketplace by being the first to launch unlimited data. As for an acquisition, well, each Hutchison geographic territory appears nicely pre-packed ready for a buy out… but I’m not too keen on the concept myself.

Link: T-Mobile shares phone masts with 3 to boost wireless broadband | Technology | The Guardian

T-Mobile is pooling its mobile phone masts with rival operator 3, to bring high-speed wireless broadband to more of the country. The deal, to be announced today, will be seen by many in the industry as a precursor to T-Mobile, owned by Deutsche Telekom, buying out Britain’s newest and smallest network.

I recently attended Nokia World 2007 in Amsterdam, and decided I’d pick up a prepaid SIM card while I was over there to use in my Nokia N82, to take advantage of the HSDPA that I don’t currently have here in the States. When I was in London, I used a T-Mobile SIM, and it was really easy. For 1 pound/day, I could have unlimited HSDPA access, and that’s all I really need for the few days I’m gone.

I tried doing some research before I landed in Amsterdam, but the T-Mobile.nl website is only in Dutch, and I didn’t see an option to translate. I tried using Google’s website translator, but it was no more help, either.

Once I landed, I dropped my stuff off at the hotel and set about the town looking for mobile shops. I was really pleased to find that they were easily located, and had a vast selection of handsets - much more than the US Carrier shops I’m used to. The first shop that I stopped in flat-out stated that they did not offer data-only prepaid SIM cards on any carrier. Next up was a Phone House, similar to the UK’s Carphone Warehouse. I asked the first person I could, “I need a prepaid SIM card, and I need to have unlimited data on it.” He said, no problem, T-Mobile had the best prepaid deal. Easy enough, and I’d heard from a friend that they had unlimited data for 2.5 EUR/day. Sounds good.

First problem, the sales rep wouldn’t take my Visa card. I don’t even carry cash in my own country, much less when I’m travelling, so I bummed the 10 EURO off one of the guys with me (Note to self, paypal Rafe 10 EURO). The next question was if I had a SIM-Free phone. Yes, I replied, and triumphantly displayed my N82 on the counter. Unfortunately, the sales rep robbed me of my joy and didn’t even raise an eyebrow, but at least he knew to ask that.

I was able to activate the card easily by putting it in my phone and entering the PIN number printed on the card. I asked the sales rep what I needed to do to activate the unlimited data (in London I had to call and change to a different plan) and he said nothing. Great. It worked perfectly, high-speed HSDPA while roaming the streets of Amsterdam. Rock on.

Fast forward to the next day, and where the real dissatisfaction comes. Data’s not working. Nothing. Everytime I attempt a connection, I get the following text message:

Uw Beltegoed is minder dan EUR 0.50. Bel 1244 om op te waarderen via Mobiel Opwaarderen of via een T-mobile beltegoedbon.

From that I gather that my balance is less than half a Euro, and that if I call 1244, I can top-up. Easy enough, though I would have appreciated an English translation as well. After finding a quiet place, I call 1244 from the phone, and am greeted in Dutch, with no English option.

Now, I know that English is not the universal global language, but T-mobile lost out on potential revenue from me simply because they did not offer any easy to understand translations or rate structures. Even with full web access, I was unable to determine what I needed to do to get exactly the service I want (or if it was even available) and I was obviously unable to do so directly from my mobile.

What experiences have you had using prepaid SIM cards in other countries?