One man’s frustration at being unable to call home from overseas has led to a company that puts a cheap GSM phone in your hand that works in 190 countries.
Regular IBIT readers know of my frustrations with trying to find a good cell phone that works locally abroad at a price that won’t bankrupt me before I get home.
It started the day the shuttle driver left us stranded at CDG airport in Paris a few years ago. The Blackberry Storm from Verizon Wireless, supposedly able to roam internationally in France, didn’t.
Next thing you know, I’m in the back of a West African émigré’s renegade taxi, with the windows cracked and the doorknobs and door panels coming off in my hand.
Even if the Storm had worked, the international roaming rates charged by Verizon and other US cell phone providers are high enough to make your heart race — and those are just for voice calls.
Accessing the Internet from your smartphone while overseas, especially via Verizon, could send your wallet into cardiac arrest.
Comes now this outfit called Mobal with spectacularly cheap GSM phones, which they swear up and down work not only in France — something they take great pains to emphasize — but 190 countries around the world.
(GSM and CDMA are the two operating standards used by nearly all the world’s cell phones today. CDMA is used mainly in the United States and China. The rest of the world is on GSM.)
And whether you opt for one of their basic “candy bar” phones or a larger, more capable Android smartphone, their prices are remarkably cheap.
The company that sells this stuff is the creation of Tony Smith, whose story you can read here (scroll down after opening the link).
Supposedly, he created Mobal after finding himself unable to easily stay in touch with folks back home during his international travels.
I’ve definitely felt his pain.
When you buy one of these phones, you get one international phone number that’s yours for life. You pay for the calls you make, no monthly contracts.
Their cheapest World Phone works in 170 countries. It won’t work in the United States — but odds are, you already have a phone that does, so that’s not likely to be an issue.
The rest of the World Phones work in 190 countries, including the U.S.
Don’t want to buy another phone for your international travel? Mobal will rent you one — a cell phone, a smartphone, even a satellite phone.
If you already have an unlocked GSM phone and just need a SIM card, they have those, too. Cheap.
They’ll even sell you one of their satellite phones if you think you really need one, but be warned. Once you start talking “satphones,” you’re talking big bucks, $550 to nearly $1,500, just for the phone.
Most of us aren’t going anyplace in the world where the need for digital communication is that dire.
The company has been around since 1989, which actually makes it older than nearly all the current U.S. cellular service providers.
As always, do your due diligence when looking into a company like this, but if you like the idea of affordable communications in your pocket regardless of where you are the world, Mobal might be worth investigating.
Edited by P.A.Rice