GLocalMe

[squawk1200]

Anyone have experience with this company? Looks like a data only device with a backup battery capability....

http://en.glocalme.com/?___store=english

[snidely]

It seems to be a partially completed website. If you click on the order button, it just says "coming soon".

[dg7feq]

use their old website, it has much more information
http://www.glocalme.com/

[Stu]

Originally Posted by dg7feq

use their old website, it has much more information
http://www.glocalme.com/

There is some discussion going on about them over on Flyertalk.com in the Travel Technology forum.

http://www.flyertalk.com/forum/trave...olution-3.html

They have a kickstarter going for an LTE device on the same basic plan. The number of countries looks interesting. I have to say that I've been moving more towards multi-country solutions. I didn't buy anything local in Australia and relied on Toggle, plus my ATT international data plan in my iPhone, and using a Skyroam modem one day for an office emergency. It is hard to calculate the exact costs, but we have Diamond with Hilton which means that we have free in hotels, I have a Boingo courtesy of one of my credit cards, and I have the ATT on my iPhone which means most of the time I have LTE roaming and free VOIP calling to the US.

In Dubai, I bought a prepaid to have a local number to deal with friends. (I used to live there and taxis). As I'm getting older and lazier and the price difference is closing, I'm less inclined to run around town to save $30. If it is saving $300, sure, but there is some convenience factor. As Google Project Fi, Three, and TMobile USA are offering affordable solutions coupled with what the EU is doing to roaming rates the days of insane roaming rates is starting to seem numbered.

[dg7feq]

the interesting thing is that they claim to use a "cloud SIM", so most propably run some sim servers and push local identities to the SIM in the mobile. They cover too many countries to be just multi-IMSI with pre-configured SIM cards.

[GadgetKen]

I looked at SkyRoam and GLocalMe but both have weak coverage in the Caribbean other than US Caribbean (PR, USVI). GLocalMe promises future coverage in Dominican Republic and Cuba but doesn't list other destinations.
Still they are intriguing offers. SkyRoam seem to a better value for heavier use (although speeds are throttled after about 350 mb of usage) and GLocalMe seems to be better for a la carte by the mb for lighter users.

[Stu]

Cuba is going to be a tough run until there is a second player. Right now the Cuban carrier is going to not have the incentive to lower the prices. They have very limited internet access, have an antiquated infrastructure, and the need to revamp it to support foreign tourism growth.

[andy]

Originally Posted by Stu

Cuba is going to be a tough run until there is a second player. Right now the Cuban carrier is going to not have the incentive to lower the prices. They have very limited internet access, have an antiquated infrastructure, and the need to revamp it to support foreign tourism growth.

Well, maybe lifting economic sanctions will help.

I remember reading some time ago most of the telecoms including the internet were via satellite, and they hoped to improve things dramatically with a new submarine cable from Venezuela.

Meanwhile a cable from Florida to Yucatán passes within 50 km of Havana. That might be somewhere for the three countries to start investing.

[DRNewcomb]

Originally Posted by andy

Well, maybe lifting economic sanctions will help.

I remember reading some time ago most of the telecoms including the internet were via satellite, and they hoped to improve things dramatically with a new submarine cable from Venezuela.

Meanwhile a cable from Florida to Yucatán passes within 50 km of Havana. That might be somewhere for the three countries to start investing.

I've read someplace that until 1992 the major communications link between Cuba and the rest of the world was an old tropospheric scatter link to south Florida, operated by AT&T. This had been in place before sanctions went into effect and could continue to operate but could not be upgraded. The Florida side of the link was destroyed by Hurricane Andrew. A cable to Venezuela sounds more political than practical. Jamaica or Mexico would serve as well (if not better) and be much closer.

[andy]

Originally Posted by DRNewcomb

A cable to Venezuela sounds more political than practical. Jamaica or Mexico would serve as well (if not better) and be much closer.

I found this, that the link to Venezuela opened in Jan 2013, and to Jamaica in May 2013

research.dyn.com/2013/05/cuba-jamaica-link-activated/

Their later article has a map of cables all over the Caribbean

http://research.dyn.com/2014/12/whats-next-cuba/