Using a roaming SIM card

 

Scenario – road warrior type from Australia doing business in Jakarta and surrounds.

My smartphone is locked to the network – it’s on a prepaid contract (since we went BYOD at work) – so a local SIM card is not an option.

It is expensive, but I do need to get my text messages and calls from work at anytime, so that makes roaming with my SIM necessary. Especially as the factory I am visiting is poorly served by 3G (it might still only be 2G) and Wi-Fi onsite is a bit hit and miss. On the bright side, the Wi-Fi at the hotel is really good, and the 3G coverage in the city is good enough for data apps. World Phone seems to work fine.

The trouble with the roaming pack is that it is still expensive to make international calls, and to receive them. I know the company will reimburse me for the calls, but I still don’t like the idea of being ripped off on roaming charges. Whenever Wi-Fi is available, I’ll always use World Phone to make a call – even an important work call – because the audio is so good it makes it very easy to follow conversations – even when heavy accents are involved – and because I am not worried about the cost I think I am actually more relaxed on the call. You know how the locals like to chat informally, to build up a relationship, before getting down to business.

My clients rarely call my home mobile number. They expect me to call them. That’s not so bad when I am at my desk, but it’s not good when I am on the road.

Now that I have a local number set up in World Phone, the clients are happy to call me, wherever I am in the world. Using World Phone for local numbers is so much easier than trying to keep a local SIM card alive, it’s actually cheaper, and I don’t need to carry around two phones all the time. I find it such a pain to pack two charges, two plug adaptors and then find sockets for both of them in the hotel room.

You know, this World Phone is so useful, I really should talk to my IT guys to see if we can get the corporate version. Then I could hand out my desk phone number and keep my mobile number to myself, and I’d always be connected

I don’t mind using my iTunes account for buying minutes and numbers, but it would be better if work could pick up the tab directly.