If you’ve ever been bombarded by international roaming costs, whether you’re on a personal or a business trip, you’ve experienced what has been commonly referred to as “bill shock.” Bill shock is extremely common among those who travel internationally, and surprisingly, many people don’t know about the international GSM carriers who have taken it upon themselves to do what national carriers can’t or won’t: stop bill shock in its tracks.
Maxroam is one such carrier. Maxroam offers unique bundles that can help keep your pocket book safe, giving you the peace of mind you need to be able to truly enjoy your trip without having to compromise. Stay connected to your email, your Facebook, your family, your friends, and your life without resorting to turning off your roaming or even your device. That’s exactly why Maxroam’s bundles are a highly recommended alternative to your national carrier’s international plans.
Let’s take a deeper look into some of the bundles currently offered by Maxroam.
Data is by far the most expensive part of any international roaming bill. Maxroam counters this with a group of low-cost and intuitive plans that provide users with a certain amount of data for a low fee. For instance, with their Daily Pass, Maxroam offers up to 30MB of data for $11.71 USD. The Weekly Pass increases the data option to 100MB for $37.73. Finally, the Monthly Pass provides up to 200MB for $71.57 USD.
To put things into perspective, 41.8 percent of international roaming bill complaints in the period of July to September 2012 were regarding bills that ran between $1,000 and $5,000 per month according to TIO Talks (PDF), an increase of 70 percent a year earlier. In addition, complaints regarding bills that ran $500 to $1,000 increased by 1.5 percent while complaints regarding costly bills of $10,000 or more increased by over 1 percent, a number that is attributed to the growth in smartphone and tablet usage while overseas.
Using the Maxroam service would have likely prevented most of these complaints, simply because of the way the service is designed. In addition to lower rates, the service is also pay-as-you-go. Simply using pay-as-you-go services has the added effect of changing usage behavior to use less in addition to the cost-saving bundles. A combination of these will lead to lower costs.
These are just some of the ways Maxroam’s data bundles are beneficial. In addition, the company offers rates of $0.64 per MB in 44 countries and a UK Explorer bundle, which provides those in the UK with 100MB of data, 200 minutes talk time, and 300 texts to anywhere in the world. There are also additional bundles of 250MB for $7.81, 500MB for $13.01, and 1GB for $23.42. This is, of course, on top of their already low-cost standard MVNO roaming rates. There are also other bundles and information available via the company’s website.
As far as the service itself, the call quality is on par with any of the best national carriers. Maxroam allows users to access data on 3G networks, which is more than sufficient for most tasks, and we experienced no problem connecting to the service in our tests. The service will work with any unlocked GSM device; a nano-SIM card is also available for those users who are interested in using an unlocked iPhone 5 on the service.
All in all, the Maxroam service is stable, efficient, and can help you save a lot of money when you’re traveling overseas. Bill shock will be a thing of the past, giving you the time, more money, and the peace of mind to concentrate on more important things — like enjoying the finer things in that long-overdue vacation.