The borderless SIM is finally here | Hacker News Reader

The borderless SIM is finally here

qz.com

33 pointsLibertatea45 comments

Instead of a SIM with one number that works across countries, the article discusses routing both a belgian and a luxembourgian number to the same SIM. The customer is then apparently billed by both telcos, depending on where they currently are. This seems like the worst solution to the roaming problem out there: Multiple phone numbers, relations to multiple carriers...

With (existing) competitors like OneSimCard or Project Fi, you get a single phone number, a single bill and (what seems to me like) a much better deal. Am I missing something there?

You are right in that it seems like a impractical solution and the providers should just figure out roaming.

As far as the competition goes: OneSimCard charges 25 cents per Megabyte, Project Fi doesn't really exist since you need an invite and it doesn't work on most phones.

Roaming exists, works, and is often horribly expensive to the user. This is basically a system for arbitraging that away using two numbers on one SIM rather than two SIMs.

I've just come back from Europe (Spain) for the the first time with my operator and their new free roaming plan - it was amazing.

I pay Three £15 p/m for unlimited data, lots of intra-Three calls and some messages/calls to other networks (in the country I'm in at the time) and can now do that not just in the UK but in Spain, the US, Australia and more (http://www.three.co.uk/Discover/Phones/Feel_At_Home). That's cheaper than most local operators and a much better example than whats offered here.

I'd wager it won't be long before Three sims are being picked up by tourists and used as their main operator back at home.

Yes, the Feel At Home from Three UK feels like the future! The experience is very, very good - invisible.

Assuming you are visiting one of the 16 destinations they cover, you don't need to do anything. No signups, no opt-ins, nothing. You just go and use your phone like you would in the UK.

I also never felt that they were throttling the connection in any way, but I never really tested this.

Plus you don't even need to be on a monthly plan, any PAYG has all the same benefits.

Edit: Added reference to PAYG.

Same here, I was just in Europe for two weeks across four countries with absolutely no hassle using this Israeli provider: https://www.golantelecom.co.il/web/plan109InfoB.php

Its £16 (€23) per month - you get 6GB of data good in most European countries and for some reason South Africa, New Zealand, and Australia. Afterwards it just slows down, no insane roaming charges.

You can also reserve local numbers in most of those countries for a small fee to go fully native but I just used Google Hangouts/Voice for the odd phone call/text.

Your plan and mine seem eerily similar so here's hoping more providers start white-labeling this deal.

I'm using Three too with the same plan, but when I'm in a Feel At Home destination, I still pay if I send a texts to a local number. It is not included in my general texts allowance. Am I doing something wrong?

The data itself is free though, which is the most important for me. It is definitely better than having to go to a phone store and get a cheap sim.

Yes, this is annoying. However the fees are way less than calling from UK->country.

EG: when in the UK calling the US costs 56.2p minute, which is a complete ripoff as it should be cheaper than calling a UK mobile (virtually nil cost to do these calls). However, when actually in the US it's 15.6p. Same price differential for SMS.

Feel At Home basically means that your mobile will act the same as if you were in the UK.

Sending a text from the UK to a (for example) Spanish number incurs a cost outside of your allowance. So that same text would also incur a cost when you are in Spain.

I've set up Google Voice -> US SIP -> UK SIP -> 3 Mobile. This gives me a US number to give out to Americans (who don't want to dial my UK number) that they can text/call. I can then make calls when on Wifi or using a Phonecard app which automatically dials my UK SIP and forwards the call via the US SIP provider. I don't have to switch SIMs or give up my UK number.

This works well for me (since I travel between the US/UK often)

Can't you just use Google Voice on Three's 4g connection/Wifi to make/receive calls/texts on your Google Voice number using Hangouts?

What's the purpose of the two SIPs?

Three doesn't have any 4G when roaming, and the 4G isn't that great even in London (compared to say: Vodafone).

Texting with Google Voice is fine though.

The two sips are registered to the same installation of asterisk: The UK provider gives me a UK number and rates equivalent to a UK landline.

The US provider gives me a US number (which is registered with google voice) and rates equivalent to a US landline.

As I understood what I was told by their support, if you have a text or call allowance, that is used against local numbers too.

When in the US, I found I have to disable "automatic" and force AT&T -- using T-Mobile blocks data for some reason. I don't know how to configure my iPhone to just block the provider (so I obviously have to disable it when returning to the UK or Europe).

I've had the same experience, AT&T works very well though.

I just got back from the US to a message that said:

Great news! You’ve saved £1,489.55 over the last month while using your phone abroad...

Why they wouldn't improve the UX for such an amazing feature isn't hard to figure out...

I found the opposite, AT&T sucked but tmobile was ok.

In my experience (as a domestic user) both AT&T and T-Mobile can be acceptable or can suck, depending on exactly where you are in the country, and sometimes even within a city or suburban area (for example, in the city where I used to live T-Mobile sucked at home, but was great at work, while AT&T was exactly the opposite). Those nice homogeneous-looking maps of "coverage areas" are lies, to a very large degree. :-)

If you're traveling for work, maybe ask the people you're working with which carrier is best at their site.

>I'd wager it won't be long before Three sims are being picked up by tourists and used as their main operator back at home.

There is a maximum of 3 months you can use it abroad a year

So what is the advantage over having two separate SIMs and switching them at the border? You still have two telephone numbers with only one being active at a particular moment.

The advantage is not having to switch them... Your phone does it for you.

I mean, it isn't like the border between the Netherlands and Belgium is always straightforward[1].

[1] http://www.iamdanw.com/wrote/what-are-borders-anyway/

That's not even a workaround. I still need to give people both numbers and instruct them when they should call one or another. That's the pain carriers should address.

Multi-sim phones are already popular in many countries.

I've heard that some can even swap carrier based on time of day or the particular service used (long distance, 3g, etc)

This isn't as new or novel as the article makes it sound, though I suspect getting it done in Europe was difficult. Similar options have been available for years in China; most (all?) of the major carriers offer cross-border SIMs for Hong Kong and Macau, e.g. [1].

They're available in both prepaid and postpaid, and generally offer the same rate for calls, SMS, and data within major cities (i.e. Beijing, Shanghai, Shenzhen, and Guangzhou, which probably covers 90% of cross-border travel.)

1. http://www.three.com.hk/website/appmanager/three/home?_nfpb=...

I've never understood why roaming charges are so scandalous. Surely the telecoms know if they dropped their prices they would make a lot more money?

Part of the problem is that country governments extracted a shitload of money out of the telcos. In Germany, the telcos paid a combined 96.000.000.000 € for the UMTS frequencies in 2000 (making 1200€ per citizen, assuming 80M citizens in Germany), and in 2010 another 3.600.000.000 €.

Now add the enormous capital requirement of first building a countrywide network of GSM BTS, then upgrade these to UMTS, then to LTE (and, of course, always having to upgrade the backhaul links) and you see why mobile phone operators try to squeeze any penny out of the customer's pocket they can.

'extracted' as in 'run an auction to let the market sort it out'.

It's popular to blame governments for everything, but if market actors behave irrationally, there's nobody to blame but them.

Indeed, people are always saying "let the market decide". We ran a market. It decided.

to the detriment of the citizens of Germany, as they pay more for less than just about anyone in the EU for mobile data.

considering the spectrum is a public resource, it's up to the government to make sure such a resource is adequately exploited for the good of the people. I think one could make a strong argument that extracting 1200EUR a head from telecom providers isn't the best way to exploit such a public resource.

The government had no idea what it's worth (and who did in 2002?), so they ran an auction. Should they have decided 'oh, that's too much, let's just charge half of that?'

They probably make a reasonable amount of roaming money from business or government travellers with company phones who don't care about getting billed €30/day on their short trip with expensive hotels and flights.

If you just need a global "page-me-if-somthing-horrid-happens" the Iridium based DeLorme InReach works well - there's a pay as you go plans for about $24 + $.50 per message.

The nice thing is they really do work anywhere, and the per-page-costs keep your family and coworkers from spamming you during a nice vacation - yet they can get ahold of you for a true emergency.

Roaming just isn't a practical solution (way too expensive) but neither is this. Honestly swapping out SIMs between country isn't too difficult of a task, and likely saves you a ton of money when compared to roaming or this "borderless SIM." Lots of countries go with cheap prepaid options anyways.

The problem with swapping out SIMs is that people who have your phone number can't contact you.

AT&T Roaming typically costs about $500-$800/month with their international plan for $120/ 800 MB roaming, $150/Gigabyte. It's a pretty common plan for US road warriors who are probably racking up $20,000-$25,000 in Hotel/flight charges already.

Also interesting: http://www.politico.eu/article/data-telecoms-europe-divide/

http://www.transatel-datasim.com

I am customer of O2 in my home country - Slovakia and I currently live in Czech Republic. O2 recently came up with a program that allows me to pay exact same charges as I would at home (both phone and data). It is much simpler to have one number than numerous SIM cards...

O2 SK always had a somewhat funny relationship with Czech republic. It used to be cheaper to call from Slovakia or from roaming in CZ, than local Czech calls.

Don't Blackberry do flat rates globally, voice and data? At they did where I last worked and had a Blackberry. About $100 per month, unlimited (at least, that's how much it was charged internally).

T-Mobile offers unlimited 4G in 113 countries for $90USD/month.

I travel often and haven't had any issues using it to call and text via Google Hangouts.

Is this a specific plan? The plans I know of with unlimited data in foreign countries are hardly 4G -- they might technically connect to 4G/LTE, but they are throttled to 128kbit/s. That's roughly equivalent to some of the 2G-3G transitional technology speeds. GPRS (2.5G) was 80kbit/s, EDGE (2.75G) was 2-3x that [0].

[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/General_Packet_Radio_Service#C...

travelling to Germany / France / Luxembourg next month and was wondering if there's a good solution for mobile data? I hear in germany you can't get a local sim card unless you are a resident. is that true?

For Germany that's false. You can get usually get one of the "no-frills" prepaid providers at any supermarket register (Medion Mobile at Aldi, Lidl Mobile at Lidl, jamobil at Rewe, ...). You will usually need internet to activate it.

I (native German, living in the US) usually just use my american T-Mobile SIM. Thanks to their free global data roaming, I don't have to care which country I'm in when visiting Europe.

It is "unlimited", but they throttle you to something like 10 kb/s. Still works fine for Maps/eMail/Facebook/... It's honestly not thaaat bad because I still had LTE, so the latency was great, just the throughput was mediocre. I was even able to use Facetime Audio. T-Mobile also supports WiFi calling on my iPhone, so as soon as I had WiFi, I was able to just call people back in the US for free.

btw, there is this great website with always up to date information about national SIMs : http://www.prepaidgsm.net/en/operators.php

Sorry, but there is nothing new here. Skype has been providing this service for years now.

It could either be achieved by buying a "Skype number" in the country you are visiting, or by using "Skype To Go".

And you don't have to dual-sim, you can route numbers wherever you want.

And where does your data get paid for?

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