Telecoms Mobile Services
Summary
In a world of subsidised handsets, partly subsidised handsets, free SIMs, 12 month terms, 18 month terms, 2 year terms, introductory offers, text bundles, call bundles, data bundles, add-ons, and "unlimited*" packages, Andrews & Arnold plan to make life simpler.
The mobile service is a SIM card that you can use in a 3G mobile or dongle to make and receive calls and texts as well access the internet. You just pay for what you use - simple.
- Simple - there is a one-off charge for the SIM. When activated it has a low monthly cost. Calls, texts and data are charged for what you used at sensible rates. Month by month contract.
- Flexible - all of the features of our normal VoIP services, with web control pages. Control which SIMs are active and have what numbers in an instant.
- Useful - have separate home and work numbers on the same phone. See which was called. Choose from which to call. Separate sections of the bill to make expense claims easy. Separate features (like anonymous call rejection and call recording) depending on which you are using.
- Powerful - have your phone connect to your corporate call server or third party SIP service anywhere in the world as a mobile phone extension. Take total control and bringing mobile calls, texts and data in-house as part of an integrated communications system.
- Unique - it is almost un-heard of to have a data SIM that has fixed IP. Our data SIMs all have fixed IPv4, and can have your block of IPv4 addresses as DSL backup over 3G. There is no filtering and a simple pay for what you use tariff with no limits.
SIMs and phones
A SIM card costs £10.00+VAT. You can buy a SIM that is not active and has no ongoing charges - this is ideal for telecoms managers in companies that want a number of SIM cards in stock for when they give out phones to new staff. You can activate the SIM on our control pages and the SIM will be working within a few minutes. Once active the SIM costs £2.00+VAT pcm, but this includes the cost of a main number if you have one associated with the SIM (normally £1.00+VAT pcm)
You can buy phones from us or other suppliers. They need to be SIM free and 3G capable. When we sell phones they are a separate sale and unrelated to SIM or VoIP services so you can mix and match. Phones need payment in advance before shipping. We can engrave most makes of phone with company logo or asset numbers, etc., for a small fee. Often the cheapest way to buy a suitable phone is "pay as you go" from a "3" store as these work with our service (note that there have been statements by staff at a "3" store that they have company policy that ignores section 48A(3) of the Sale of Goods Act, so we recommend caution in dealing with them).
Calls
The SIM can be connected to our VoIP service, or to a third party SIP server such as your corporate phone system. If connected to our VoIP service then it can be associated with one or more numbers (e.g. home and work).
- Where the SIM is connected to our service it can be associated with a normal mobile number starting 07, in which case there is no cost to receive calls but the caller is paying the higher mobile rate to make the call. Calls made from the mobile are charged for the mobile part (MO rate) plus our normal VoIP call prices. Our VoIP rates means calls to UK geographic (01/02/03) numbers and many international destinations work our under 5p/minute including VAT.
- Where the SIM is connected to our service it can be associated with a normal geographic number starting 01, 02 or 03. In this case calls from the mobile are charged for the mobile part (MO rate) plus our normal VoIP call prices. People calling the number pay normal geographic call rates the same as calling other 01/02/03 numbers but we charge you for the mobile part (MT rate). The charge for the mobile part only applies if answered on the mobile, i.e. you could have the number ring a SIP desk phone and the mobile, and if answered on the SIP phone then there is no mobile part charge for the call.
- Where the SIM is connected to a third party SIP server we do not control calls or numbering. Calls from the mobile are charged for the mobile part (MO rate) and calls to the mobile are charged for the mobile part (MT rate). You would pay the SIP service for any external calls independently.
When connected to our VoIP service you benefit from all of the normal VoIP features including anonymous call rejection, call recording, redirects, time profile controls, group number ringing, presentation number, call cost limiting, and so on.
07 numbers
Mobile numbers have special rules which means that the call must be delivered to a mobile (the rules actually ban call diverts and voicemail). We are not treating the rules quite as strictly and have asked OFCOM to confirm this is acceptable. We do require that you associate your mobile number with one of our voice SIMs at all times. If you do not then incoming calls will simply fail. This does not stop diverts and so on being used as well.
Of course you can have a geographic number and a mobile using separate prefixes on your voice SIM, and give different numbers to different people as you wish. This makes it very flexible.
Texts
Normally, texts can be sent to or from the phone using the numbers associated with the SIM. This works just like a normal phone, and texts to geographic numbers starting 01 or 02 work as normal. At present most networks cannot text 03 numbers. Also, T-mobile sometimes call and read the message rather than texting to 01 or 02 numbers but this can usually be fixed. Texts are normally included in the itemised call logs, but you can flag your VoIP number to have texts private so the time and numbers are logged but not the content. You can have incoming texts deliver to the mobile. You can also, or instead, have them delivered by email, or to a web form. We may add features to deliver by IM systems in the future.
Texts sent from the mobile have our normal text charge of 6.67p+VAT‡.
Alternatively you can have the SIM set up so that you control texts fully - texts from the phone are delivered to your server as a web form, and you can send texts to the SIM using a web form. In this case there is just a mobile part charge for the texts each way (around 2p+VAT). This service is ideal for text based controls of corporate systems as the sending number cannot be spoofed, unlike normal texts, and you can set up your own short codes to text.
Note, at this stage we are not planning to charge for incoming texts, but this is not certain yet. It may be that there is a charge of around ¼p for incoming texts.
Single number
As with our normal VoIP services you can have a number that rings several other numbers - this means you can easily use one number as a contact that rings the mobile and desk SIP phone. Unlike simple redirects, calls from your mobile can also present this main number making a single point of contact.
Home/work numbers
When connected to our VoIP service we can associate more than one number with your SIM. One would be the main number which is the default when making calls or sending texts from the phone. One is typically a work number, and applies when calls are made or texts sent prefixed with a 9. This is like the 9 for outside line found on many office phone systems. If you receive a call or text to the work number the calling number shown in the phone also has a 9 prefix. You can store work contacts in the phone memory with the 9 prefix so calls to those contacts always go out on the work number.
The features of the VoIP service apply separately for each number, so you could have call recording on work calls for example, and texts marked private on the home number. The billing is separated out for each number as well.
We may extend this to allow prefixes such as 8 and 7 and so on in the future. For beta testing the work number operates with a * suffix not a 9 prefix.
Data
Data services provide access to the legacy Internet with a fixed IPv4 address. There is a simple charge of around 2.5p+VAT per megabyte either way and no complex bundles.
There are two options - using one of the voice SIM cards allow simple dynamic IPv4 access to the internet using the 3internet APN.
The second option is to use a dedicated data SIM card. This does not allow calls, but data is routed to our core network routers. We offer fixed IPv4 connections. We also allow blocks of IPv4 addresses making it ideal as a backup for broadband lines. You can also have the SIMs relayed to your own L2TP endpoint (e.g. a Firebrick FB2700) allowing you full control. The link is full 1500 byte MTU to the internet (L2TP relay needs jumbo frame peering with you). We hope to be able to offer IPv6 on data SIMs soon. There is no filtering in the data SIMs at all. More on data SIMs
The voice SIMs can only use the dynamic IPv4 legacy Internet access via 3. The data SIMs can only use work via our service and using 3's legacy Internet service. Note that these SIMs do work in 3 branded and SIM locked dongles and mifis.
Coverage
The service makes use of 3's 3G network, without 2G fall-back. 3 have been upgrading their network extensively to provide good 3G coverage. We hope to have maps and coverage checkers available soon. Please do check coverage as it may be better than you expect.
Where using the phone with our VoIP services you can SIP register a handset on the same number. Many smart phones can do this over WiFi links, so it is easy to fill in coverage black-spots at home or work by having the phone SIP register over WiFi. Note that calls cannot (yet) hand over between WiFi and 3G so you will have to re-dial if leaving WiFi range. Of course, even if there is plenty of coverage, you may want to SIP register your phone to reduce call costs as the mobile part does not apply to SIP calls.
Roaming
The voice SIMs will allow roaming in a number of specific countries and network operators. It does not work in all countries as the service requires a home routing feature that is only available on some foreign networks. We do not yet have confirmation of pricing. Roaming is not yet available but we hope to be able to enable it and provide details of countries and networks soon.
We expect that data SIMs will allow roaming over a larger number of countries, but do not yet have details.
Porting
We expect to be able to port in a mobile number. We may also be able to port out mobile numbers. This is not available at this stage.
Ordering
You can order Voice and Data SIMs from the Equipment page.
Service limitations
- You can access the internet using a voice SIM using the APN defined in the SIM ("3") which goes via "3" NATted internet access.
- Multi part texts from the phones are split up, and calendar/contact texts are not coming through as such.
- MMS does not work at present.
- Video calls (using the mobile network as opposed to IP) do not work at present.
- No details on roaming yet - some may work by arrangement
- No delivery reports on texts from phones. Texts to geographic shows as delivered before the text gets to phone.
- Some phones show sent texts stuck in out-box even though sent
- 07 mobile numbers are new and not working from everywhere yet. They may take some time before texting works.
