ScottC

FWIW; Fry's stores usually have Skyroam in stock - if you have a store locally, it is a pretty easy product to get your hands on.

ScottC

What a horrid review. They don't even have a photo of the product. They do have a stock photo of a lake. Very helpful.

At least they make it clear that Webbing is a partner, but the entire review feels more like an infomercial.

Dubai Stu

I found a picture of the product, but I couldn't find the list of countries that it covered.

wco81

Didn't there used to be something called iPhoneTrip or something like that? It was using a AT&T SIM card with a business global data plan and they rented you the iPhone?

cwcarlson

I see someone posted about Skyroam. Anyone used it in Nessebar, Odessa, Amasra, Varna, Istanbul and Constanta? I am going on a black sea cruise and am looking for EITHER a SIM card that will work with my 4G LTE Jetback mobile hotspot MiFi 6620L or a hot spot LIKE SkyRoam. Recommendations?

My MiFi is Verizon is on an international plan but we get nailed for every 25mb and we have 2 devices.

Cheetah_SA

I bought the Skyroam device via the Lufthansa World Store at MUC for EUR94 (i.e. EUR99 less the Eur5 sign-up discount). The intention was to use it in Munich, and around Zurich and Bregenz. This is a summary of my experience.

The concept is awesome. That is the only part that is. It was fairly straightforward to set up and our devices connected to it easily. Every time we connected a device or activated a 24-hour package we had to re-enter the password, which was mildly annoying.

It worked very well in Munich and in Zurich. However, it was a lot dodgier in and around Bregenz. And on the trains it was useless - it just kept losing the signal.

It often took quite a while to connect to the system when you fire it up - between 5 and 10 minutes. When you want to do a quick transaction or briefly consult a map that gets very annoying. Similarly if it lost the connection and gave a "system busy" message it often took ages to connect again. Given that the battery life is pretty short (maybe 4 or 5 hours) you do have to switch it off to conserve power - which means suffering the aggravation of waiting while it reconnects the next time you want to use it.

Speeds were all over the place. I had no need for ultra fast data transfer but was a bit surprised that even with my modest usage it was often slow and showed a poor signal symbol - even in the centre of the large cities. I also hate the fact that you can only use it in 24 hour packages. So if you only need it for 5 minutes on a specific day then you get charged the full 24 hour rate. But that is what it is, so you just have to accept it.

Bottom line: it is usable but far from ideal. (Compared to the mi-fi I hired in Japan it is miles less efficient and user friendly. The only advantage is not having to mail the device at the end.) I hope it improves over time because I really like the concept as I said. But for now it feels more like a beta version than something ready for market.

GloverParker

I eventually managed to purchase a SkyRoam device from SkyRoam directly -- though they were out of stock for a rather alarmingly long time. That said, I used it extensively in very rural Ireland over a five day period and found it to work well -- in fact, I received a signal when friends using UK mobile's couldn't. That said, it was a bit spotty and sometimes did take longer than expected to connect. Overall, however, I was very pleased to have it -- I'll continue to test it in Italy and France later this year and see how we go.

tlvancouver

Anybody heard of this one - it looks good on paper - "Glocalme"


* No Bill Shock When Travel Abroad, Free Roaming, Embedded One Virtual-SIM card Compatible Around 100 Countries.No Local SIM Card Required, Access to Internet The First Time You Get Off Plane.You will only pay for the data you need instead of high roaming fees.
• No Contract, No Monthly Charges, Pay As You Go (€0.05/MB), or Get 1GB Global Data Package at Only €29.9.Just switch on Glocalme G1, you can start surfing and connect to the world instantly.
• Privacy Security, No hacking, No surveillance. Work on a private network to ensure peace of mind when connecting to the internet.
• Mobile APP Available, Easily Top Up and Check Up Your Balance. Keep track of your data usage with Glocalme App, it's easily use the App to manage and check your data traffic.
• With 6000mAh Power Bank Battery, Lasting for 10 hours, Simultaneously Support Connection up to 5 Devices.12 Month Worry-free warranty. Dimensions: 109.1 x 48.5 x 38.8mm

MDWCommuter

I've been keeping an eye on this product, getting great reviews on Amazon, etc. I've hesitated buying because the current version is 2G/3G. They have a Kickstarter campaign right now for their v2 product which will be 4G/LTE, shipping in September they say.

Only other downside I've found is that they only bill in Euros. Right now not a problem when the exchange rate is so favorable, but if the Euro reverts to historical norms your data rates will rise 25% over what you see today. I've just about convinced myself that's an acceptable risk because the alternatives are so poor.

Wozza2404

This actually looks great, and amazingly it looks like it works in the GCC.

So I can use my Vodafone Data Traveller package for EU/USA/Australia and one of these for SE Asia and the GCC.

We may have a winner here.

tlvancouver

I just unwrapped mine and it's charging. I'll keep you all posted.

tlvancouver

I'm curious for those that have used foreign sims, here's the rates on glocalme for pay as you go - any feedback on how they compare?

http://glocalme.com/rate/showrate

Since it's one device for multiple countries I like the idea of just logging in and paying for what we use.

They also have a 3 month 1 gb international (anywhere they cover) for 29 british pounds.

Dubai Stu

This is the forth or so global data SIM offering. I think we are going to need to get our hands around the various offers and figure out which is cheapest, who has the best coverage, who ties you to their equipment, who supports LTE, etc.

Let the reverse engineering begin.

tlvancouver

This one is only 3g, which is okay for the limited purpose of this trip (and frankly the device at $140 CDN isn't too much more than a good extended battery which this has built in. What I like is that you just preload it with credit and then wherever you are you use it and it draws down. It also works in the US (good for short trips) and doesn't require all the devices using it to be unlocked (since it's wifi).

I'll keep you all posted after the Europe trip, the good thing is I could test it in Canada and it connected to my devices fine. The real question is how it connects to different networks.

For hotels it also has an Ethernet plug so we can use any free hotel Ethernet on all our devices for no extra charge.

MDWCommuter

After posting last night I went ahead and funded the Kickstarter campaign for $99 as a "super early" adopter of the Glocalme G2. They say it will ship in September.

I'm pinning my hopes on it working well as I've got an around-the-world trip planned for the second half of December and it sure would be handy not to have to acquire data SIM cards at every stop.