We’re here at Qik’s office in Redwood City, California, where Qik is holding a special event to make a new product announcement. Mary Coughlan, the deputy Prime Minister of Ireland, is here to make the announcement.
Qik is announcing a long term partnership with Pat Phelan’s company Cubic Telecom to create QikRoam. QikRoam is a special SIM card you can order today from the QikRoam website that allows users to travel abroad using Qik without having to worry about excessive roaming charges. The card supports 134 countries worldwide, and advertises 60-80% savings on roaming and data charges through deals Cubic Telecom has forged with many partners worldwide.
While this is a good deal for users that have to stream video, it can still turn expensive fast. Depending on where you are, you can expect to spend $100 in QikRoam credit to upload 45 minutes of video. Of course, uploading the same amount of data would be many times more expensive using standard roaming plans.
QikRoam will have two packages available. One is $34 dollars which includes $20 of calling credit, the other is $67.50, which includes $54 in calling credit. The service uses a white-labeled version of Cubic Telecom’s MAXRoam product (which we’ve covered before), so you can use them interchangeably.
In honor of the new product, Qik is holding a special promo: for users who buy Qik Roam cards in the next month, Qik is going to choose a random winner who will get a paid trip to Ireland.
Well done Cubic and Qik.
Why is this news?
Doesn’t seem like that big of a deal to me. Carriers will be supporting more data transfer as more 4g technologies rollout, so it seems like a short term play.
But the chances of them supporting it on an international level at an affordable price are very low. For travellers this is a big deal.
no one cares…boring….this is news? c’mon Jason….
Wack news.
Great to see home grown talent playing in the global market and helping disrupt the big comms gameplan.
Very good to see the Irish gov endorsing tech in the valley… they appear to be following the ‘best way out of a recession is through innovation’ path although last weeks emergency budget didn’t help!
Maxroam is nothing but a distributor of Global Roaming Inc based in the US.
It’s foolish to this product Irish. Qik simcard is 100% US.
Qik card is a rebranded Maxroam card which is itself a rebranded Celtrek sim card (owned by Global Roaming Inc.).
Maybe TC should check their Crunchbase database before publishing inaccurate news.
One will note Celtrek prices are half Maxroam prices too.
I was going to mention this but i think Maxroam and Celtrek both belong to Global Roaming Inc.
My new Celtrek card was shipped to me last week and is indeed the same as Maxroam.
Global Roaming is powering most of international sims out there. I see no harm in this. My concern is that Qik teamed up with a distributor and not the actual provider. Bad choice.
Glad to c the progress Pat and nice Kudos on the ‘royalty’.
Sound quality not that great.
Lal