I’ve just come off the phone from speaking with Pat Phelan of Cubic Telecom. He’s the guy who caused a BIG stir at the TechCrunch 40 event the other week by talking about a disruptive service he’s launched out of Ireland aimed at hacking out roaming charges.
Here’s the (current) deal: Buy a MaxRoam SIM for €29.99 that includes a €5 credit. Make calls anywhere in the world to anywhere else in the world from around €0.33 to €0.45 per minute. These figures include SMS charges but as yet don’t include data charges. Cubic has a calculator for you to work out the costs for yourself.
TechCrunch UK reported that in the first day, Cubic sold 500 MaxRoam SIM units. Today, they’re over 1,000 units. That’s incredible for a business that opened its doors last weekend. According to Pat, the largest number of enquiries has come from companies looking to shave telecomm costs. One company, a major Wall Street investment bank estimates its annual charges run at $1.8 million and is looking at Cubic as a way of making significant savings.
Pat says he’s now looking for funding because he needs to ramp production and distribution, especially in the US: “The intention is to drive the chip[ cost to zero.”
This kind of service is a no brainer. As I’ve previously said, roaming charges are a killer and a serious drain on resources. I wonder if Vinnie is taking notice of this one?
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