Go-SIM offers cheap data roaming

Rating: Targets US market with its SIM cards, phones & dongles

The term “bill shock” is an infrequently used term, but it applies to data usage just as much as to calls when ‘roaming’ abroad on a GSM handset. A British company, Go-SIM, is now promoting its international SIM cards in the US market. Maybe it should be targeting Crackberry users.

In Europe, consumers have become aware of the extortionate rates charged by their home network operator when they ‘roam’ (travel) abroad. So much so that the EU Commission has taken action to reduce the cost of these calls.

What gets frequently overlooked is the fact that data roaming can be extremely expensive, too. Worse still, many mobile users – particularly those with RIM Blackberries – forget that emails are being downloaded in the background while abroad.

An easy solution is to remove the existing SIM card from a GSM phone and replace it will another SIM card which is purpose-developed for international roaming. Such as the Go-SIM card.

Similar services which GoMo News has tried – such as SIM4Travel – allowed roaming for voice calls and text/SMS messages but ignored data roaming.

Luckily, Go-SIM hasn’t made the same mistake. It claims to offer data roaming in no fewer than 80 different countries worldwide. In each country, however, it has a preferred data roaming partner.

It would be wise, therefore, to check which network operator is the preferred partner before travelling because Go-SIM warns that rates for data connections can vary depending on which network you connect to.

With the US market in mind, Go-SIM points out that many existing mobile handsets in the US aren’t tri-band or quad-band enabled. Hence the company will sell travellers a handset which can ‘roam’ in Europe.

This might prove the easiest way out of the dilemma given that to accept a different SIM card, the handse talso has to be ‘unlocked’ from the original supplier’s network. [A possible further expense.]

GoMo News has seen market stall holders offering to ‘unlock’  RIM Crackberries in the UK but this practice probably isn’t so common in the USA at present.

It would be interesting to discover whether the email settings for a Blackberry would still work if the original SIM is replaced. That could be tricky configuration process.

Nonetheless, Go-SIM offers rates of £0.34 pence per 100 Kb for data roaming which is one penny less than the cost of a voice call (per minute) - this is from the UK back to the USA.

Those with netbooks/laptop PCs might find it easier to buy a Nokia CS-10 mobile broadband dongle from Go-SIM for $158.40 because that price includes $10.00 worth of airtime.

Those intending to visit the Mobile World Congress in Barcelona in 2010 might well be advised to look carefully at Go-SIM’s offerings now or suffer from major bill shock on their return to the USA.