- How do I control my SIMs?
To access the billing and administration platform, go to the reseller section of the website and enter the username and password that was sent to you by our administration department when you purchased your first SIMs.
If you prefer you can also send an email to
This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it
.This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it with your request.
- I need to activate SIMs that I have purchased, how do I do this?
Go to the reseller section of the website, enter your username and password, choose SIMs and then Activate. Activation of our multi-network SIMs takes approximately 5 minutes per SIM. Single Network and Telenor SIMs can take two working days.
- How can I see usage on my SIMs ?
On the billing platform you can also see the amount of data sent per session if you are using our multi-network SIM. Single Network and Telenor SIMs do not provide session usage. If required, we can request usage data from the network on an occasional basis.
For the multi-network SIMs, this is delayed by approximately one hour.
For SIMs purchased after May 2011, usage data will be shown a few minutes after the session has ended.
- How do I designate a SIM to my customer so that they can control the SIM?
Again, this is achieved through our SIM billing and administration platform. Go to customers, add a new customer, and then add SIMs to each customer in the SIM menu.
- How do I mark up the prices to my customers?
We need to create a new product for you which can be the mirror image of the product / bundle that you have purchased from ourselves - except that the price will be higher.
Whilst this new product will have no relevance to our billing to you, you can then allocate SIM Cards to this new marked up product so that your customer sees usage and line rental fees at the costs you have designated.
- How do I or my customers see itemised usage?
This can be done by either clicking on the SIM in the SIM menu, or by choosing dates within the billing menu and drilling down into the itemised usage of the SIM. Your customer will have the same depth of billing as yourself - albeit with marked up prices.
When we send the SIMs to you, we will send you the APN details (which are specific to our SIMs), as well as the GSM (MSISDN) numbers to match the short code numbers displayed on your SIM cards.
- The SIM is not working, what do I do?
There are four elements that could be causing a problem:
1) Firmware
This is the area where most problems are seen prior to a successful connection (i.e. in the testing stage). Problems can be varied and wide and unfortunately, as we do not know how your application works or the code behind it, it is very difficult for us to assist. However, feel free to call - we have seen a lot of telemetry applications so we may be able to give some pointers.
On the whole, unless a change has been made or the application has got stuck (for example by looping around and around), once successful connections have been made through the network, thereafter it is unlikely that any future issues are going to be firmware related. The exception to this will be related to how the firmware either in the application or the modem deals with rare network messages or unforseeable network circumstances.
2) Hardware
Hardware issues are the story of our lives as they do not necessarily portray themselves in black or white, but instead can take on a very sporadic life of their own. The long and short with hardware issues, is to take the SIM out and put it into another unit and see if it works as expected. If the answer is yes, you have a hardware issue. If the same issue is seen in another unit, this can either point to a network issue or a problem with the hardware design of the unit that causes it to stop working properly in certain circumstances (although this latter issue could also be related to firmware). To check whether it is a SIM or network problem put the SIM in an unlocked phone (not an iphone), change the APN settings and try browsing on the web. If you can browse the web, then you have a hardware or firmware issue.
3) The Network
This is more complicated as often it is difficult to establish whether there is a problem with the network or the hardware. However, in our experience, most problems relate to the hardware or firmware rather than the network, so we would ask you to check these first. That said, network issues can include:
a) No GSM signal. Whilst our multi-network cards pick up every network in Europe, there will be black spots where no signal is present. Not a lot we can do in this situation unfortunately!
b) No GPRS signal. This is a subtle but important difference to a) above. GSM coverage is wider than that of GPRS. Therefore it is theoretically possible to have a GSM signal whilst not having a good enough signal strength to send data. However, this situation will only occur where the GSM signal is very weak. The solution to this is to use our Best Signal SIM Card.
c) Network issues. These are more difficult to determine as often we will know about these issues prior to a network. Furthermore issues can be local or national. However, the likelihood of network problems can be broken down as follows:
- All SIMs were working fine and suddenly stop working. If all your SIMs suddenly stop working at the same time, this can be down to two reasons - either there is a major network problem across the whole sending or receiving GSM network (unlikely) or your server has stopped receiving data (more likely). We would suggest you re-boot your server to start with and check server connections/applications thereafter.
- Some SIMs (more than one, but not all) were working fine and suddenly stopped working. This is the most likely scenario for a network problem where for example, a mast has stopped sending/receiving signal, a router in the network has gone down etc. Again it is worth checking that nothing on your server has changed which could have caused the issue (for example a hardware/ router/ modem issue that has stopped traffic from certain units). If all the units that have stopped working are in the same area this again could be a signal problem from one mast. Please contact us so that we can check.
- One SIM was working fine and suddenly stopped working. Whilst this could be a network problem, this is more likely to be a hardware issue or local signal issue. Again if this SIM is the only SIM in a certain area this could be a coverage issue - if you can leave it some time and if you are local undertake a reboot of the unit. Otherwise, it is likely to be a hardware issue that needs to be checked.
d) SIM Compatibility. All our our SIMs have been designed recently and therefore use the latest GSM standards. However, many units in the field are using an old design that does not handle correctly some of the newer GSM standards commands. This can be an issue where, for example, the SIM is trying to connect to a network when it should be connecting to a different network first. Our network will reject the first attempt, after which the modem should recognise this and try a different network. Unfortunately, incorrectly written firmware may not tell the modem to look for the next network. If you see this pattern of behaviour, it may be worth checking whether the firmware of the modem/unit can be upgraded OTA.
4) The SIM Card
SIM Cards are dumb and do not have a lot of technology incorporated. They are there only to pass information between the modem and network. Whilst it is conceivable that you have a faulty SIM card, we have as yet never needed to replace a faulty SIM card - so it is unlikely to be this.
Before assuming that the issue lies with the SIM card, where possible please put the SIM card into an unlocked phone and try browsing on the web (don't forget to change the APN settings).
- I tried the SIM in my mobile/ iphone, why didn't it work?
- Make sure that your phone is unlocked (our SIMs will also not work in Apple iphones).
- Make sure that you have configured and have changed the settings to use the correct APN for the SIM card (that we have given you).
- Make sure there is no proxy server enabled in the settings.
If the SIM is not working after checking all of the above, please contact us.
- I know there is a GSM signal, but I can't send data, why not ?
More often than not, this is because the correct APN has not been set up or the unit /user has not directed the unit to use this APN.
However, it is possible that the signal strength is not sufficient to send data. This will only be the case if the GSM signal strength is also very low. Please see our Best Signal & Power Saving SIM Cards for more information on this.
