Multiple SIM cards

Zevvle Chat 🔥
#1

Hello

A few questions if I may…

  • How many SIM cards will I be able to order? (I suspect I’ll need six)
  • Can I port existing numbers in to Zevvle?
  • Will SIM cards expire if unused for a period of time?
  • Can I manage them all from the same app / account?
  • Is there a web interface (incase I lose my phone)?
  • Will there be any parental controls?
  • Will I be able to control roaming and other features per SIM?
  • Will historical usage data set out in pretty graphs and meaningful numbers?
  • Will I be able to cap data usage in any given time period per SIM?
  • Will I be able to use Zevvle SIMs for wireless tethering
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About the Updates category
#2

Hi Johnny,

We’re keeping it to single SIMs for simplicity at the start, but multiple SIMs will be close behind. Assuming everything goes smoothly, I’m looking at 5-7 weeks post-launch. With that in mind…

As many as you need to be honest. There’ll be a soft-limit of 5 in the app (to start with…), but if you need 6 (or 7 or 8) that won’t be a problem :slight_smile:

Yes!

No. You could expire them yourself if needs be.

Yes.

Not yet. That’s on our roadmap, and something we’ll definitely build for that exact reason.

If you mean restricting certain websites, then yes. Did you have anything else in mind?

Yes.

Yes; I certainly hope they’ll be pretty! Did you have anything particular in mind with meaningful numbers?

3/4 yes – we’ll probably do that on a monthly basis at first, then look into finer controls later on (e.g. if you want to cap it per day or per week).

Yes.

Hope that helps :slight_smile:

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#3

Thanks @nick!

I’m really looking forward to this. :+1:

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#4
  • Will there be any parental controls?

I hope it’s off by default. The last thing I want is something that wreaks havoc with network traffic (to inject the “site blocked” page) and uses an outdated or overly broad blacklist (or both).

On a lot of major carriers, even if the blocking is disabled, the equipment responsible for it is still in the data path and sometimes screws things up (the phone expects a direct connection to the internet, that’s what you should give it instead of putting magic boxes in the path).

There’s also the slippery slope of having the capability in the first place. It’s much easier for the government (or any industry powerful enough) to “nudge” you into blocking content they don’t agree with if you already have the capability (“it’s just an extra line in the config”) than if you have no way to do it for any site to begin with.

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#5

Well that escalated quickly :open_mouth:

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#6

It’s in our contract to verify age, but we’ll make sure it’s easy. :slight_smile:

Considering the UK government passed legislation in 2016 (easier-to-read wiki) to retain your internet history for the prior 12 months…

Besides, there’ve definitely been cases where the networks block innocent websites, e.g. some years ago, a big blue network blocked Childline, the NSPCC and the police… not a good look.

This has gone wildly off-topic, but it’s an interesting point. A free and open internet is something we have to fight for; there’s not much we (Zevvle) can do just yet, but the future’s bright. :slight_smile:

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#7

That’s my argument against this feature. I actually have no use on my mobile for the sites it’s supposed to block, but there’s nothing more infuriating when a website gets wrongly blocked (surprisingly the Internet Archive seems blocked on pretty much all of them). There’s also no standard way for the carrier to let you know it’s blocked a request, so you’re left troubleshooting a weird network issue of a page not loading (especially considering it’s a benign website and you wouldn’t think it would be blocked).

#8

The replies here are suggestive that you don’t have children. Whether you do or not, I respect those that desire a connection to the internet without nannying limits. I don’t think that should be at the cost of many parents who have legitimate wishes to protect their children from some parts of the internet.

Regardless, you took us off on a bit of a (interesting) tangent as my thoughts regarding parental controls were in regards to a Zevvle app where I would be able to manage a number of SIM cards.

I really like the thinking I am seeing from @Nick and the idea of an app where I can easily see usage, configure different aspects of a SIM (or SIMs) looks exciting. On the one hand, it makes you wonder why the mobile phone industry has not done this sort of thing already. On the other, it makes you understand why they have not done this sort of thing already!

I like the idea of a parental control whereby I can control a child’s data usage, roaming, calls, ability to acquire more data etc. It was at the SIM card level, not at the internet level, although this too is an important consideration for parents, too.

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#9

I’m not advocating for or against parental controls, merely against what I believe is a really poor way of doing so that has nasty side effects that reach even those who opted out of the parental controls. There are better alternatives like doing filtering on the client-side (which also has the advantage of working on WiFi).

On the one hand, it makes you wonder why the mobile phone industry has not done this sort of thing already. On the other, it makes you understand why they have not done this sort of thing already!

Besides the obvious financial incentives the other reason is that mobile carriers have usually very little (if any) in-house software engineering talent and just buy ready to use equipment (“magic boxes” as I call them) from suppliers like Ericsson, Huawei, etc. If those magic boxes don’t offer the feature then you’re very unlikely to see any carrier offering it.

#10

Is this roadmap available for us to see? Perhaps in a slick looking Trello board?

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#11

:wink: Stand by… (Apparently the minimum post length is 20 characters, so here’s the excess.)

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#12

I hope this is slick enough: Zevvle's Roadmap (Trello board here).

#14

I had hoped to use Zevvle for a data sim. I can find no way to order one from the app and there has been no reply on chat in over 24 hours. Is all well with Zevvle and does anyone have an alternative for a short term (?PAYG) data sim for about 15gb on an EE MVNO?

#15

I’m not Zevvle staff, but in the app you should just be able to order a sim through the sign up procedure or the billing page if you’re already a customer; by default it acts as data only unless you add credit, iirc, and you should be able to switch off calls and texts entirely in the sim settings should you wish to.

Haven’t heard from the team in a while though either, I hope they’re all OK…

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#16

Thanks Lauren. Nick has now replied to me.

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