The Australian

30 September 2003

SIM cards cut costs of global tromboning

 

 

Roland Tellzen

 

 

YOU’RE popping across to New Zealand and decide to take your mobile to avoid missing important messages. Wary of high charges for global roaming, you decide not to actually switch your phone on — thinking that voicemail will be a cheap alternative. Unfortunately, under GSM pricing structures you’re likely to be charged $7.78 for not receiving a call, and listening to the voicemail later. You’re falling foul of a phenomenon called ‘‘tromboning’’, where such calls bounce back and forth between the Australian network and the foreign network. Unfortunately, it is cases like this that deter many users from taking advantage of one of the great benefits of mobile telephony—global roaming.

 

A local company, vRoam Global, is hoping to change those attitudes by offering travellers a low-cost alternative to global roaming. By using local SIM cards for some 15 countries, the company claims it will slash the cost of mobile phone usage overseas by approximately 50 per cent. In the trans-Tasman,  phone switched off, scenario, for example, it claims it can get the cost down to a mere 96 cents.

 

‘‘The essence of what we do is that we take advantage of the huge difference in rates between what local customers will be charged for using mobile services in their country, and what a visitor will pay for global roaming in those countries,’’ vRoam CEO, Danny Nathanson, says. From a standing start last year offering low cost roaming alternatives to three countries, the company now offers services to some 15 countries, covering most major corporate destinations.

 

Today the company will announce a significant funding agreement with Australian Distributed Incubator (ADI) and its parent company, Business Strategies International (BSI). Nathanson says the funding will help support its strong growth by allowing it to stock up on overseas SIM cards to meet excessive demand.

Under the vRoam scheme, mobile phone users travelling overseas are contactable on their normal Australian mobile number, and also have the option of having a local number in a foreign country to make local calls at close to local rates.

 

The service does not affect customers’ existing relationship with their Australian mobile carriers. ‘‘What the service does is divert an existing Australian mobile number to the local card overseas,’’ Nathanson says. ‘‘So you are contactable on your local number, and get the savings through your overseas number — you

are cutting out the roaming charges.’’ Business users have been the main customers so far, though leisure and group travel are growing segments.

 

The Australian 30 September 2003