Review: MaxRoam Global Sim Card

Score:
80%

Author: Maxroam

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While it might have ramped up my carbon footprint to the size of a Yeti with a recent weekend trip to Las Vegas, what I didn't do was ramp up my phone bill to spectacular levels by calling home. It's not that I just didn't switch it on - which would be the cheapest, although slightly impractical, thing to do - but that any calls I did make were through the Irish Telecoms company MaxRoam.

Launched just over a year ago, MaxRoam's lead product is the MaxRoam SIM. Pop one of these into an unlocked smartphone, and you have a phone that will make national and international calls at a reduced rate to most operators. It's a web-based pre-pay style operation, so it's easy to budget your international calls on a trip and be confident you won't get a monster bill at the end of it.

The SIM card can be purchased from 15 euros on-line (from the MaxRoam store), and they all come with one free incoming number. While it doesn't have any impact on the calls you make, this incoming number will be used for people calling you, so it makes sense to choose a number that could potentially keep down the cost for others. Given the travels that I do to America, I have a San Francisco based number, so anyone calling me form that area will only be paying a local call.

Actually, I have more than one number. The delight of MaxRoam is that, although you have one 'main' number assigned to the SIM, you can purchase (for a monthly fee of a few euros) as many numbers as you like. Nipping to Helsinki? Just head over to the web site, and add in a Finnish number for others to call you on. You can add as many numbers as you want, and remove them when you like (although they are charged monthly).

So how does this all work and why is it better than roaming? It's very similar to the calling card market, in that MaxRoam will buy up the airtime in bulk and can than re-sell it on to their users at a reduced cost. This means that the cost for calling, especially between countries, can be less than on your mobile contract. Remember that your MaxRoam phone number doesn't matter to the call charges, it is purely a geographic function - if you are in the US, and calling the UK, then MaxRoam will charge you 39p/minute to call a UK landline or 53p/minute for a mobile. On my regular provider (Orange), the call costs would be £1.10/minute. There's a similar reduction in receiving calls (MaxRoam is 30p/min to receive a call, Orange Roaming is 70p/min). You can do plenty of mixing and matching of the call rates yourself from this page on the MaxRoam site.

All this leads to a different way of calling than you normally expect on your handset. You still dial as normal, but whichever network your phone decides to roam on will reject the call (my N95 pops up a helpful 'Not Allowed'), followed by a message to inform me that the phone is 'Calling...' At which point the MaxRoam service will call you back. Answer that call, and you'll be connected to whatever number you initially dialled.

(1) The roaming network slogan. (2) Sim message that all is well. (3) MaxRoam calling you back with the connection.

Think of it like an old fashioned operator - you tell them what number you want to connect to, and when the connection is made, the operator rings you back and with a polite voice says "Connecting you now, Sir."

What I like here is the simplicity. MaxRoam just works. You want to make calls that are cheaper when you are roaming, then you pick up a SIM, pop it in an unlocked phone, and add some credit online. It can't get much easier than that. Yes you are still paying something for your calls, but it is a saving. For the individual on holiday that might not add up, but those of you travelling with a little regularity (say three or four times a year) should find some benefit. I'm guessing if you're in the finance dept of a major company then the savings of MaxRoam over regular mobile bills for your employees might be very attractive.

Thanks to MaxRoam being transparent on all the SIM costs and phone charges it shouldn't be that difficult to work out if you'll make a saving or not. I suspect the answer is that you would save, so I don't see a reason for any 'road warrior' to not carry one of these little Irish beauties.

-- Ewan Spence, Sept 2008

 

 

 

Reviewed by Ewan Spence at 10:56 UTC, September 24th 2008