[charliec#CB]

Hi all,
I have an Orange 8900 with a BIS plan and the Unique �5pm package added in. For those unaware of Unique it's an unlimited call plan to over 30 countries via UMA only. The minutes do not come out of your normal call plan as Unique is a paid for add on.
As someone who travels occasionally I am wondering what the situation is with regards Unique and UMA calls made when overseas in one of the 30 countries Unique ex UK applies to?
Do i pay for calls home to the UK when on UMA?
Do i pay for calls within the overseas country when on UMA?

Your help and advice guys and gals is always appreciated.

[trueblue4009uk]

I asked blackberry support with orange, wot they said to me is u can make calls using uma but it comes of your minutes (Contract) or if u are (PAYG) it will give you calls at a cheaper rate.

If you use uma from uk to abroad u will be charged at a cheaper international rate.
same applies abroad to uk. ( ONLY IF THAT COUNTRY SUPPORTS UMA)..
SOME DONT!!!

Hope this helps

[ajames01]

( ONLY IF THAT COUNTRY SUPPORTS UMA).. SOME DONT!!!

Humm, i was going to start my own post on this one. currently i have 3 phones. the BB 8900, HTC Touch 3G and the Nokia 6301, im currently out in the states for a couple of weeks. with access to wifi, out of the 3 phones i can only get one working on UMA and thats the Nokia 6301. i have tried with the BB and in the diagnostics screen i get 'blackberry failed to connect. location not allowed', the Touch 3G connect to the wifi but the house stays red (connected to wifi but not UMA) usally this turns green. i have had no problems getting these to connect at home and at work (at a university). im guessing this has to be a software issue as the Nokia is connecting ok, if it was blocked by IP geo-location this phone would also stop working


Has anyone else had any problems with this on UK Orange?


Regards,

Aaron

[Rob.Elliott]

I couldn't get my 8900 working with UMA while outside of the UK either. I think its the service is disabled if you leave the country, probably so they can screw you over with roaming charges.
It's a shame really since if the service was enabled when you're abroad I'd be singing Oranges praise to anybody who would listen.

[ballroom]

Never managed to get UMA outside of the UK in 2 years of owning a BB with Orange either!

Posted from my CrackBerry at wapforums.crackberry.com

[jeffthehead]

Hi everyone, I can see that this post is a bit old but I thought I'd clear it up with some information from the horse's mouth, as it were.

Orange and other service providers cannot knowingly allow their subscribers to use UMA from abroad because, although it makes economical sence for Orange and their customers, it would violate the terms of roaming agreements which Orange maintains with the local mobile operator of the given foreign country.
However, it would seem that the location is determined through the detection of the available gsm networks to the phone, not the IP address of the phone's access point. There have been unconfirmed reports of UMA being usable on phones where the standard mobile network connection has been disabled in settings and the phone restarted before connecting to the wifi access point.

[methos]

that's ecaxtly it. I work for technical support in Orange. Technically the phone will register to the foreign network and this will prevent the UMA from working. However if you were to disable mobile netowrks but leave wifi on, pull the battery, reinsert and turn back on, as the phone wont login to a mobile network but will detect wifi the UMA could, and I stress could, then activate. It would then also theoretically not be charged at roaming rates.

If you have one of the old unique bundles then it will come out the inclusive minutes. They aren't however unlimited. If I remember rightly they're capped at 1000. However it was 1000 orange to orange, 1000 to mobiles and 1000 to landlines so should do you really. If you dont have a unique bundle everything will come out of your inclusive minutes.

This is however all theory as you're trying to trick the device and network into thinking you're not roaming. It could not work and you'd get charged.

[AndyT_UK]

Well I will give it ago and see what orange charges me on the next bill and let you know.... playing it safe of course and using skype from my laptop for those long calls...

[crigga84]

I've just switched to Orange UK in hope UMA would allow me to make calls from abroad to the UK with no roaming costs. Bit of a waste of time for me.

[weezul]

^ did you try the fix? Sorry to bump an old thread but I am interested in this option for when i'm abroad

[anengineer]

^ did you try the fix? Sorry to bump an old thread but I am interested in this option for when i'm abroad

It worked for me a few weeks ago. I was in Spain in a house with wireless broadband, and I disabled the mobile network on the phone, did a battery pull and hey presto - UMA function came on within a couple of minutes. Outgoing and incoming calls worked fine, and appeared on my bill as 'Homezone' (i.e. Orange's system couldn't detect I was using a foreign UMA connection). However - be aware - calls made via UMA are deducted from your bundle minutes - something I wasn't aware of. I thought all UMA calls were free.... until I went over my monthly bundle limit and saw they were being charged. Either way, Methos's advice is sound (thanks mate !), it worked for me and I didn't pay any roaming charges (nor any call charges, until I busted my bundle limit !).

[weezul]

Total legend. Thanks for the info! That's perfect for me. I have 1200 minutes, I must use about 10 max a month!!! More of a texter me like! Cheers

[AndyT_UK]

I can also confim the UMA calls worked from Dubai and Ireland and just appear as normal calls from UK. I also did not have to pull the battery, just disable mobile network. I new I was onto a winner when the automatic time zone adjusted itself back to UK time when the UMA connected....
Cheers

[tecksquad]

i have tried alsorts cant get it to work only found that nokia 6301 works have tried 6 of them all worked but nowt else

[peakwhite]

When visiting in the Canary Islands recently, I was able to use UMA successfully for calls to the UK. All that was necessary was to disable the cellular network - no rebooting was needed. Coincidentally, the local Spanish network was Orange. The calls show on my bill as 'Homezone'.

[prlarkin]

Had same experience whilst travelling in Latvia and Estonia. Was using UMA on a WIFI enabled bus!

Free browsing and free calls to UK.

Call quality was pretty good too!

[tecksquad]

yes finally managed it on my 8900 a little more work than above but woking from the USA