Saturday, December 1, 2007

Cubic Telecom's Maxroam in alliance with Celtrek

Irishman Pat Phelan, CEO of Cubic Telecom, is improving his product Maxroam. In the hype time around TechCrunch 40 competition in September 2007 we thought to see roaming prices around $0.20 in every country with this SIM card. That's not a reality yet, but not forgotten as a longer term aim. Now Cubic Telecom announced a cooperation with the folks at Global Roaming which offer a very similar SIM card, called Celtrek. The partnership will allow both companies to offer extended geographic coverage and data roaming on their existing products. Celtrek is stronger in the US market and Maxroam here in Europe.

Phoneboy Dameon Welch-Abemathy revealed an interesting detail in his post on The VoIP Weblog:
What wasn't announced in the press release, but slipped out on Pat's Jaiku stream was that the MAXroam service would soon be much cheaper in the US/Canada. Right now, it's prohibitively expensive, but Pat is saying by early 2008 the price should be about 12 cents (presuming Eurocents here). I'm not going to hold Pat to those rates, but if it's true, it does sound a fair bit better than the 1.18 Euros it now costs to receive and make calls within the USA.

Andy Abramson explains:
While their pricing isn't lower than buying local SIM cards, they do save you money if you are going from country to country, and you avoid a lot of unused minutes. They also give you the benefit of one number so friends and family can find you, making it a great gift for the student you know whose going to take a trip overseas.

Yes that's right. The pricing isn't lower than local SIM cards, but it's super convenient for frequent travellers to always have the same number on their SIM and don't have to worry too much for roaming prices. I am already playing around with a Cubic Phone from Pirelli and a Maxroam SIM card. The sound quality is fantastic while roaming on the German Vodafone network. I have a UK fixed line number for Maxroam and could also add a German number. They all would ring in whichever country I am.

The only thing that holds me back is that for Germany they only offer numbers from Hanover while I live in funky Berlin. He Pat, didn't they tell you that Hanover has the fame of being Germany's most boring city? So boring that in the 80ies and early 90ies Punks regularily gathered from all over the country to mix it up at least one time a year in their famous Chaos Days. So when I roam I will simply forward my existing Berlin number to the Maxroam UK number. As a Voipchecker I know how to do that for free, this I can save the €4.50 per month for a German Maxroam number.

Anyway, here is Cubic Telecom's press release:


Cubic Telecom and Global Roaming align forces
Alliance will focus on joint opportunities

CORK, Ireland – 30 November, 2007 – Cubic Telecom dba MAXroam and Global Roaming Inc. dba CelTrek have today announced a strategic alliance combining their marketing reach and technical know-how into a single partnership.

The partnership will allow both companies to offer extended geographic coverage and data roaming on their existing products. This is a substantial step forward for both companies in their goal to provide a single global communication platform that brings an end to the monopolistic behavior of the large cellular operators.

Pat Phelan said “I am delighted that Global Roaming has decided to partner with Cubic and I look forward to a world where anyone can call anyone at anytime without worrying about the cost.”

Florian Seroussi, CEO of Global Roaming Inc. said “This alliance gives us an opportunity to get a footprint in Europe in order to spread our ambition of offering low-cost roaming to consumers everywhere.”

Through the partnership both companies are currently actively engaged in joint proposals to large US and European enterprises and announcements on these are imminent.

ABOUT Cubic Telecom
Based in Cork, Ireland, with offices in Vancouver, Canada, Cubic Telecom is an innovative global communications company focused on introducing simple, high quality and high value telecommunications services. Its core target market is aggrieved customers across the globe who don’t understand why they can’t get value for money when making international calls while roaming.

ABOUT Global Roaming Inc.
Global Roaming, Inc, is a privately held Nevada corporation, with offices in Miami, Florida. The parent company has over 350 GSM network operator agreements covering more than 165 countries and all continents.

For further information, please contact:

Media Contact
USA
Giovanni Rodriguez,
The Conversation Group
M: +1 650 279 8415
giovanni@theconversationgroup.com

Europe
Patrick Smith, Sonus PR
T: +44 (0)20 7851 4890
M: +44 (0)7734 600553
patrick.smith@sonuspr.com

Company Contact
Cubic Telecom Limited
Pat Phelan, CEO
+353 21 425 0657
info@cubictelecom.com

Cubic Telecom Limited
Unit 1, Webworks
Eglington Street
Cork
Ireland

www.maxroam.com

Company Contact
Global Roaming Inc.
Jenny Callicott, COO
+1 305 249 3121
jenny@celtrek.com

Global Roaming Inc.
1021 Ives Dairy Road
Miami
FL, 33179
USA

www.celtrek.com

3 comments:

  1. This would be somewhat of a speciazlty product; not mainstream. But I would really like to MAXroam/Celtrek build right it their platform sip dialing and ENUM(so that every local number added is automatically in the ENUM database) If they get any interconnection charges they would miniscule since they provide landline numbers. But it would sure be nice to be able to forward our tpad, voxalot, local DID(such as a berlin area code) etc. to a SIP URL and not pay any additional roaming charges or have to use patchy workaround solutions.

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  2. Would you please elaborate on the part about forwarding a Berlin nr to UK nr for free. With which company is this possible? Thanks!

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  3. It's a UK fixed line number that you can call for free with several Betamax VoIP providers or with Sipgate's Europe flatrate. I could use my Asterisk or my ATA to forward my Berlin Sipgate VoIP number to the Maxroam number.

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