TravelSIM undercuts Telecom, Vodafone roaming

After being available in Australia and Europe for a number of years, TravelSIM's services have now gone live in New Zealand.

The service isn’t afraid of stirring up a bit of competition in New Zealand’s telco market either.

TravelSIM says its service offers "substantially lower roaming charges for New Zealand consumers, who have long paid through the nose when using their mobile phones overseas”.

The new SIM service is offering Kiwi consumers a rate at about a quarter of the price of current rates via its global roaming network of 350 carriers.

James Currah, chief executive of TravelSIM New Zealand, said, "It’ll easily save Kiwis travelling overseas hundreds of dollars in roaming charges; some travellers will save thousands of dollars.”

TravelSIM is prepaid and can be topped up through their handset menu or online. Users receive a new number which they keep for all the countries they’ll travel in.

The SIM card (which costs $50) is placed in the existing mobile phone handset while travelling overseas.

The cost of five-minute call from London back to New Zealand (as of March 8th):

Vodafone - $13.95

Telecom - $14.45

2Degrees - $21.95

TravelSIM - $2.70

Currah says TravelSIM customers globally save, on average, 75% on the cost of international roaming. TravelSIM is also free to receive calls in more than 70 countries.

Check out the TravelSIM website for more details.