If you’ve ever used your smartphone or cellphone while travelling in the U.S. on business or pleasure, you may have experienced roaming shock. Roam Mobility, a Vancouver startup, will launch a new service Monday that puts an end to high roaming charges.
The new service – a partnership between Roam Mobility and T-Mobile in the U.S. – is designed for Canadian tourists and business travellers who want to stay connected while travelling to the U.S., but who are afraid of racking up roaming charges.
“We’ve got a major carrier backing us to drop roaming rates by, in some cases, over 99%,” said Roam Mobility founder Emir Aboulhosn, who is also the founder of the social media network Kinjoe. “It circumvents roaming agreements. We do direct agreements with carriers. The pricing is at local rates.”
The new service is available in most U.S. states – including Hawaii – and Puerto Rico. Aboulhosn said it will also be available in Mexico and Western Europe in the coming months,
Subscribers have three options. Owners of unlocked phones and devices can buy unlimited talk and text plans for periods of one day ($10) to 30 days ($60.) Those who don’t own unlocked phones can buy a basic phone, called the Breeze, for $40 (plus tax), and a talk and text plan. Roam will allow Breeze phone owners to loan their phones and transfer accounts to friends and family.
A third option is the Liberty – a mobile hotspot that costs $130 – and data plans that range from $30 for 500 megabytes up to $100 for 5MB.
The Liberty will appeal to vacationing families, as it can provide 4G cellular service for up to five WiFi enabled devices. So while Dad uses Googlemap on his iPhone while driving the family to Disneyland, and Mom downloads books on her Kindle Fire tablet, the kids can watch Youtube videos on their iPod Touches.
James Shuttleworth, B.C. sales manager for Corporate Traveller – FlightCentre’s business travel division – said clients often ask about alternatives to roaming.
“If there’s a company that’s offering a more cost effective way of communicting, then that’s got to be a good thing for the consumer,” Shuttleworth said.
Mark Goldberg, a telecommunications analyst, said there are alternatives to roaming, so he predicts the company’s success will be based on increasing brand awareness, providing convenient access to Roam products, and maintaining good customer service.
“The real benefit of this arrangement – if they get it right – is making it easy for people before they leave to have it, and the key to the success is going to be in the whole relationship and interface with consumers,” Goldberg said. “The key is establishing the distribution – making it simple. And then they’ve got to build the awareness.”
Aboulhosn said Roam products will be available in duty free shops at border crossings and airports.
“It’s designed to be sold while people are en route,” he said.
The major telecoms in Canada offer special reduced roaming packages for Canadian travellers, but Aboulhosn said the rates are still much higher than what his company will offer.
“If you take their best plan, discount it by another 95%, you’ve gotten to our rates,” he said.
Some Canadian travellers simply buy a cheap cellphone and prepaid airtime when they travel to the U.S. But with the growth of smartphones and tablets, many business travellers and tourists want more than just basic talk and text – they want full high-speed service for email and Internet surfing.
As Goldberg points out, however, Roam will have to offer more than just good rates and convenience, if it wants to get widespread market penetration.
“They’re going to have to overwhelm their customers with excellence so that you get strong word-of-mouth pull-through.”
Nelson Bennett
@nbennett_biv