SIM questions

nozzferrahhtoo

Hi all,

Not sure where to post this, and did not want to post it in the "talk to vodafone" section as my contract is with Vodafone Germany, not Ireland.

I just got off the line from the support desk in Vodafone here in Germany and they did not understand my question let alone offer an answer.

So here it goes. With my contract extension I got new phones and SIMs. I have two phone numbers on my account. For some reason I can not recall I received 4 SIMs however. I put all of these in a drawer as the current SIMS and Phones were still A-ok.

3 of those are in a "Vodafone starter kit" and are identical except for the barcode on the outside of the packet.

The 4th is almost the same but it is marked that it is an NFC Triple function card.

Problem is now that ONE of the old phones is A) Dying and not much good any more and Back in Ireland as we left it in my dads car on the way to the airport :mad:

So I want to activate ONE of the new phones and use it instead. Problems:

1) Of the 4 SIM cards I do not know which is connected with which phone number and the Vodafone support could not tell me either and

2) I am not sure entirely what the difference is between the three standard SIMs and the "triple" function one other than I guess it has the NFC application on it. Other than NFC tech (which I have no intention of using) is the SIM card likely to be "superior" in any other way?

3) Does the fact I never used these SIMs for so long (not sure how long sorry) mean that perhaps none of them will work at all. Does the activation tend to "expire" after some time?

I had hoped the vodafone data base might store the barcode they activated for each number before they posted it out. But seemingly not.

I suppose I could guess? What is the worst case scenario there? I put in the SIM from the phone number I do NOT want to de-activate, and the old SIM dies, so I just slot this into the old phone I am keeping and throw out the SIM I accidentally discontinued?

Then what? I guess again and if I am extremely unlucky again then the new SIM card also dies leaving me to repeat the above and guess a third time?

I dunno if there is 2 cards for each number..... 3 for 1 number and 1 for the other. Or what. I am 99% sure at least one SIM exists for each number however.

Vic_08

I can only commiserate with the poor VF rep that had to try to decode that over the phone.

A few points that might help you;

Sims that are unused will be de-registered from the network at some point, if yours are over 6 months then they may be dead.

Put sims in a phone and switch on, if they are de-reg then it will be displayed on the phone instead of a network ID.

The phone number of the sim will be shown somewhere on most phones, on Android it is in Settings-About Phone-Status-SIM Status or similar.

nozzferrahhtoo

Vic_08 wrote: »

I can only commiserate with the poor VF rep that had to try to decode that over the phone.

Oh hardly the post above and the phone conversation are two very distinct things. The phone conversation was a simple "Hi there, I have received in the past months 2 phones and 4 Sims from Vodafone and wonder if there is any way to discern which SIM is attached to which phone number".

Hardly a complex question to decode, doncha think?

But alas the indian on the phone had worse german than I would have thought possible and even worse English again and kept attempting to assure me that "no sir, you do not have 4 phone numbers with us, only 2" to which I could only repeat to him "Yes I have 2 numbers, yet received 4 SIMs and am just curious if there is a way to tell which SIM is relevant to which account".

To which he helpfully assured me "No sir, I have told you already you only have 2 phone numbers with us. I do not know why you think you have 4".

In the end I tried "The SIM card in my hand has two barcodes on it, do you store in the system which barcode was activated for which number?" to which he said no, they do not store that anywhere, so I bid him good day

Vic_08 wrote: »

Put sims in a phone and switch on, if they are de-reg then it will be displayed on the phone instead of a network ID.

Thanks that is helpful to know. All I can see is the standard "Emergency calls only" message you get when there is no current connection to the Network. So I guess it looks likely the SIM is no longer active.

Vic_08 wrote: »

The phone number of the sim will be shown somewhere on most phones, on Android it is in Settings-About Phone-Status-SIM Status or similar.

Also helpful thanks, but alas it does not seem to be there. Under network is just "Unknown" and under Telephone number is also "unknown". So I guess that is proof that the SIM is simply not at all active any more. I guess I will go into the Vodafone store later today.

ED E

I think part of the confusion here is this.

There are three ID's in use:
1. IMEI of the Phone
2. ICCD of the SIM
3. The phone number

The number is really just a "nickname" for your accounts present SIM(or in some cases SIMs plural).


Say you have an old phone with a regular USIM(big one) but need a NanoSIM for your shiny new phone: The operator sends you the phone and a "blank" NanoSIM. That sim is currently just an ICCD with no active subscription.

When you're ready then you just pop in the new SIM in your new device and do a SIM swap on their site/on the phone with them. That moves your phone number from ICCD one to ICCD two and off you go.

Most likely all four SIMs are just that, blanks, and you could opt to use any to transfer onto. That or they have temporary numbers that will be killed when you do the SIM swap procedure.

nozzferrahhtoo

Thanks, all that makes perfect sense. Alas I think it may be wrong as the "instructions" that come with the SIM card just give essentially the following steps:

1) Replace old sim with new sim or place new sim into new phone and turn off the old phone
2) Start phone with new sim in and enter new PIN number
3) Wait 10 to 20 minutes and the new SIM will be registered on the network.

So I think it is a case that the life of my SIM card has simply expired, as I did not activate it right away. My bad. I think it is now easier to simply order two new SIMs (click of a button on the website) rather than jump through the hoops of getting the support desk to re-activate the old one over the helpdesk.