Data on the move is getting more essential. When travelling abroad, data charges often cost a bomb.

Today, Celcom has announced that it is offering Unlimited Data Roaming for its Celcom postpaid customers.

With Celcom’s Data Roaming Tariff (DRT), customers can use unlimited data in Singapore, Cambodia, Indonesia, Sri Lanka and Bangladesh for a flat rate of RM38 per day.

It is also interested to note that 59% of its International Roaming Data usage comes from the 5 countries mentioned.

This service however is only valid until 31st July and customers do not need to subscribe anything extra. Just make sure that the roaming service is active before leaving the country.

[SOURCE]

From now until 28 February 2011, Celcom is offering a lower roaming call rate on its AXIATA operators abroad. Under the AXIATA umbrella, there’s Dialog in Sri Lanka, XL in Indonesia, Robi in Bangladesh and Hello in Cambodia.

This encourages Celcom subscribers to choose its partner AXIATA operators for the best rates. If you’re in Indonesia, a call back home is only 35sen/min while in Bangladesh, it is as low as 30sen/minute. Mobile GPRS Data is fixed at RM38/day for all 4 networks.

This is something worth considering if you’re heading to Sri Lanka, Indonesia, Bangladesh or Cambodia. More details over at Celcom.

[ SOURCE ]

For the globetrotter who constantly need data on the go, Maxis has announced its Bridge DataRoam Unlimited which gives you data roaming at a fixed daily rate from RM33/day in India (Aircel), Thailand (AIS), Hong Kong (CSL), Macau (CTM), Philippines (Globe), Australia (Optus), Singapore (SingTel), South Korea (SK Telecom), Taiwan (Taiwan Mobile) and Indonesia (Telkomsel).

From the table above, it costs RM33/day for the 1 day plan and it can be as low as RM26.60/day if you choose the 5 day pass at RM133. If we had it our way, we would suggest a cheaper alternative of using a local prepaid SIM with 3G internet service. However Data Roaming could be a better choice to avoid the hassle of looking for local prepaids especially in countries where the locals can’t really understand your language.

DiGi offers something similar at RM36/day on its DG Smart Plan but it is limited to Australia (Telstra), Hong Kong (Peoples), Indonesia (Indosat), Philippines (SMART), Singapore (Starhub) and Thailand (Dtac). Celcom in the other hand has introduced similar daily data roaming packages for telcos under its Celcom Axiata umbrella in Sri Lanka (Dialog), Indonesia (XL), Bangladesh (Robi) and Cambodia (Hello) at RM38/day.

Compared to its rivals, Maxis offering is cheaper and its cost per day can be lowered if you opt for 3-5 days Plans. Maxis too covers more countries including South Korea, Taiwan and India. To activate, just call 123 or dial *100# and select your plans under Services > International Roaming. There’s no mention of the download speeds and we wonder if a single 5 day plan can support multiple countries. We will try to find out on that.

For more information, head to Maxis’s DataRoam page.

If you’re a Celcom Exec or Celcom Biz customer who is away from home this festive season, here’s a contest just for you. They are giving away a VW Golf TSI 1.4 and BlackBerry Torch for lucky subscribers that make bulk number of calls back to Malaysia from selected telcos under the AXIATA Umbrella. This includes Singapore (M1), Sri Lanka (Dialog), Indonesia (XL), Bangladesh (Robi) and Cambodia (Hello).

To be in the running to win the VW Golf car, just make 20 calls home to Malaysia from 18th January till 12th April. If you’re selected, you would be asked to answer 2 questions related to Celcom. For the BlackBerry Torch, just make 10 calls to be in the running and they are giving out 10 units each month.

Since the contest counts by number of calls instead of duration or amount spent, the cheapest entry would be making 20 calls of 30 seconds each. From the rates above, Indonesia and Bangladesh has the cheapest rate while Cambodia is the most expensive to call home. There’s only 1 chance per subscriber which means a single entry for the VW Golf draw and for the monthly BlackBerry Torch.

For more information, check out the website and don’t forget to read the FAQ.

Celcom is making it easier to stay connected overseas with its flat rates on international roaming. All SMS sent from abroad are now charged at a flat rate of 98 sen. For voice calls while roaming, Celcom now charges a flat rate but varies depending on which zone. Each zone is actually based on region with Zone 1 being Singapore, Zone 2 within Asia Pacific, Zone 3 for Europe and North America, Zone 4 for Middle East and Zone 5 for other countries in the rest of the world.

With this flat rate, you should be able to budget your calls accordingly without worrying about different rates from various providers and fluctuating exchange rates.

If you make calls to Johor and Brunei, Celcom is also doing a cross border promo from as low as 25 sen/min. Of course this is only applicable for cross border such as Johor to Singapore and Sarawak to Brunei. Surprisingly there’s no promotion for Sabah to Brunei or our Northern states to Thailand. Calls are charged at 30 seconds block and is valid until 18th April 2011.

DiGi is offering something similar as well with Johor to Singapore calls being charged at 18 sen/min for fixed line or 28 sen/min for mobile numbers. For International Roaming SMS, they too charge a flat rate but at 99 sen per SMS.

For more on Celcom’s International Roaming offer, head to their promo page here.

[ SOURCE, 2 ]

Update: It looks like U Mobile has removed all the related information on its Singapore rates posted here. We have no idea why it has been removed.. U Mobile’s lowered Singapore Roaming rates promo is live again on their website.

U Mobile has revised its prepaid call plans which gives you free calls within U Mobile network. The free calls are based on the top up amount made as U Mobile gives you 1 day unlimited free calls for every RM1 top up. This means a RM30 top up will give you 30 days of free calls made from U Mobile to U Mobile.

Update: Reader @RozAriffin has highlighted in the comments that the Free calls is actually limited to 60 minutes a day. This is written in their T&C.

Once you’ve topped up, U Mobile will send a confirmation SMS on the free calls status or alternatively you can check by dialling *118#. The free calls period is calculated on a daily basis from 00:00AM to 11:59PM. The maximum accumulative days of free calls is 150 days as mentioned in their FAQ.

For those that travel to Singapore, U Mobile is giving a special roaming rate. While at Singapore, local calls and receiving calls are charged at 55 sen/minute while calls back to Malaysia are charge at 98 sen/minute. SMS to Singapore is charged at 13 sen while SMS back to Malaysia is charged at 38 sen. For data users, they are charging a low flat rate of 30 sen/MB, which is about RM30 per 100MB.

Take note that this roaming rate is only applicable for prepaid subscribers at the moment and it is only valid when roaming via StarHub network.

For more information, head to U Mobile’s prepaid page.

For those travelling to Saudi Arabia for Umrah Pilgrimage, Celcom introduces Pek Umrah which offers international roaming calls, SMS and unlimited surfing at a fixed subscription fee. It is available in 2 options of 3 days and 7 days package which costs RM50 and RM100 respectively.

The Pek Umrah bundle offering are as follows
Pek Umrah 3 (3 days) – RM50
Voice Calls – 30 minutes
SMS – 90 SMS
Data – 3 days Unlimited

Pek Umrah 7 (7 days) – RM100
Voice Calls – 55 minutes
SMS – 185 SMS
Data – 7 days Unlimited

To subscribe, just SMS “Umrah3″ for 3 days or “Umrah7″ for 7 days package to 28882. Pek Umrah is available to all Celcom Postpaid and Prepaid customers and the subscription is charged immediately after activation. Upon arriving at Saudi Arabia, ensure that you select Mobility as your selected network.

For more information, head over to Celcom’s Pek Umrah page.

For travellers that wish to stay connected for basic internet connectivity, Maxis now offers a cheaper Data Roam Saver that costs RM10/day. Available in 16 countries, it offers 50MB of data per day which is sufficient for instant messaging and quick social updates. The best part is that if you do exceed 50MB, there’s no excess charge but speeds will be throttled to as low as 32Kbps.

The Data Roam Saver countries include Australia, China, Hong Kong, India, Indonesia, Kuwait, Macau, Philippines, Saudi Arabia, Singapore, South Korea, Taiwan, Thailand, Turkey, UK and Vietnam. To activate, you can dial *100# or send an SMS (buy datasaver ) to 20008. In terms of usage, it is calculated based on the local time of the country you’re in and it expires at midnight. If 50MB isn’t enough, and if you need full speed, you can either top up another Data Roam Saver or consider getting its bigger Data Roam Pass at RM38/day which offers 250MB data in those countries. To save RM10/day, you can also check out U Mobile’s Free Internet Roaming offer which lets you roam at 50MB/day at selected 7 countries.

For roaming with Maxis, they have made things easier in line with its “It’s not OK to be OK” movement. To avoid bill shocks for connecting with the wrong foreign operator, all Maxis customers would automatically connect to their telco partners that offer unlimited roaming data plans. All you need to worry about is to make sure you’re subscribed to a pass before enabling mobile internet.

With the recent change, Maxis no longer offers Bridge Data Roam Unlimited that gives a cheaper RM33/day or RM133 for 5 day roaming access. On the DataRoam Pass, there’s a quota of 250MB/day for the above mentioned 16 countries and 50MB/day for the remaining 90 countries. Fortunately there’s no excess charge but speeds will be throttled upon hitting your quota limit. On the upside, its roaming pass coverage now expands across 106 countries which is much more than before. If you have a 4G device, you can also enjoy LTE connectivity in Taiwan, Brunei, Philippines, Japan, Singapore, Korea and Hong Kong.

For more information on Maxis Data Roaming service, head over to their page here.

If you traveling overseas, U Mobile has increased its list of unlimited internet roaming countries. Now you can surf without worries in selected countries in Europe and in New Zealand for a flat rate of RM36/day.

This is made possible with its partnership with VodaFone in Albania, Czech Republic, Greece, Ireland, Malta, Netherlands, New Zealand, Romania, Turkey and United Kingdom. If you’re using less than 4MB, your usage will be charged at RM9 per MB.

From its FAQ, you won’t need to purchase any Data Pass and you can start surfing provided that you’ve selected the right telco network. You are advised to search for the network manually under settings before enabling Data Roaming on your phone. The daily unlimited internet roaming is calculated based on local time, from 12:00AM until 11:59PM.

In case you didn’t know, U Mobile also offers Free Internet Roaming in Cambodia, Hong Kong, Indonesia, Philippines, Singapore, Taiwan and Thailand. This is limited to 50MB which is decent enough for instant messaging and light social updates. If you use beyond 50MB, excess usage will be charged at RM30/day.

For more information, head over to U Mobile’s International Internet Roaming page.

U Mobile was the first telco to offer free internet roaming at selected countries for its postpaid subscribers. Now prepaid users are now able to enjoy Free Internet Roaming too and they have also extended several countries for its unlimited internet roaming service.

The Free Internet Roaming is limited to 50MB per day, which is sufficient enough for basic instant messaging such as WhatsApp, Line and WeChat. If you do exceed the 50MB/day limit, subsequent use would be charged at a maximum of RM30/day.

In terms of countries, the Free Roaming for prepaid is applicable to Australia, Cambodia, Hong Kong, Indonesia, Philippines, Singapore, Taiwan and Thailand. For those travelling to China, Macau and South Korea, U Mobile is offering unlimited roaming at RM30/day while Vietnam is offered at RM36/day. Just make sure you’re connected to the right network before you enable Data Roaming on your phone.

Before leaving the country, you would need to top up a minimum of RM50 in order for your free 50MB/day roaming service is activated. To check if you’re eligible, you can dial *118*6*3*2# for the latest status.

Compared to its postpaid offering, the supported roaming countries for prepaid is much limited, so take note of the difference. According to U Mobile’s site, this promotional offer is valid until 30th June 2015. For more information, head over to U Mobile’s Internet Roaming page.

It is the year end season and most people would be clearing their leaves ahead of 2015. If you’re travelling abroad, Maxis is now offering unlimited voice calls made overseas when you subscribe to its RM38/day DataRoam pass at 25 selected countries. This is only applicable for MaxisOne Plan, MaxisOne Plan Lite, Business One Plan & Business One Plan Lite subscribers that currently enjoy limitless voice calls.

The 25 countries are Australia, Brazil, Cambodia, China, Czech, Germany, Hong Kong, India, Indonesia, Ireland, Italy, Japan, Macau, Mexico, Norway, Philippines, Russia, Singapore, South Korea, Spain, Taiwan, Thailand, Turkey, UK and USA. The unlimited voice call promo covers calls made back to Malaysia, current country and 3rd country. All you’ll need is to subscribe to its DataRoam package by dialling *100#. According to its FAQ, if a call is being made before 12AM and ends after the DataRoam expiry, the voice call might be charged with standard voice call roaming rates. Take note that answering incoming calls while roaming is still chargeable. This unlimited roaming call offer expires on 31st December 2014.

With Maxis’s worry free proposition, you’ll be automatically connected to their Roaming telco partner at supported countries. This means you won’t need to worry about connecting to the wrong foreign telco that might result bill shocks due to standard pay per use charges. In case you didn’t know, Maxis also offers 4G LTE while roaming in Hong Kong, France, Taiwan, Brunei, Philippines, Japan and Korea. While DataRoam is listed as unlimited, there’s a Fair Use Policy of either 250MB (selected 16 countries) or 50MB/day depending on country. There’s no excess charge but speeds might be throttled.

For more information, visit Maxis’s DataRoam promo page.

It’s pretty well known that we Malaysians love our social media. We’re among the top nations that love taking selfies and #foodporn pictures everywhere we go. So it’s no surprise that mobile internet is a must have for us, more so when we’re overseas.

Just a while back, we headed over to Sydney, Australia just so we could be one of the first to test and purchase the Apple Watch. And while we were there, our entire 4 days connectivity was reliant on a U Mobile Prepaid SIM.

If you’re wondering why U Mobile, it’s because we wanted to test out just how well the roaming plan worked for us while spending our time down under. Considering that they were offering up to 50MB free of international roaming a day (at selected countries), we really had to try it out. That’s not all though, you also have the option of enjoying unlimited data roaming for both U Mobile pre-paid and post-paid at only RM30/day. Yep, you read that right. Not 50MB, not 500MB but unlimited internet on roaming.

So before our trip started, gotten ourselves U Mobile’s i60 plan on prepaid for the iPhone, that’s loaded with RM280 worth of credit. While this prepaid plan wasn’t entirely necessary for our overseas trip, we wanted to leverage on U Mobile’s unlimited data offer within Malaysia until 31st July.

That being said, after the RM60 deduction for the i60 plan, we were left with RM220 worth of credit. That would have been more than enough for 4 days of international roaming right? Well that’s what tried to find out.

As soon as we landed over in Sydney, we immediately switched on our the iPhone 6 Plus. Before switching on “Data Roaming”, we would need to take note of its network partner to avoid unnecessary surprises.

In U Mobile’s case in Australia, their local telco partner is Telstra, which we decided to connect to manually, just to be on the safe side. Upon successful connection onto the Telstra network, we got an SMS from U Mobile informing us of their free 50MB a day roaming offer as well as the option to go unlimited for just RM30/day. On top of that, we also received instructions on how to make international calls while in Australia.

We weren’t really going to be making much calls but having the option to do so was welcomed. For calls made from Malaysia to Australia, it would cost RM2.20/minute while SMS are charged at RM2 each. You can call other countries too but varying rates apply.

One thing that we also noted was that despite Telstra having 4G connectivity, we received an SMS from U Mobile that advised us to turn OFF the 4G/LTE mode. This according to their SMS was to ensure stable and constant internet connectivity while we were there.

Roaming Usage

So on to our data usage. It’s great that U Mobile give 50MB worth of free data at selected countries and that’s good enough for lighter stuff like Whatsapp-ing (minus media downloads) and basic instant messaging. However, with our heavy usage of Facebook, Instagram, Twitter and emails, that 50MB quota was soon nearing its limit. The good thing was that as soon as you hit 90% of the 50MB usage, U Mobile will send a reminder SMS that you’re about to finish your free limit. That’s pretty handy as you can decide to switch off data roaming to void extra charges, or if you were like us, continue using with a fixed cap of RM30/day.

So did we really get unlimited data while we were in Sydney? Considering how heavy our data usage was on the first day, U Mobile seems to be living up to its #confirmsure unlimited roaming promise. To max out its full data roaming potential, the U Mobile SIM was our mobile Hotspot with several devices including our a notebook connected to it. By the end of our first day, we used up 1.6GB of data and we’re charged just RM30. That left us with a good RM190 worth of credit remaining.

Our general data usage would continue to hover around 1-1.3GB/day for the course of the next few days (including the free 50MB of course, not that it lasted us long). By the end of our four day trip, we racked up a total usage of 4.2GB for RM120 in total. Not bad considering that the line was used as the de facto internet connection for our work. Throughout the test we even managed to get more than decent speeds, with no hint of line throttling. The best part was we have slightly more than RM100 credit balance remaining before we make our return to Malaysia.

If you’re needing lots of data for a couple of days, it is actually quite reasonably priced and hassle free than getting a local SIM. As comparison, a Telstra prepaid data pass cost A$30 (about RM87) for 3GB and A$50 (about RM145) for 5GB, but with longer validity period. But how does it stack up in cost compared to other Malaysian options?

With its RM30 a day unlimited data roaming offer, U Mobile’s looks pretty hard to beat in terms of value. Let’s take a look at the roaming costs from other options:

Telco C – RM38 a day unlimited data
Telco D – RM36 a day unlimited data
Telco M – RM38 a day unlimited with 500MB high speed quota

Not only U Mobile is more affordable but you get true unlimited usage in Australia. Even for light users who just need a little bit of data, the free 50MB data offer is unbeatable as well. Apart from Australia (Telstra), this offer is also applicable in Cambodia (Cellcard), Hong Kong (PCCW), Indonesia (Telkomsel), Philippines (Globe), Singapore (StarHub), Taiwan (Taiwan Mobile) and Thailand (True). Just make sure you’re connected to the right network manually before you switch on that “Data Roaming” option on your phone.

For the current data roaming partner and offers, head over to U Mobile’s Data Roaming Page for more info.

There’s a saying, the best things in life are free. If you love to travel, you’ll be happy to know that U Mobile’s free internet roaming offer has been extended until 31st March 2016. This allows you to stay in touch and post a couple of social updates during your travels for free.

This is applicable for both postpaid and prepaid users, covering Australia, Cambodia, Hong Kong, Indonesia, Singapore, Taiwan and Thailand. For Postpaid, it has additional support for India as well. The 50MB free quota refreshes each day. Take note that the cycle is refreshed at 11:59PM based on the respective time zone of the country’s capital city (e.g. Canberra for Australia).

If you do exceed the 50MB limit, your data charge is capped at RM30/day for unlimited usage. During our visit to Australia, we used U Mobile as our primary connection and it does deliver unlimited usage as we raked up over 4.2GB in quota. Before enabling data roaming, make sure you’ve selected the right roaming telco partner as listed below to avoid unwanted bill shocks.

Postpaid users can start enjoying free internet roaming immediately if you’re an active customer for 6 months. Otherwise, you can activate this by signing up for auto-debit billing. Prepaid users, on the other hand, are required to top up RM50 before traveling.

For more information, head over to U Mobile’s Data Roaming page.

U Mobile Roaming (Postpaid)

U Mobile Roaming (Prepaid)

There are a lot of people who love to travel. Seeing the world in all its glory is an amazing experience, but in the modern technological world that we live in, we need to stay connected and it’s often hard to do that when you’re in a foreign country.

Sure, you could roam, but that’ll blow up your phone bill. You could get a local SIM, but can be challenging in certain countries. Or, to keep things simple, you can rent a portable wireless router from Travel Recommends with one of their packages and enjoy unlimited internet connectivity abroad.

Travel Recommends has multiple packages covering several countries in Asia, Europe and even the States. From as low as RM15 a day, you can rent a wireless router unit from them for the duration of your trip.

Compared to a roaming packing like the MaxisONE World plan, this “Internet rental” is considerably cheaper and covers many more countries. With the MaxisONE World, you would have to pay RM38/day for 500MB of high-speed internet and it will tap into your local quota once you’ve finished the 500MB. If you’ve finished both local and the allocated 500MB quota, your speeds will be throttled. But, the upside is you get unlimited calls and SMS.

However, you would have to be a MaxisONE postpaid plan subscriber to take advantage of that plan.

With Travel Recommend’s plan, you get unlimited Internet connectivity when travelling. Yep, we checked with Travel Recommends and they told us that it is “truly unlimited”. They didn’t mention what kind of speeds you’ll be getting, though.

Simply visit their website at least 5 days before departure, fill in the required fields and choose whether you want to collect/return the unit yourself at KLIA or have a courier deliver it to you within Malaysia.

After that, simply make the payment plus an RM200 deposit via bank transfer and you’re good to go.

If you’re planning to travel to more than one country during your trip, Travel Recommends also provides package deals that supports coverage in China, Hong Kong, and Macau, as well as an Asia (Singapore, China, Hong Kong, Japan, South Korea, Taiwan) package.

Here is a full list of the countries they support and the rates they charge per day:

Click to view the larger image

For more information, head on over to their website or drop them an email at hello@travelrecommends.com. Alternatively, you can send a WhatsApp message to 010-394 6177 or call 03-2630 8313.

Need to stay connected while travelling overseas? U Mobile is making data roaming more affordable by offering unlimited usage from as low as RM10/day. This RM10/day offer is applicable at 12 selected countries which includes Australia, Singapore, South Korea, Taiwan, Hong Kong and the Philippines.

The list of data roaming countries at RM10/day is as follows.

Meanwhile, other 15 countries are also eligible for unlimited data roaming but at their usual RM36/day rate.

Before you enable data roaming, you’re advised to connect to the right telco partners as listed on their website. The manual selection is required to avoid unnecessary bill shocks but from the FAQ, you will not be able to use mobile data if you’re connected to the wrong telco. If you haven’t activated international roaming, you may do so at your nearest U Mobile outlet or by calling in at 1318.

The daily roaming is calculated by the day beginning 12:00AM to 11:59PM local time according to the country’s capital city. This unlimited data roaming promo is available for both postpaid and prepaid customers from now until 31st December 2016. On a separate note, the Free 50MB roaming offer has finally ended on 6 April 2016. So far there’s still no word if U Mobile will be extending this offer.

For more info, head over to U Mobile’s U Roam page.

Celcom has hopped on the bandwagon of international roaming plans with the introduction of their latest WONDEROAM plan. Under WONDEROAM, users get to choose from a range of daily and weekly roaming plans.

WONDEROAM comes in three forms — the WONDEROAM 1 DAY SOCIAL RM10, WONDEROAM 1 DAY INTERNET RM38 and WONDEROAM 1 WEEK RM138.

WONDEROAM 1 DAY SOCIAL is pretty self-explanatory as it gives users 1GB of quota per day for Facebook, Twitter and WhatsApp along with 50MB of high-speed internet and 50MB of basic internet for RM10/day.

Unfortunately for postpaid subscribers, this plan is only available for XPAX prepaid users. To subscribe simply key in *118# then navigate to Wonderoam > Wonderoam 1 Day Social RM 10 > Subscribe.

On the other hand, the WONDEROAM 1 DAY plan is available for both postpaid and prepaid customers. It gives users quota allocations ranging from 50MB onwards (depending on country) for RM38/day. Postpaid subscribers will automatically be charged upon using the Internet service while connected to preferred networks when roaming while prepaid subscribers will have their credit balance deducted upon purchase via the *118# USSD.

The big benefit of this WONDEROAM daily plan is that there will be no bill shock as Celcom doesn’t offer any pay-per-use plans with it. Additionally, you won’t be able to connect to data if you’re not connected to one of Celcom’s preferred roaming partners. What’s more, if you have finished your internet quota, you can still surf but at throttled speeds.

Celcom also offers a WONDEROAM 1 WEEK that’s available exclusively for Celcom FIRST Gold and the new FIRST Platinum subscribers. This plan will cost RM138/week and will give subscribers unlimited calls, unlimited SMS and 3GB of internet. If you finish your allocated 3GB of quota, data connection stops and you will have to resubscribe for another 3GB of data. Calls and SMS remain unlimited though.

Celcom boasts that with WONDEROAM 1 DAY RM38, you can take advantage of their extensive roaming network that extends to 165 countries (which Celcom claims is the most of any local telco). They also say that there will be at least two roaming partners in each country which should mean much better accessibility.

Unfortunately, WONDEROAM 1 DAY SOCIAL RM10 and WONDEROAM 1 WEEK RM138 are only available in 10 selected countries: Singapore, Indonesia, Japan, Hong Kong, Bangladesh, Sri Lanka, Taiwan, Cambodia, Laos and Macau.

Another tidbit Celcom revealed during the WONDEROAM launch is that they will be rolling out a brand new plan to add to their FIRST line of postpaid plans — the FIRST Platinum. According to Celcom, details on this new plan will be revealed tomorrow (15 April).

Teased awhile back as the plan for the “heavy user” Celcom has been talking about launching the FIRST Platinum plan to complement the “light” FIRST BLUE and “moderate” FIRST Gold plans for some time now.

I love travelling. It’s amazing to be able to see new places and enjoy new experiences. Anyone who says that it’s about the journey, not the destination, has never been on a 15-hour flight with crying babies. To me, it’s about the journey you take once you’ve arrived at the destination. Do you go on your own and take the road less traveled? Or stick to the popular attractions?

The biggest problem I have when travelling, though, is staying connected. While our local telcos are having an all out war in an attempt to come up with the best roaming plans, they’re still teetering on the pricey side. Another option is to pick up a local SIM, but that has its complications too. So what’s left?

Well, the third option is to rent a portable wireless router from someone like Travel Recommends.

Travel Recommends is a company that provides a portable wireless router rental service for people who are travelling abroad. You can enjoy unlimited internet connectivity from as low as RM9/day, but the prices will vary depending on country.  It is required that you reserve the router at least 5 working days before your date of departure.

Once you’ve picked your country and paid for the service (including an RM200 deposit for the router), you can either opt to pick it up at the KLIA Travel Recommends booth or have it delivered to you.

So, I went to New York last month and it was amazing. Here’s a photo of Central Park:

It’s beautiful. Now, here’s a photo of me in Central Park:

Much less beautiful. Here’s an amazing Shake Shack burger to make up for my horrible selfie:

Oops, I may have gone off a little bit of a tangent here, let’s back to the Travel Recommends router and the question that’s burning itself into the back of your mind (probably):

Is it any good?

Well, yes and no. One big yes is that Travel Recommends gives you a complete package of the wireless router, a charging cable, an international adapter and a bunch of quick-start guides that are all packed neatly into a bag the size of my face. Just bring that little bag along and you’re good to go.

It’s also incredibly easy to set up, as the included quick-start guide in my pack only needed three simple steps before I was connected and ready to go online. However, here’s when I hit my first snag: The connection isn’t particularly fantastic.

The speeds and network stability definitely left a lot to be desired. I stayed at The Westin in Times Square which is located pretty much at the heart of the large city, and here’s a screenshot of the speed test I was able to run on my first day there:

Not particularly impressive if I may say so myself. Definitely not as impressive as these guys cosplaying characters from the Ghostbusters:

Nice!

Anyway, there could, of course, be many reasons the connectivity was so poor. The first being that my location in the heart of the city isn’t particularly ideal for network connectivity, what with all the tall concrete buildings towering over me.

However, the most likely cause for this poor result would be the network I was connected to — AT&T. A quick Google search of AT&T in New York reveals many articles that don’t exactly inspire confidence when it comes to network strength. My friend, on the other hand, who bought a local T-Mobile SIM had no problems with her data connection whatsoever, even achieving rather quick speeds.

Even my colleague from TheSkop who had a review unit when he went on his trip to Australia reported fast download speeds of around 25Mbps and good network coverage overall.

Things didn’t improve during the second half of my trip, when I moved towards the suburbs near Queens and Brooklyn, either. I had more consistency (and speed) connected to the various free WiFi hotspots in town.

There are other inconveniences with having an extra device with you too. The first being that you need to bring it around with you all the time so that adds weight to your pack. You also have to constantly keep it charged throughout the day as the battery life on that portable wireless router is good for a day at most.

Still, I am hopeful

Despite the hiccups and poor network connectivity, I was not left with a bitter taste in my mouth. All things considered, I think Travel Recommends’ biggest problem was their choice in network partner (in New York at least) which resulted in a rather mediocre experience for me.

However, I am very hopeful for the growth of this type of service. This is a service that offers a simple way to have unlimited data connection for an affordable price. Apple once said that the “most powerful technology should deliver incredible capability without the complexity”. I may not agree with much of what Cupertino does, but this is a statement I completely agree with.

There is a lot of ambiguity surrounding roaming that I’m sure many are hesitant to jump on board, especially with all the horror stories of bill shock stemming from roaming on the wrong network floating around. Buying a local SIM may be the best choice for those who are willing to put in the time and effort to research the best deal, but not everyone is willing to do that.

Simplicity, then, is Travel Recommends’ biggest strength. If only they’d improve their choice of network partner so I wouldn’t have to wait until I was back in Malaysia before uploading photos from my trip.

Before I sign off, I will leave you with a picture of a squirrel climbing up a fence:

Click to enlarge

High-speed roaming data can be quite costly and rather limited depending on your mobile operator and roaming plan. This makes it a pain to bring your SIM with you when you travel.

What if we told you that you could win free roaming data up to 100GB that is valid in 100 different countries? Meet Flexiroam X.

As quirky as that sounds, it’s a cool way for you to roam internationally for as little of a cost as possible. In a nutshell, the Flexiroam X service can be accessed by something called the X Microchip. The X Microchip is only 0.08mm thin and is designed to be attached to your existing SIM card.

To get started you will need to download the Flexiroam X app. Then, register for an account and you can start collecting free data via small interactions within the application up to a bank of 100GB. Some tasks will want you to share the app with your friends or watch a quick video or input certain special codes.

Once you’ve built up your bank and want to travel with your Flexiroam X, simply order an X Microchip by purchasing the X Starter Pack. While the pack is free, you will be charged USD5 (around RM20) for shipping.

Upon receiving your X Microchip, you can stick it over your primary SIM and it will remain there with you until you change a SIM card. Don’t worry though, it won’t affect your existing SIM card’s performance, instead, you can now actively swap between using the X Microchip and your existing SIM.

Despite having the X Microchip, you won’t be able to use your data until you’ve purchased a yearly membership. The USD9.99 (around RM41) membership will be required to activate your data and allow you to use the data when you’re roaming overseas on Flexiroam X. Once activated, the data that you’ve accumulated will be valid for as long as you have an active membership. Once your membership ends, the data will expire.

Besides slowly building up a bank of free data, you can also purchase a data pack, currently priced at USD20 (around RM82), which will give you 1GB of data.

Additionally, to speed up your data accumulation process, Flexiroam is having a promotional launch code which gives you 500MB of free data. Simply input the code XLAUNCH before the 7th of June and the data will be credited into your account. You can also input our code SOYACINCAU before the 8th of June to enjoy 300MB of free data.

As the proverbial cherry on top of the cake, Flexiroam will also periodically release free data codes on their social media platforms like Facebook and Twitter so be sure to keep your eyes peeled for those juicy codes!

In all honesty, we think that this is a cool service because it allows you to win free data and roam for just USD9.99 (around RM41) a year. However, the process to gain free data can be quite tedious and it would take a lot of active participation to gain enough roaming data for a single trip overseas. To make matters a little worse, purchasing data outright from the app is rather pricey at RM80 for only 1GB of data. That said, this could be a more affordable alternative to ChatSIM which is RM69 for a year’s membership.

Of course, if you’re a heavy user you might want to either take your telco’s unlimited roaming plans, get a local SIM or pick up a mobile wireless router from someone like Travel Recommends.

Flexiroam X’s service is available in 100 countries with roaming partners like Vodafone, Optus, EE, Telefonica. AT&T, Indostat and T-Mobile. It also supports 4G LTE speeds where applicable. For more information, head on over to flexiroam.com. The Flexiroam X app is available on both Android and iOS devices.

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Whether it is in Malaysia or overseas, you shouldn’t change the way you use your phone. Your smartphone is a necessity and it isn’t practical to search for free WiFi when in foreign land.

Sure you can get a local SIM but shouldn’t you spend that time exploring instead? Read on to find out why U Mobile is the best choice for the globetrotter.

Surf all you want from only RM10/day

U Mobile offers the best data roaming deal in town. Enjoy unlimited data usage in Australia, Bangladesh, Cambodia, Hong Kong, India, Indonesia, Laos, Philippines, Singapore, South Korea, Taiwan and Thailand for only RM10/day.

In other 21 countries including China, Japan, New Zealand and the United Kingdom, you can also enjoy unlimited usage at a flat RM36/day. Need faster speeds? 4G is also supported in Canada, Oman, Singapore and Thailand.

With rates this affordable, you can forget about getting a local SIM and stay connected upon arriving.

Maximum enjoyment without limits

Unlike other telcos, U Data Roam offers unlimited usage while roaming. Not 100MB or 500MB but truly unlimited. So now you can watch HD Videos and surf all you want without hitting your daily cap.

Use your data overseas like a local

To really travel like a boss, U Mobile lets you take your data overseas for free on its Data BackPack™. It is available for Hero P70, Hero P98, i130, UD95 and UD135 postpaid plans.

That means if you’re on Hero P98 plan, you can use your entire 30GB of data with zero roaming charges. Just enable data roaming in their selected 12 countries and surf on your smartphone as if you’re in Malaysia. If you need more, you can always top up 1.5GB of quota (valid for 3 days) for RM10.

Start travelling with U Mobile

So what are you waiting for? If you love to travel with loads of internet, you might want to check out U Mobile’s latest Hero P98 postpaid plan that offers 30GB of data. Alternatively, you can pick up a U Mobile Power Prepaid and start enjoying data roaming from as low as RM10/day. For more info, head over to U Mobile’s Data Roam page.

Webe’s international roaming gives you unlimited data usage in 18 selected countries for RM39/day. Is it any good? Well, I went to Singapore to find out.

To be able to roam, you’ll need to place a deposit of RM300 which can be made through the webe self-service app. Once that’s done you will be able to connect to webe’s partner telcos in each country. In Singapore, that’s StarHub.

Once I crossed the causeway, my phone automatically switched from webe to StarHub and I received a welcome message. For those who don’t know, in order for you to use your data overseas, you will need to enable data roaming in your phone’s network settings.

Once webe detected that my data roaming has been enabled, they sent me another text message informing me that my RM39 daily Data Roam pass has been activated and I could access the internet. However, this is a daily pass so it expires on 11.59pm on the day that you activate it. So, you will be charged another RM39 if you leave data roaming enabled come midnight.

For those who are worried about roaming with the wrong telco, webe says that users are safeguarded against bill shock situations. If a user connects to a telco that’s not webe’s roaming partner, they will not be able to access the internet or have a data connection.

Left = webe SIM, right = tethered speed

The speeds so far have been reasonable, but the connection is not seamless. You can watch YouTube videos in Full HD, but sometimes the connection will drop and you’ll have to wait for it to reconnect.

But I know you’re probably most curious about tethering and if you can do it while roaming. Well, the answer is “it depends”. Webe says that whether or not you can tether depends on their roaming partner in the selected country. In Singapore, for example, I can tether no problem but some countries might block it like webe does in Malaysia.

Another thing on your mind would probably be if there is a daily cap on high speed internet. Well, so far I’ve used about 800MB worth of data and I haven’t noticed any signs of throttling yet so it does appear to be truly unlimited. Webe also assures me that as long as you’re in the 18 selected countries, you will get unlimited data without any throttling — similar to the experience you get with webe in Malaysia, at least as far as data goes.

Overall, I’d say the roaming experience has been pretty good so far and I definitely like that you can tether to make full use of your unlimited data. However, I think the RM300 deposit is rather archaic and webe should come up with a better way around this, especially for long-term customers. As it stands now, for a new telco who should be able to shake things up, webe seems to be erecting old barriers instead of creating new avenues. One other thing to note is that webe’s daily data roaming plan is also the most expensive of any telco at RM39/day. However, the benefit is that you do get an unlimited quota with webe, compared to the other telco’s 500MB daily cap.

Webe’s international roaming is also available in over 180 countries worldwide. Of those countries, 18 selected countries — Singapore, Australia, China, Hong Kong, Indonesia, Japan, Thailand, Philippines, Rep. of Korea,  Taiwan, Macao, Qatar, France, Germany, India, Saudi Arabia, United Arab Emirates and the United Kingdom — you get unlimited data when roaming for RM39/day. Call and SMS charges, on the other hand, have different rates that vary depending on the country you’re visiting. For more information on the specific rates, head on over to webe’s website.