MaxRoam Launches to Lower Roaming Fees

Pat Phelans latest business went live this morning:-

http://www.maxroam.com/

There's a FAQ page on how it all works here but essentially the idea is you buy a MaxRoam SIM card for 29 Euros and you avoid paying expensive roaming charges when abroad. The New York Times also has the details.

I enjoyed spending some time with Pat over at VoN Stockholm (where I interviewed him). He's a guy who likes to fight for the man on the street. He's not promising the earth, he just wants to level the playing field in terms of the cost that average Joe pays when making mobile calls from abroad which in his opinion is far too much. I think very few people would disagree with him.

From Pat's blog this morning:-

Quote:

I feel all philosophical but forget that, what are we about? Well we want to give back value, we wont pinch on pennies, We will give you the best quality voice services possible, we wont be the absolute rock bottom prices.

He even goes on to suggest you give him a call, personally, if you have any issue with his new service.

Can't really say fairer than that - good for you Pat.

Reply from sskracic on Sep 27, 2007 - 12:20 PM

I see no USP in this offer. In fact, it's much worse than the majority of existing international SIM cards, since it incurs receiving call cost throughout the Europe, unlike others.

I personally use globalsim.net SIM and the relevant info can be found on prepaidgsm.net forums.

Reply from andyk on Sep 29, 2007 - 04:18 AM

As above, it isn't any cheaper than several similar products, and what's more scarcely any less than the new Eurotariff that all EU networks match or go below.

It seems to think its USP is the local landline numbers available for it, but then you are in their hands for the forwarding/incoming charge.

Other global SIMs with free incoming roaming calls give you the chance to find your own routes to call them, and perhaps use cheaper callback as well.

A year ago, a 13 minute mobile call from France to the ferry company in Dover cost me 18 pence.

Ok, Skype corrected their tariff since then, but under 5p a minute is still possible.

Reply from andyk on Sep 29, 2007 - 01:48 PM

Quote:

... and you avoid paying expensive roaming charges when abroad. The New York Times also ...

What is very surprising about the NY Times article is that Mr Pogue never checked the tariff while roaming in the USA.

Not the "unfinalised" but hoped for 15 cents that he thought a little too expensive, but over a dollar a minute, as published on the Maxroam website.

There are no cheap roaming possibilities in USA, except get a local SIM card and arrange forwarding to it at perhaps a cent or two a minute. Why doesn't Maxroam do this now, instead of collecting and sharing much higher revenues?

Reply from martyndavies on Sep 30, 2007 - 11:58 AM

Re: Globalsim, but it looks to me that they use UK mobile numbers, where as Maxroam is using geo (fixed line) numbers. So it's cheaper for people to call you (local rate) rather than call a mobile number. That's a USP. Also Maxroam are alowing you to have geo numbers in more than one country (up to 50), that all map to the same mobile. Anyone else do that?

Reply from andyk on Oct 01, 2007 - 02:34 AM

Yes Martyn, someone else does do that, and it seems to have Mr Phelan a while to discover it, otherwise he might have started with this instead of his previous reseller deal.

The landline isn't relevant to all cases, like the people who will call from their mobile to yours anyway.

Used in Europe it's within a cent or two of roaming with any European mobile, and more expensive than several.

It's promoted with the idea of local calls at local rates, but the main comparison, on which the claims of 90% savings are perhaps based, is against the cost of roaming with a US mobile, which is amongst the most expensive in the world.

In quite a few places, using a local SIM with good callback and call forwarding service would be a lot cheaper.

Reply from dean on Oct 01, 2007 - 12:52 PM

Quote:

otherwise he might have started with this

It's not a techie product, it's for Joe consumer. I can think of half a dozen ways I could make cheaper calls from my mobile, but none of them would pass the "grandmother" test.

Whereas a SIM that can just be dropped into a phone, and save call roaming charges from the outset, is a different matter.

Anything that is consumer friendly and reduces costs for a consumer can only be a good thing.

Quote:

using a local SIM

That's another way to do it, but it means having multiple SIM cards, which is a barrier for most people.

Reply from ianplain on Oct 01, 2007 - 02:00 PM

The Only problem with

Quote:

Whereas a SIM that can just be dropped into a phone, and save call roaming charges from the outset, is a different matter.

Is that there is a 90% chance that your phone will be locked so you will have to get it unocked.
Now they offer an unlocking service, but no details.

I have to say roaming sims are noting new and TBH they are a lot of hassle. you have to either divert your "real" number to it, or use it all the time as letting contacts know to dial you on a new number as you will be "away" is not always a good thing. and in the case of europe the the euro tarrif will satisfy most users.

Ian

Ian

Reply from andyk on Oct 02, 2007 - 02:13 PM

Quote:

It's not a techie product, it's for Joe consumer. I can think of half a dozen ways I could make cheaper calls from my mobile, but none of them would pass the "grandmother" test.

Dean, I don't think you looked at what I wrote.

I'm not proposing or discussing some tricky but cheaper solution that you or I might manage for 5p a minute.

I answered Martyn's question whether there was something like this on the market already.

Identical. For months. Same landline forwarding choices, pretty much the same tariffs (now they've fixed it), same SIM card. So Maxroam is just marketing.

The Americans will lap it up, as long as they don't use it in USA or Canada.

But in Europe it's more expensive than the new Eurotariff, so relies on its selling point of having a landline option to call it, which doesn't make any difference to some callers.

I just looked tariffs for someone on another forum, for calls from a Thailand SIM card to UK. 3 options from 8 to 14 pence a minute. Local calls are also 8p/min. The bloke can call his girlfriend there from UK for from 0.5p on 0844 numbers. Maxroam doesn't match the local rates; to be fair, other global SIMs don't there either.

Reply from andyk on Oct 08, 2007 - 01:53 PM

David Pogue at the NY Times has updated his remarks with further blog comments on Oct 4th and 6th, even editing the latter, viz

Quote:

[UPDATE: However, it appears as though these rates are NOT typical. In fact, the examples I asked about seem to have been blessed with mysteriously lower rates than calls to neighboring countries. Do not buy until you’ve investigated the price list to check the countries you’re interested in!]

http://pogue.blogs.nytimes.com/

.

Reply from dean on Oct 08, 2007 - 01:57 PM

I think that's sound advice when looking at any service provider.

The most important aspect is to ensure that you're happy with the rates to the countries that you call the most.

Reply from ianplain on Oct 08, 2007 - 02:13 PM

I have to say the final comment made me smile.

Quote:

All I can do is apologize. We didn’t lie to you, but we didn’t give you correct information all the time; there’s no getting away from it. But none of it was done deliberately.

But the simple reason the rates were changed was because they had been flagged up. ones not flagged up are still expensive and it will be on those they will hope to make their money.

Ian

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