Global Roaming Pain Eased By Callback Service

The exorbitant cost of both making and receiving calls on your mobile phone overseas is well known, but an Aussie company has come up with a solution claimed to cut the cost of making calls by up to 70 percent.

For example, it says calls to Australia from almost anywhere in Europe will cost $A0.99 per minute. This is well below the rates identified by KPMG in a recent study commissioned by the Australian Government as part of a Parliamentary enquiry into international mobile roaming charges .

According to the KPMG study, roaming costs for holders of European Union (EU) SIM calling the Asia–Pacific including Australia, are some of the worlds' most expensive, an average of $4.54 per minute KPMG found that calls to Australia from Australian SIMs where generally between $A2 and $A3 per minute.

The product, GlobalSIM, from BackChat Mobile is a prepaid service which comes with a SIM card with a UK number. To make calls, users simply dial the number they want to call and hang up. After a short pause their phone will ring and when they answer it they will be connected to the called party.

The product will be sold for $49 with $15 worth of calls or $99 with $75 worth of calls. Call balances can be viewed and topped up online. Incoming calls incur no charge in 50 countries.

BackChat Mobile founder, Danny Nathanson, has been offering a similar service and a number of other mobile roaming options for a number of years through another company vRoam.

He told iTWire that vRoam's primary focus was the business market - its main offering is roaming SIM cards for use on specific overseas networks in the traveller's' destination - and that BackChat Mobile was a separate company with different shareholders set up to market GlobalSIM, and future enhancements of the product, to the individual traveller.

"As of next week vRoam will effectively become an agent for the BackChat GlobalSIM service," he said. "The vRoam branding was getting confused between corporate and leisure travellers and will now be retargeted to the corporate market."

GlobalSIM will be sold through channels with access to the travel market, such as travel agencies.

GlobalSIM is provided by BackChat Mobile through wholesale access to an underlying service, and heavily customising it. "Although it is a UK SIM, we control all the functionality in Australia," Nathanson said. "We set the rates and charge in Australian dollars. It means we can focus on the primary calls that people make from overseas -that is, calls back to Australia. So for example calling to Australia from almost the whole of Europe is 99 cents per minute.

Nathanson added that BackChat Mobile was hoping to extend the GlobalSIM product to include a data roaming service next year.

For more information on Global roaming and how to save money take a look at the Back Chat Mobile site

5 tips to save from Backchat Mobile

If you are looking to save some money on global roaming look no further than this small list of helpful pointers!

1. Buy a local sim card before you leave home

BackChat Mobile gives you one number and one sim and saves you up to 70% on your global roaming bill in over 130 countries. There are no charges for receiving calls in over 50 countries.

2. Only receive calls when mobile roaming

An alternative way to save is to minimise outgoing calls and just receive them on your normal Australian global roaming sim. Ensure you switch off your voicemail as the call will bounce backwards and forwards to Australia and cost you an international roaming call to retrieve messages. With BackChat Mobile you have free incoming calls in over 50 countries.

3. Use SMS

SMS is an excellent way to communicate cheaply when international roaming. Ensure you don’t have any missed incoming calls which bounce back to your Australian voicemail.

4. Do take your phone

Of course if you don’t take your phone you will completely eliminate international roaming charges; but then your family, friends and clients can’t contact you and hotel phones can be horrendously expensive. Therefore using a prepaid global sim for international roaming is a more feasible option.

5. Buy a global sim card in Australia not overseas

Buying a roaming sim overseas for global roaming purposes is unlikely to be the ideal solution. The difference in buying an international sim card in Australia is that BackChat Mobile focuses on low cost calls back to Australia (rather than just local calls), you have one number wherever you travel and you can top up your prepaid global sim easily.

And even if you aren't travelling overseas take a look at these pictures and maybe you will want to.

Good News

In the last blog post we talked about how Stephen Conroy had hit some hurdles in trying to lower the rates of International Roaming. Well we have a solution, its our roaming sim, and instead of paying $4 for that minute you're only going to pay .99c. This sim card has been designed for the purpose of saving money whilst your travlling the globe and it works in 130 different countries as well so odds are good that it's going to work great for you! For more information check out the Back Chat Mobile site for information. Also take a look at the new Nokia N96 it makes a great travel companion with its 5 megapixel camera and 16gb of internal memory, it's a cheaper iPhone

Global roaming plans go awry

Well, Stephen Conroy's plan's for delivering cheaper roaming sim costs have gone awry due to stumbles in regulatory hurdles.

In its submission to a parliamentary inquiry the consumer watchdog has described high international mobile roaming charges for Australians as an "intractable problem". KPMG recently released a study that showed Australian's were being charged up to 4$ a minute during a call.