MAXRoam, the Cubic Telecom-owned property aimed at undermining punitive mobile roaming charges, has sealed a deal with HostelWorld. The new Travelnroam mobile roaming service will carry a branded mobile SIM powered by MAXRoam which will be marketed to the people who book into Hotelworld’s 20,000 hostels and budget hotels in 170 countries every year. It’s a pretty good deal for MAXRoam, which gets even more distribution for its service. Not bad work for two Ireland-based companies.
As with all MAXRoam products, the SIM card lets you make and receive calls, text messages and use data for a much lower cost compared to using a normal network operator abroad. The Cork-based Cubic makes this happens by letting users leverage either Wi-Fi or GSM. A user’s phone switches to the cheapest network depending on where they are.
Now, what we’d like is something which can break the iPhone’s tedious lock-in to network operators like O2. I’ve researched this and it basically comes down to getting an unlocked iPhone from Italy or a similar territory. Then it’s easier to use MAXRoam’s service because you can switch SIMs easily and a call can still reach you, and you can also use data. Maybe the solution is just to dump the iPhone?