International & EU Roaming

Updates
#1

Hello!

We’ve just enabled International & EU Roaming in-app (under SIM settings – remember to force-restart the app if you haven’t already). A couple of things:

  • Auto top-up needs to be enabled.
  • International rates for calling abroad from the UK here, and EU roaming rates for calling abroad here – rates within Europe are the same as the UK (3p/SMS, 3p/minute and 0.5p/MB).
  • We’ve had to delay roaming outside of the EU, and will have that ready within 2 weeks. Although when it is ready, using data won’t be possible – only calling & messaging.

It goes without saying, we recommend you use WhatsApp/Signal/Telegram, etc. as much as you can – data is a lot cheaper!

Enjoy the rest of June :slight_smile:

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#2

Any reason why no data outside of the EU?

#3

Can we text short numbers internationally?

E.g. I like to vote in Norwegian TV shows from time to time and they have a fixed fee of about 30p or so; would I get charged 40p or would it fail?

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#4

Shortcodes are a huge hack that should’ve never existed to begin with so the behaviour might be undefined and every visited network might behave differently. They usually get swallowed by the visited (local) network before being passed onto the home network, in which case you should be able to use shortcodes local to the visited network but won’t be able to use UK ones when roaming outside the UK. If you do test it, please report back - I’m curious!

#5

The rates are terribly high, and with pre-pay it’d be a messy workaround with auto top-ups, etc.

Short numbers shouldn’t work, and we have no way to enable them. Any I’ve tried have failed, but if you do find one that works I’d also be curious to know!

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#6

I use to just do country code + the short code and it always said it was successful hmmmm

#7

That definitely shouldn’t work - you’ve either texted someone on a real (non-shortcode) number or it went undelivered but the failure status wasn’t communicated back to your phone.

Short number shouldn’t work, and we have no way to enable them. Any I’ve tried have failed, but if you do find one that works I’d also be curious to know!

Have you also tested this on roaming? I think it might work considering shortcodes are processed internally by the visited network and they might not check whether the phone is a visitor before handling it (and there are edge-cases where this behaviour is desirable - the British Transport Police has a short code and I’d argue even visitors should be able to use it).

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#8

Good point – I’ll try that next time I’m abroad :slight_smile:

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#9

Barely on topic, but is there a reason why calling EU from the UK is significantly more expensive than calling UK (or even EU) from the EU?
And I don’t mean zevvle in particular, this seems to be the general mobile network pricing norm.

4 Likes
#10

Yes – Ofcom require that roaming in the EU is charged at the same domestic rate, meaning you can go to Germany and call anywhere in Europe for that same price. However, when in the UK you’re not roaming and Ofcom don’t mandate that international calls to the EU cost the same, thus networks typically charge more for it.

Unfortunately we have to do the same because our wholesale rates are higher, but it bugs me as well those 2 prices are different… :confused:

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Tuesday, September 24th
#11

Because greed. There’s absolutely no reason why it should cost any more than internet traffic (aka so cheap that it’s essentially free). The price you see is artificial and as Nick explained above it depends on what the carriers can get away with while staying within the law.

3 Likes
#12

This is a bit confusing as it could be parsed as (International & EU) Roaming instead of (International) & (EU Roaming). I’d separate them personally as they are quite distinct things.

#13

That’s true – we did remove the EU in-app, so it’s just “International & Roaming.”

#14

I’d still say that’s ambiguous and doesn’t read as if it means ex-UK “International” to me but if you there think it’s clear that’s good enough for me :slight_smile:

#15

I am receiving push notifications every 3 hrs or so informing me of pricing in Belgium. ( I am in Ostend). The phone hasn’t moved and is roaming on Proximus. Am I supposed to keep receiving notifications after the first one?

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#16

Odd, I’ve only had one notification on entering the Netherlands and another after entering Germany. I’m wondering if you are getting a UK, French, or Dutch network for a short time. There’s cases about 7 years ago where people in Dover and similar places on the Kent coast were getting huge charges as the French network was stronger.

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#17

Could be. Ostend isn’t far from either.

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#18

Sorry about this – looking into it now!

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#19

Just for closure – we fixed this on Wednesday with Primary SIMs: https://community.zevvle.com/t/wednesday-december-4th-more-prediction-primary-sims

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#20

Just a little thing about primary things

A key in the app doesn’t scream primary to me, it screams locked

Perhaps there’s another way you can indicate this?

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