Source: goebel.net

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Irishman Pat Phelan, CEO of Cubic Telecom, is improving his product Maxroam. In the hype time around TechCrunch 40 competition in September 2007 we thought to see roaming prices around $0.20 in every country with this SIM card. That’s not a reality yet, but not forgotten as a longer term aim. Now Cubic Telecom announced a cooperation with the folks at Global Roaming which offer a very similar SIM card, called Celtrek. The partnership will allow both companies to offer extended geographic coverage and data roaming on their existing products. Celtrek is stronger in the US market and Maxroam here in Europe.

Phoneboy Dameon Welch-Abemathy revealed an interesting detail in his post on The VoIP Weblog:

What wasn’t announced in the press release, but slipped out on Pat’s Jaiku stream was that the MAXroam service would soon be much cheaper in the US/Canada. Right now, it’s prohibitively expensive, but Pat is saying by early 2008 the price should be about 12 cents (presuming Eurocents here). I’m not going to hold Pat to those rates, but if it’s true, it does sound a fair bit better than the 1.18 Euros it now costs to receive and make calls within the USA.

Andy Abramson explains:

While their pricing isn’t lower than buying local SIM cards, they do save you money if you are going from country to country, and you avoid a lot of unused minutes. They also give you the benefit of one number so friends and family can find you, making it a great gift for the student you know whose going to take a trip overseas.

Yes that’s right. The pricing isn’t lower than local SIM cards, but it’s super convenient for frequent travellers to always have the same number on their SIM and don’t have to worry too much for roaming prices. I am already playing around with a Cubic Phone from Pirelli and a Maxroam SIM card. The sound quality is fantastic while roaming on the German Vodafone network. I have a UK fixed line number for Maxroam and could also add a German number. They all would ring in whichever country I am.

The only thing that holds me back is that for Germany they only offer numbers from Hanover while I live in funky Berlin. He Pat, didn’t they tell you that Hanover has the fame of being Germany’s most boring city? So boring that in the 80ies and early 90ies Punks regularily gathered from all over the country to mix it up at least one time a year in their famous Chaos Days. So when I roam I will simply forward my existing Berlin number to the Maxroam UK number. As a Voipchecker I know how to do that for free, this I can save the 4.50 per month for a German Maxroam number.

Anyway, here is Cubic Telecom’s press release:

Cubic Telecom and Global Roaming align forces
Alliance will focus on joint opportunitiesCORK, Ireland 30 November, 2007 Cubic Telecom dba MAXroam and Global Roaming Inc. dba CelTrek have today announced a strategic alliance combining their marketing reach and technical know-how into a single partnership.

The partnership will allow both companies to offer extended geographic coverage and data roaming on their existing products. This is a substantial step forward for both companies in their goal to provide a single global communication platform that brings an end to the monopolistic behavior of the large cellular operators.

Pat Phelan said I am delighted that Global Roaming has decided to partner with Cubic and I look forward to a world where anyone can call anyone at anytime without worrying about the cost.

Florian Seroussi, CEO of Global Roaming Inc. said This alliance gives us an opportunity to get a footprint in Europe in order to spread our ambition of offering low-cost roaming to consumers everywhere.

Through the partnership both companies are currently actively engaged in joint proposals to large US and European enterprises and announcements on these are imminent.

ABOUT Cubic Telecom
Based in Cork, Ireland, with offices in Vancouver, Canada, Cubic Telecom is an innovative global communications company focused on introducing simple, high quality and high value telecommunications services. Its core target market is aggrieved customers across the globe who dont understand why they cant get value for money when making international calls while roaming.

ABOUT Global Roaming Inc.
Global Roaming, Inc, is a privately held Nevada corporation, with offices in Miami, Florida. The parent company has over 350 GSM network operator agreements covering more than 165 countries and all continents.

For further information, please contact:

Media Contact
USA
Giovanni Rodriguez,
The Conversation Group
M: +1 650 279 8415
giovanni@theconversationgroup.com

Europe
Patrick Smith, Sonus PR
T: +44 (0)20 7851 4890
M: +44 (0)7734 600553
patrick.smith@sonuspr.com

Company Contact
Cubic Telecom Limited
Pat Phelan, CEO
+353 21 425 0657
info@cubictelecom.com

Cubic Telecom Limited
Unit 1, Webworks
Eglington Street
Cork
Ireland

www.maxroam.com

Company Contact
Global Roaming Inc.
Jenny Callicott, COO
+1 305 249 3121
jenny@celtrek.com

Global Roaming Inc.
1021 Ives Dairy Road
Miami
FL, 33179
USA

www.celtrek.com

Source: andyabramson.blogs.com

Everyone I know is rooting for Pat Phelan’s Roam4Free/maxRoam venture to succeed. But it also looks like there is competition looming from United Mobile.

The price being quoted by United in their release seems to be at par or slightly lower. Since the rates change so much in this arena it will be hard to ever really know which service saves more money.

The key to both ventures success will be distribution and roaming agreements in my view.

Source: goebel.net

OK, the embargo is over. For one and a half hours I already had the press release but wasn’t allow to tell. But now, finally, Roam4Free’s Pat Phelan has revealed at TechCrunch 40 his new product Maxroam. TechCrunch is blogging live from the presentation:

Cubic Telecom is creating a global Mobile Virtual Network (MVNO). The company aims to drastically reduce international calling rates by lowering mobile roaming and call charges. Founder Pat Phelan wants a world in which anyone can pick up their mobile phone wherever they are and call anyone in any country for as long as they like without worrying about the price. Product launch is today. Maxroam allows you to add numbers to the SIM. Essentially calls are routed from one number in each place. Every call on the mobile becomes a local call.

Later you can find the per minute prices here. Up to now the web page still says "Rates published later today" or "HTTP/1.1 500 Server Error". Sometimes a price shows up, but this is just a place holder. They are obviously working on it.

EMBARGO 20:00 Irish/UK Time (19:00UTC / 12:00 PST), Monday 17th September 2007

IRISH STARTUP INTRODUCES THE FIRST INTERNATIONAL MOBILE PHONE SERVICE THAT ELIMINATES EXTORTIONATE ROAMING CHARGES

All Global Calls Are Local Calls with Cubic Telecoms Mobile Phone Solution
Company Unveils Both Product and Vision at First Annual TechCrunch40

CORK, Ireland, and SAN FRANCISCO, California. (TechCrunch40) September 17, 2007 Cubic Telecom today unveiled what many industry watchers are calling the worlds first true global phone. Presenting at TechCrunch40 in San Francisco before an 800-plus crowd of hi-tech entrepreneurs, journalists and other industry influencers, the company announced Cubic Mobile, a mobile phone package that effectively turns global calls into local calls. Cubic Mobile dramatically reduces costs for both callers and recipients of mobile phone calls when roaming internationally.

Cubic designed the product for several large markets of consumers who are looking for ways to reduce the cost of international telephony: (1) the growing population of migrs who buy pre-paid calling cards to call friends and family overseas; (2) travellers who are looking for ways to reduce the costs of roaming on traditional packages; and (3) globally distributed teams commercial, not-for-profit, and governmental organisations that are all seeking better ways to manage the cost of global calls.

You often hear that the world is flat, so why not telephony, said Cubic CEO and co-founder Pat Phelan. We are living in a world where more and more people need to make phone calls across borders and while travelling. Our mantra is all global calls should be local calls, and we have built a product that can do that.

Pat Phelan said Its great to be at TechCrunch40. Seven hundred companies from around the world applied to launch their products at this event. We were one of forty chosen, and are the only Irish company presenting. For us, this is an exceptional opportunity.

Cubic Mobile is a dual-band GSM/Wi-Fi phone that comes with several major innovations enabling callers to make and receive low-cost calls around the planet, wherever they roam:

MAXroam: the worlds first universal SIM card, offering consumers the best country-to-country phone rates anywhere. The MAXroam SIM, which can also be purchased separately, is a major breakthrough, and the result of years of negotiations with GSM carriers around the world.

As many phone numbers as you like: full PBX functionality on the handset. Consumers get a single phone number, but can create multiple permanent local numbers for themselves - up to 50 - anywhere around the globe. All calls are forwarded to their Cubic Mobile phone, no matter where the calls originate, at the best rates for the callers.

All Voice over IP (VoIP) calls within the Cubic network are free. All Cubic Mobile customers get a short code that they can use to make free VoIP calls to any other customer on the Cubic network. This is an especially attractive feature to families who live across borders and globally distributed companies and workgroups.

Cubic Mobile has been designed by a team with extensive experience in consumer and wireless technologies. It also has the ability to route a call to the lowest cost network available, whether it is GSM or Wi-Fi. Its consumer friendly in many ways, said Pat Phelan. It is friendly in its utter simplicity, but also friendly in its ability to also ensure that you and your callers are always getting the lowest rates.

Pricing and Availability
Cubic Mobile, which comes in two models, will be available from October 1st at www.cubictelecom.com. The basic model will sell for EUR99.95 and a Windows Mobile version at EUR159.95 (both handsets come with a MAXroam SIM included and an initial EUR5 calling credit).

MAXroam, which operates on any unlocked GSM phone, can be purchased separately for EUR29.99 (with an initial EUR5 calling credit) and is available on September 24th at www.maxroam.com.

-ENDS-

ABOUT Cubic Telecom
Based in Cork, Ireland, with offices in Vancouver, Cubic Telecom is an innovative global communications company focused on introducing simple, high quality and high value telecommunications services. Its core target market is aggrieved customers across the globe who dont understand why they cant get value for money when making international calls and roaming. Renowned global telecommunications entrepreneur and thought-leader Pat Phelan founded Cubic Telecom in 2005. Pat wants a world in which anyone can pick up their mobile phone wherever they are and call anyone in any country for as long as they like without worrying about the price.

Cubic Telecom is working towards free speech.
www.cubictelecom.com

ABOUT TechCrunch40
TechCrunch40 features forty of the hottest new startups from around the world, who will announce and demo their products over a two day period. And they dont pay a cent to do this. They are selected to participate based on merit alone. In fact, the organisers offer a $50,000 cash prize for the best product and line up other in-kind services and awards from a group of corporate sponsors. The selected companies are decided by an amazing group of experts who help recommend the final startups to present at TechCrunch40. And they will also participate at the conference - theyll watch company presentations and discuss the merits of each with robust audience participation. Confirmed industry experts include Marc Andreessen (Co-founder, Ning), Chris Anderson (Editor-In-Chief, Wired Magazine), Ryan Block (Editor-In-Chief, Engadget), Roelof Botha (Partner, Sequoia Capital), Ron Conway (angel investor and advisor), Mark Cuban (Founder, HDNet), Caterina Fake (Co-founder, Flickr), Brad Garlinghouse (SVP,Communications & Communities, Yahoo!), MC Hammer (Musical Artist and Advisor, DanceJam), Sarah Lacy (reporter and author), Loc Le Meur (entrepreneur, LeWeb organizer and blogger), Om Malik (Founder, GigaOm), Marissa Mayer (VP, Search Products & User Experience, Google), Rajeev Motwani (Professor, Stanford University), Robert Scoble (Scobleizer and Podtech), and Dave Winer (Scripting News).

Photography:
Pictured are Sean O’Mahony (left), Chief Commercial Officer, and Pat Phelan, Chief Operating Officer, of Cubic Telecom, which today announced its plans to dramatically reduce international global roaming charges.

For further information, please contact:

Media Contact (Europe)
Comit Communications & Marketing
Keith Martin
Tel. +353 1 215 7675
kmartin@comitmarketing.com
www.comitmarketing.com

Media Contact (North America)
The Conversation Group
Giovanni Rodriguez
Tel. +1-650-279-8415
Giovanni@theconversationgroup.com
www.theconversationgroup.com

Company Contact
Cubic Telecom Limited
Pat Phelan, CEO
Tel. +353 21 425 0657
info@cubictelecom.com
Cubic Telecom Limited
Unit 1, Webworks
Eglinton Street
Cork
Ireland
Tel: +353 21 425 0657
Website: www.cubictelecom.com
Pat Phelans Blog: blog.roam4free.ie

Source: goebel.net

Jeff Pulver and Ken Camp are bored from what they’ve seen in VoIP lately. That’s why Jeff startet a "challenge for innovative disruptors with regards to the voice applications industry":

Think about presence and voice and instant messaging, take a look at the APIs of twitter and Facebook and pitch me on the service that you want to create. Those who get my attention might end up with the early-early seed capital needed to turn their dream into a reality.

So what could that be? Jeff doesnt want to hear about a service that’s simply a variation on Call Forwarding and/or Voicemail. It has to be something really different. Something cool. Something that truly helps to redefine communications.

I am really courious to see the winner of this competition. I don’t know why Jeff is so excited about Twitter and Facebook. To me these applications are mostly a waste of time. But what I would love to have is a "Hosted Fring with Grandcentral’s filter rules and international mobile callforward over GSM".

What does that mean?

I like Fring because it connects me with just one program to my contacts at Skype, MSN messenger and Google Talk. Lately it also works as a VoIP client. But only on my Nokia mobile phone!

Why isn’t there a website that does the same like Fring? Why isn’t Fring a hosted service? I would love to leave my login data for all these services on their website and connect to it over SIP from my ATA. A kind of Voxalot, but extended with Skype, MSN messenger and Google Talk.

Whenever somebody contacts me, my phone should ring. Outgoing calls to Skype, MSN, Google or phone numbers should also be made with my normal phone. The server would decide automatically how to connect the call, because it has call rules for that - like Voxalot has.

Incoming calls would be filtered like at Grandcentral. Annoying people could only leave a voicemail and good friends could ring my phone day and night.

This service should of course not only work over an ATA but also over the mobile phone network. Internationally! There are more and more international MVNOs slashing roaming charges and giving local fixed line numbers to mobile phones. This means they already have an own SIP infrastructure and GSM gateways in every country. If they can give me a local fixed line number in a country, they can also deliver cheaply the described calls from Skype, MSN, Google and my home VoIP providers over GSM.

Outgoing calls should be done the Nimbuzz way:

Call your IM buddies on their mobile or on their PC. At the cost of a local call, worldwide. No credits needed.

A small application on my mobile phone would always know which cheap number to call in every country to connect to the described network.

I am sure, that the despicted layout is possible. The guys at Fring, Grandcentral, Gtalk2VoIP, Skip2PBX and Roam4Free have already pieces of it in their hands.

More coverage about the challenge:

Andy Abramson, Jon Arnold, Pat Phelan, Aswath Rao, Alec Saunders, Russell Shaw and TIA Communities.

Source: goebel.net

What’s going on between the international MVNO Roam4Free and Google’s new acquisition Grandcentral?

Roam4Free’s CEO Pat Phelan tells in his blog that he and Chief Commercial Officer Sean OMahony, recently hired from Jajah, met with Grandcentral’s Craig Walker and the Google voice team at Google headquarters London.

Pat isn’t allow to tell more because he is "under electronic NDA". Just two fotos and the sentence "What were we doing at the Googleplex, oh thats a secret".

This gives pretty much room for speculation. I guess they are planning to bring GrandCentral to other countries than the US and make it mobile. This is very necessary for GrandCentral and would match well with Roam4Free’s latest strategy to give fixed line numbers from 28 countries to their users.

I like GrandCentrals services but it sucks to have only a US number. So I have to make a call forward from a German number to my GrandCentral number. Therefore I loose GrandCentrals call screening options and get a bad delay, since the call forward goes twice around the world.

That problem could be solved easily with some SIP configurations. If Roam4Free connected its SIP servers, Grand Central could directly offer local fixed line numbers from 28 countries. Also Roam4Free could help Grand Central users to make their cell phones ring at low cost in 115 countries, without high roaming charges.

Maybe Roam4Free is Googles next acquisition. I dont have any facts to sustain that, but wouldn’t be surprised.

GrandCentral gives you "one inbox" for life, where all voice messages can be stored for ever. With Google’s voice search capabilities these messages can soon be searchable in seconds, like the millions of emails that people have in their GMail accounts. It’s even possible to merge GMail and GrandCentral into "one inbox for life for voice and emails". Given the fact that Google is a large international company with worldwide dark fiber capacities you would just have to add Roam4Free to make that work as a great international phone service in over 115 countries.

But they are not alone. Remember the last news "Skype Founding Investor invests in United Mobile to "deliver a combination of Truphone, Jajah and Skype". This can result in something quite similar, based on another international MVNO, United Mobile, and Skype’s founding investor Morten Lund.

Source: goebel.net

Many of us travel a lot. This means high roaming charges and no local phone number in the country where you are. Some people yet decided to buy local SIM cards and put them in their cell phone whenever they arrive at the airport. For them Truphone has just presented their new Multi-SIM capability, which supports travellers who take international SIM cards with them abroad. Calls to their Truphone number will reach them whichever SIM they’re using at the time.

That’s nice, but even cooler is Roam4Free’s "Get a local fixed line number for any one of 28 countries on your SIM". Instead of exotic numbers from Estonia, Liechtenstein or the Isle of Man they will point local fixed line numbers for any one of 28 countries to their SIM cards when the new version of Roam4Free comes out. The customers can then be called on mobile phones with a local fixed line number.

Local numbers for global SIMs seem to be the new trend. The German company GlobalSIM has also started recently to give local fixed line numbers from 43 countries to their SIM card customers. That’s even better than Truphone’s Multi-SIM capability. But I see the disadvantage that this call forward will surely cost extra and the owner of the mobile phone has to remember many local numbers.

So I think that an entire new number range is missing for worldwide mobile telephony. The best thing would be a cheap interconnect to the ++882 or ++858 number range, or something similar. These are international codes that don’t belong to any particular country, but to ENUM services. It would be great if people could call them from every country for local prices. So you would never have to change SIM card or number for travel. You just had a virtual number, similar to German 032 numbers which don’t belong to a particular city but to VoIP.

Source: goebel.net

Skype’s founding investor Morten Lund is investing in the international mobile network operator United Mobile. That’s an international cell phone company, comparable to Roam4Free, GoSIM, BlueSIM, Che Mobil, GlobalSIM, SunSIM, TouristMobile or others, which allows outgoing calls at low rates in over 80 countries and to receive free incoming calls whithout roaming charges.

Morten Lund seems to brim over with enthusiasm for United Mobiles business strategy of combining its services with so called Web 2.0 functionality and says:

The business rationale behind United Mobiles decision to integrate Web 2.0 features into its service offering is compelling. The organisations key objective is to transfer the Skype model to the mobile phone for average Joe who is travelling. United Mobile will deliver a combination of Truphone, Jajah and Skype on a One SIM card Service. The company will be a leader in delivering free mobile telephony worldwide. This pioneering new business model will be widely adopted in the worlds leading mobile markets in the near future.

Free mobile telephony worldwide? That’s what we want! At least me and all the VoIP telephony tweakers out there who are always looking for the cheapest way to call.

But what about "Truphone, Jajah and Skype on one SIM card"? Is there something going on between these companies? As far as I know from my professional life, United Mobile would need an authorization to mention the other companies’ names in a press release. So where Truphone, Jajah and Skype involved in the press release? Or is United Mobile just name dropping them?

Is there something going on behind the courtain? A dark power forging a new VoIP empire out of these four companies?

As far as I see, United Mobile should have the best rates to terminate international cell phone calls. Truphone, Jajah and Skype could envy them. Also United Mobile has its own SIM cards. It would be very convenient for Truphone, Jajah and Skype if they could start their services from a SIM card, instead from their rather slowly phone client or mobile web page. Also it’s obvious that these three minute stealers cannot expect support from mobile incumbents. So it would make sense to cooperate with a worldwide mobile MVNO.

Truphone has just presented their new Multi-SIM capability, which supports travellers who take international SIM cards with them abroad. Calls to their Truphone number will reach them whichever SIM they’re using at the time. That’s nice, but could be even more convenient. Who wants to always change his SIM card whenever he or she arrives at the Airport? Maybe soon it’s not necessary anymore to change the SIM card? When will we see a real TruSIM? When a JajahSIM or a SkypeSIM?

Get out of the closet!

Fellow blogger Moshe Maeir already explained here and here how Jajah’s access to Intel’s patent portfolio helps them to embed Jajah’s telephony functions at the chip level of mobile phones. All these developments explain how VoIP companies drool over more speed on mobile phones. Their applications start pretty slow on often feeble and battery sucking cell phones. It takes a minute until you are connected to Wifi and have established a call with one of their softwares.

I guess: Either the four companies are developing secretly something together, to make their mobile VoIP applications start faster from a SIM card. Or United Mobile is developing an application to blow them all away. In this case they have just used the brand names of Truphone, Jajah and Skype for press release name dropping.

At least I’m sure that United Mobile’s next press release can be even more interesting. What do you think?

Source: andyabramson.blogs.com

I heard through the grapevine that Roam4Free is going live tomorrow.

While I have yet to see any real details, the source that tipped me off is impeccable and has never disappointed me.

Here’s the official word from Pat.