Flexiroam Service Diminished
 

I bought Flexiroam service in Febuary this year and was pretty impressed with their program features and ease of use. The sim sticker seemed to be an efficient method of overcoming the inconvenience of sim swapping while travelling. In the past few months they've made some changes that have somewhat affected my overall opinion of their value and usefulness.


A few months back the expiration of data plans was shortened on the 3Gb service from a full year (360 Days), to 180 days. I travel internationally at least 3 times a year, and this put a damper on my projected carryover of available data. The next blow was the removal of several roaming partners in the USA from their list. I was recently in a beach area in Oregon with poor T-Mobile service, and found that Flexiroam no longer has AT&T, Sprint, or Verizon as roaming partners for the US. In the past I have been able to switch away from T-Mobile to another local carrier with a stronger signal. This is no longer possible.


T-Mobile has recently revised their high speed Data Pass rates to 1Gb for 10 days for $20. This is quite a shift from the previous $50=500Mb=30 days, and a step in the right direction. This new rate compares favorably to my needs, which had been fulfilled by Flexiroam and KeepGo services. For instance, I can purchase 2Gb for 20 days for $40. This is generally the longest I might need high speed data roaming service, since I have fallback to TM's 256kbps on all my devices.


I am saddened to see this promising data service decline, and wonder if others might have an opinion in this regard?

That's funny and kind of discouraging at the same time. I'm a fairly regular Flexiroam user, and haven't had any complaints about signal strength or speed in any of MY travels, although, of course, YMMV.

I did notice they have rolled out "country specific" roaming packages. I thought that was a nice add-on.

At the end of the day, I just love not having to carry separate SIM cards, and the rates were great for my needs. The only place I've been on this earth so far that didn't have coverage was El Salvador (during a one-hour layover with Avianca.) Otherwise, it's great not to worry about getting online.

Well, they did seem to eliminate the annual $10 "Membership" fee. I guess what troubled me the most was the reduction in term for the 3Gb plan. This is the sweet spot for me for roaming data service. All the KeepGo data levels are valid for 1 year, even the 500Mb@$19. A quick financial comparison shows that with KeepGo I can buy 5Gb for $119, good for a year. I can add just 500Mb for $19 to extend the left over data for another year. So, 5.5Gb, good for 2 years @ $138. With Flexiroam now, it's $129 for 5Gb for 360 days only. If I want to keep any leftover data, I'm looking at another $129 for the second year.


I'm probably splitting hairs here, but I thought they would be a great alternate service to KeepGo. Now it seems like they've made their product less serviceable to my requirements.