MaxRoam: Travel global, pay local

I’m traveling to Israel this week as part of a social media delegation. Among the million and one things I had to do to prepare was get a local cell phone service that won’t bankrupt me.

Andy Abramson, who knows about these things, says the usual roaming charges you’ll pay your usual carrier (in my case, AT&T International) would be extremely high. So he made available to our team (through Cathy Brooks) a handful of MaxRoam SIM chips. (I love the name, reminds me of Max Headroom.)

The process was surprisingly fast and unpainful: It took me 15 minutes to swap out and activate the new SIM on my Nokia N95.

I don’t know how they do it, but I’m guessing VOIP is involved. The deal is, you can "Travel Global, Pay Local, and your callers pay local too" when they phone you. MAXroam’s tagline is: "the SIM that doesn’t know you’re traveling."

Because I’ll be traveling a lot this year, I’ll be curious whether this could realistically replace my standard AT&T Mobile account. And I’ll be curious to see what texting charges apply.

How to activate your SIM

After buying the SIM card packet, here are the steps:

1. Go to MaxRoam.com and click on the Activate SIM link. 

2. Enter your info into the registration fields, including
the SIM card number, which is printed in impossibly small text on the SIM card
itself.

3. Open the email confirmation.

4. Log in with your assigned username and password to https://www.maxroam.com/MyAccount/

5. If this is the first time you’ve registered, you get to
choose a country and view a list of phone numbers you can choose from (don’t
expect to memorize it — it’ll be 11 digits long).

6. Insert the SIM into your cell phone (it’s tucked inside
beneath the battery; don’t mistake it for the memory chip).

That’s it!

Just turned the phone on and I’m now connected, with a new number, through TMobile. (Says it "auto-registered on a local network.) It’s a prepaid account. I’ll have to see how this works in reality, since I have only 5 Euros ($7.80) on my account right now. (I won’t be using it that much.) The literature says you’ll save up to 70 percent on calls from your mobile while you travel abroad. You can add up to 50 numbers to your SIM from 42 countries. I’m impressed by the infrastructure needed to pull this off!

Making calls

For outgoing calls, the literature says:

• Always dial the full international number exlcuding 00 or +.
• Even if you’re making a local call, use the country code + area code + local number.
• Wait 5-10 seconds and your phone will ring. Answer this.
• Wait and you’ll be connected.
• If yoiu want to end a call and place another one immediately, don’t press END but enter ** and follow the instructions.

How to activate your SIM

Andy Abramson just showed me how to forward calls on my regular US number to my new MaxRoam number. On the Nokia N95, you do follow this directory tree:

Tools
Settings
Phone
Call divert
Voice calls
All voice calls
Activate

Then enter your MaxRoam number. A call to your cell number should ring wherever you’re traveling, and you’ll be connected at the local rate.

JD Lasica, founder of Inside Social Media, is also a fiction author and the co-founder of the cruise discovery engine Cruiseable. See his About page, contact JD or follow him on Twitter.