New to this topic. My UK giffgaff SIM card is in slot 1 of my mobile and the Lyca SIM is now in slot 2. A guy local to my new home in the Lot inserted it and got me a French phone number. I am told I need to register it with Lycamobile before 30 days are up or else they will re-allocate the French number.
So back in GB, I go into the Lyca site Enregistrement carte SIM Lyca Mobile where the online form requests the phone number and last 4 digits of a 19 digit long security code (an ICCID). The form allows for several SIM slots to be filled in this way by “ajouter une SIM”. Knowing that slot 1 is already taken with the giffgaff UK SIM I opened up the SIM2 slot detail and entered the data but upon “continue”, the error message came up that I had to fill in the detail for SIM1, purposely left blank “Ce champ est obligatoire”.
This may not be a Lyca problem but something that crops up all the time even for GB mobiles used exclusively in GB, I know for example that people have a separate SIM for personal and work and in slot1 for one and slot2 for the other. But how to overcome the need to enter something which would be incorrect in slot 1 details of the Lyca screen. Any help here gratefully received as i have only 4 days left before expiry. - Richard.
Lyca isn’t going to know that your phone has 2 SIM slots. I would just put the data under SIM1 and see if that satisfies their computer. Forget about SIM2 for registration purposes.
What you choose to do with the SIM on your phone is your business. You can put it as SIM 1 or 2.
Lyca are only interested in Lyca sims.
A person might have several Lyca sims, hence why you can enter more than one nimber.
Whenever I have registered a new SIM, it has needed to be registered or first used in the country of supply, so a French SIM from Lyca should be first registered/ activated / used in France. An attempt to do so in another country (eg the UK) is likely to end with no response or (more likely) an error message
In my experience, you can activate e-sims for a given country, outside of that country. Before travelling to Canada last autumn, I bought and activated an e-sim from Airalo. The e-sim was virtually attached to my SIM2 slot as a switchable option to my actual 2nd physical SIM. When I arrived in Canada, I just switched to the e-sim and it worked fine.
Excellent - good to know that it’s not a blanket ban, just down to individual providers and, perhaps, local trading regulations or laws
Thanks for all the replies.
I went to a mobile and computer savvy guy, John in the English village where I live when not in France. We entered the SIM card details into the Lyca online form as “SIM1” as John said there would be no link between the online form sequence of SIMs and the physical mobile phone SIM slots (and as one or two of you have also said). It worked and I was able to register the SIM outside of France, for a French phone number. It has not affected calls to or from my phone using the Giffgaff SIM in slot1 which is the proof that there was no link a theorised above.
I went on to put credit on the Lycamobile card account using my Britline VISA card. This is called “rechargement” but the 13-digit long number (“code de rechargement”) that I was given on the “receipt” when I bought the Lyca SIM card in the tabac, did not seem to be required, unless I have missed something. Maybe this 13-digit number is for “forfaits” and not for the PayAsYouGo option which is what I opted for? Maybe someone has an opinion on this nunmber and its use?
Many thanks, RMH
Well, good for you. I missed the bit that you were in the UK trying to do this and I am kind of amazed that you got it working (?) As one of the others above said, I thought you had to communicate with a Lyca tower in the country (France) where you will use it. Not sure about the 13 digit number, but I just bought a Lyca SIM online and so far haven’t been told this number, but don’t have the SIM yet.
I wonder if there is some confusion here between activating a sim, which I believe normally has to be done in the local country, and registering it to your identity as per French law.
If you buy a top up at a tabac or wherever, you get a code to enter into your phone. If you top up online on your card, that is a different top up from the one you bought at the tabac. You have paid twice so you have two top ups, one of which you have not yet put onto your phone.
You can still use the code if you want and then you will have both top ups on your phone.