MAXroam sells 500 SIMs in first day
September 27 Mike Butcher
MAXroam, the new mobile roaming service from Cork-based startup Cubic Telecom, has sold over 500 SIM-cards in the first day of trading today.
CEO Pat Phelan told me by phone: “It’s going mental. I thought we’d do 50-100 in the first day, but I didn’t expect this. The servers are being hammered. What is more amazing is that people are obviously buying for a reason as this is a niche product.” The first day’s trading was also linked to an competition for a free unlocked iPhone, which may also have helped.
Phelan also said Cubic Telecom has had over 15 offers of venture funding today - including one offer from a potential investor who wanted to fly to Cork tonight - although he stressed the 13-strong Cubic is well funded presently. Cubic was one of the hotly tipped startups to appear at TechCrunch40 last week.
With the slogan “Travel Global, Pay Local” Cubic telecom is attacking incumbent mobile operators and mobile roaming charges with a dedicated SIM card and a free incoming number from the USA, UK, France or Ireland for €29.99. Customers need an unlocked phone.
The Cubic SIM allows a customer to make calls to or from any of 214 countries for 50 to 90 percent off what the big mobile carriers would charge. The pay-as-you go service also enables you to request local phone numbers in up to 50 cities at no charge, allowing your friends overseas to call you at local charges. The calls are then re-routed over the Internet - for very low cost to Cubic - just like any VOIP call.
Furthermore, for a flat €30 a month, you can have an unlimited Wi-Fi calling option which comes with a MaxRoam handset. This lets you receive unlimited unmetered calls to any numbers in the world from WiFi hot spots.
September 27th, 2007 at 7:32 pm
October 2nd, 2007 at 3:07 pm
December 13th, 2007 at 5:07 pm
Comments
September 27th, 2007 at 5:52 pm
Thanks for the mention Mike, just heading in to start licking envelopes
September 27th, 2007 at 6:41 pm
That’s rather surprising, as it doesn’t look any cheaper than other products on the market, and doesn’t yet have full disclosure of tariffs.
For example, only one rate for outgoing calls is shown per country, without any information about whether this applies to landlines of only that country or all, or also includes mobiles, which usually have a higher termination rate.
And in most of Europe, it is scarcely any cheaper than the new Eurotariff, or even slightly more expensive, so this remark is really not supportable, or is perhaps actually misleading and contributing to the hype:
“The Cubic SIM allows a customer to make calls to or from any of 214 countries for 50 to 90 percent off what the big mobile carriers would charge. ”
No, it doesn’t.
In Belgium, incoming calls are 31c, outgoing 40c. It doesn’t specify mobile destinations, which will be about 10 or 15c more. O2 UK would charge me 18p (27c) and 35p (52c) respectively, and 3 UK 10p (15c) and 25p (38c), including mobiles of the whole of Europe.
The SIM has not published tariffs for 214 destinations; it doesn’t make any specification whatsoever, and we all know that some parts of the world cost a lot more.
It looks rather like a product on the market for several months, which has quite a lot more tariff detail on its website.
Perhaps Mr Phelan might compare his product to other roaming SIMs, including United Mobile (cheaper), several IoM brands, Travelsim that he’s ceased reselling, and the one it is most alike, Celtrek.
September 28th, 2007 at 10:52 am
where is my last comment ?
Are you actually deleting them ?
September 28th, 2007 at 11:24 am
@where - I can’t see any comment from you stuck in moderation, so maybe try again? I don’t delete comments BTW.
September 28th, 2007 at 11:33 am
“The Cubic SIM allows a customer to make calls to or from any of 214 countries for 50 to 90 percent off what the big mobile carriers would charge. The pay-as-you go service also enables you to request local phone numbers in up to 50 cities at no charge”
I am curious to the kind of phone number that is supplied for the UK and how it works to be clear. It will accept calls within Bangladesh, therefore if I have a UK number with this SIM and the unlock phone is sent to Bangladesh does that mean I can make calls to it using my free minutes from another mobile phone in the UK ?
September 28th, 2007 at 7:49 pm
Mike
this is just the beginning of a project not the end of it, the thing that makes this product unique is local numbers, if I wanted to do Celtrek, United mobile or oceans of other products I would.
Just brand it and off I go
Most of the Sims that Andy (anonymously) mentions in most places where any mention of MAXroam was made!!!! are caller pays model, why would I ask you to call to call a foreign mobile number to allow me to roam4free.
This model is unique, you can drop and add local numbers, these are fixed line numbers not my mobile numbers, you make a local call and the person receiving saves money, that’s the point,
Its a global market not just Europe, we have enquiries from all over the planet
I spoke to Azzam on the phone today and he got it instantly.
September 29th, 2007 at 3:19 am
Given your published 40 cent rate to satellite phones, I can see why the enquiries would be rolling in from all over the planet.
But is it correct?
azzam, as you probably already know, you can call a Bangladesh mobile cheaply from the UK by using a range of callthrough providers that may come from your mobile inclusive minutes, or from a couple of pence a minute on top, and then the incoming calls are free. Likewise, with a local SIM you could use other callback providers to call home to UK for the same sort of rates, from about 4 pence a minute. Maxroam and other global SIMs are quite a lot more, so not always the best option.
As for whether the caller or receiver pays, this jargon seems to imply that Maxroam is aimed at the USA, which does have expensive roaming either for visitors or its own subscribers travelling abroad.
But I don’t have people calling me on a foreign mobile. A landline is forwarded to a global roaming SIM for 6 cents a minute, and callback starts at the same rate.
September 29th, 2007 at 3:45 am
… and I left out: in Bangladesh a local SIM will have local rates, about a penny a minute; reduced rate direct-dialled calls to the UK are about 6p landlines, 15p mobiles
September 30th, 2007 at 1:30 pm
If it’s a global market, then something needs to be done about the rather uniform $3 a minute charges throughout most of the Middle East and nothern Africa, where most global SIM cards have much cheaper roaming.
A friend was telling me yesterday that he was looking forward to Maxroam but has been disappointed. While roaming in Europe with O2 UK contract SIMs, he and his colleagues have free incoming calls and 25 pence a minute to anywhere in Europe, thus about half the Maxroam tariff for calls between them.
And there is Vodafone Passport, which has 75 pence or 1 euro connection fee, then no further charge for incoming, and use of contract inclusive minutes to home or roamed country.
October 1st, 2007 at 11:41 am
Someone on another forum found this in the Maxroam T&C:
“In order for the MAXroam service to be a low cost service we may rely on advertising and marketing supplied through the service and other mechanisms to subsidize the service. We intend that any such marketing services shall be discrete and of targeted interest to you. By agreeing to these terms and conditions You agree to receive such advertising and marketing. If You do not want to receive such services You should notify us in writing. MAXroam reserves the right to charge You a higher fee for the service should You choose not to take these marketing services. This higher fee, if applicable, will be posted on the MAXroam website.”
“We take our customers’ privacy seriously. Please read our Privacy Policy for full details at http://www.maxroam.com/privacy. Whilst we respect the privacy of our customers, cellular calls may be subject to interception by law enforcement agencies and bodies.”
__
Which is it to be, marketing or privacy?
How would Maxroam discretely decide my interests if I failed to tell them what to target?
If we disagreed:
“You may request a refund for unused credit by sending an email to support@maxroam.com. Refunds will only be available for credit purchased directly by You and not through any special offers, prepaid cards, vouchers or similar mechanisms. Refunds shall not be made for balances under EUR 5.00. MAXroam charges a EUR 20.00 fee to process any refund requests. Any breach of these refund terms shall lead to termination of this agreement.”
Maxroam will also take €1 a month off an account while it is unused, and say this is widespread practice on prepaid SIM cards.
Not everywhere. It’s illegal under German law, for one place. Most UK SIMs and their credit will stay valid even with one incoming call per 6 months. O2 Ireland told me I should top up once a year, and no balances would be lost.
October 1st, 2007 at 11:17 pm
Andy, stop whining. Maxroam has obviously hit hit a nerve with you (are they about to wipe out your service?). You just wrote 3 very long posts in detail about maxroam. If they are such a bad service as you say they are, why don’t you setup your own rival company? You seem jealous.
October 1st, 2007 at 11:23 pm
Mr Phelan seems to be whining about anyone that asks any awkward questions, like
Why have Maxroam published tariffs gone up by a third?
There’s no need to set up a rival service. All the main networks have lower roaming rates in Europe, or lower still local rates.
October 2nd, 2007 at 1:10 am
ok - they’ve added a remark that the wrong database was loaded, that this is dollars by mistake and will be corrected
October 6th, 2007 at 9:13 pm
Setting the Record Straight on Cubic Telecom’s International Rates
In last week’s Times column, I wrote about a breakthrough new cellphone from Cubic Telecom that’s designed for people who call internationally, either from the U.S. or while traveling abroad.
…
Overall, though, I feel a bit manipulated, since the primary virtue of the Cubic phone was its low rates.
I’m not exactly sure how the problem could have been avoided—in 20 years of reviewing tech products, nobody has ever deliberately misled me on hard facts like prices—but I thought you should hear about it from me.
http://pogue.blogs.nytimes.com/2007/10/04/setting-the-record-straight-on-cubic-telecoms-international-rates/#more-363