I was chatting yesterday with Dan from Green news site, Greenbang.com about bill shock. He was recently over in San Francisco for a few days and we caught up. Once or twice I had to call him to arrange where meet and so on. I was calling him on my USA mobile. Since he was only in America for a few days, he didn’t bother to do the standard thing — that is, buy a local SIM card. Why not? Well, it’s a hassle, right?
That decision cost Dan a whopping 270 quid when he got home.
Talk about bill shock. He didn’t use his phone that much. When he did get a call, he was brief — as he knew he was on international silly rats.
If you’re like Dan and you travel a lot — definitely, definitely go and get yourself a MAXroam SIM. Not only are they an SMS Text News sponsor but you will never, ever be without service, provided you’re in a country that has GSM cellular capability — because you can use it in nearly every single country on the planet. The rates are generally far below normal operator roaming charges and you get that warm fuzzy feeling of comfort (that I rejoice in) knowing that just in case your home operator has screwed up, you’ll always be connected with your MAXroam SIM.
A MAXroam SIM is yours for €29.99 inclusive of €5 initial call credit. All managed online and backed by a wickedly friendly, enthusiastic and capable management team.
My favourite feature of the MAXroam service (apart from always-being-connected wherever I am) is this:
When you first sign up you can choose a phone number for your SIM in the USA, France, UK, Poland, Italy, Sweden or Ireland free of charge. You can add as many as 50 numbers (additional numbers start from EUR2 per month) to your SIM from any of the following countries.
I’m about to go and configure all my local numbers.
And that’s ORANGE who charge such stupid prices. I can’t wait for my contract to come to an end.
MAXroam, I’ll be in touch. AwayPhone does something similar as well I think. And it’s run by a woman with the coolest name – Sherry Madera…
I thought about this when I went to the Czech republicbut it turned out that just using my phone’s normal roaming was noticably cheaper. Just be careful!
They seem fairly dodgy.
http://pogue.blogs.nytimes.com/2007/10/04/setting-the-record-straight-on-cubic-telecoms-international-rates/
http://pogue.blogs.nytimes.com/2007/10/06/cubic-telecom-kerfluffle-the-final-chapter/
John, absolutely ridiculous. There’s a clear ‘chip’ being excised in those over dramatic posts by Pogue. I’ve broken bread with the founder Pat Phelan (and colleague Sean O’Mahony many times) and rate both very, very highly — which is why I’ve been a huge supporter and why I wholeheartedly agreed to accept advertising from them here at SMS Text News. I put my personal integrity right there on the line when I recommend a product or service and I’m fully confident in doing so with MAXroam — I’ve been using the service since the day they launched in multiple countries successfully and without issue. They’re well funded and the management team are some of the most competent, enthusiastic and friendly people you could hope to meet in the industry.
To John Burton’s point, it’s certainly worth checking the exact rates as sometimes your existing operator will offer cheaper ones than MAXroam is able to do so.