As I received no response to this in the “Where can I find” section, let me try it here:
Hi,
Does any of the phone companies provide roaming in the region (HK, Singapore,Philippines…) on a PRE-PAID card?
Thanks
SWR
In a word, NO.
The GSM network allows for roaming, subject to agreements between operators. However, due to the difficulties involved with passing information between companies, the billing is not instantaneous.
In other words, there is no way to track your phone usage on a different network. When you roam with a post-paid service it can take up to 45 working days for the charges to be passed to your service provider. Obviously if you can’t be hunted down and forced to pay the fees you’re not going to get the service.
(I had a guy roaming with one of my SIM cards a couple of years back who spent almost NT$20,000 before I even knew he was doing it.)
Roaming fees are ridiculous anyway. Just go with the local prepaid cards.
45 days and you didn’t know your SIM card was missing?
I used to rent SIM cards out, under an agreement with Taiwan Dageda. I had online real-time billing. Roaming was disabled because of the problems with obtaining up-to-date information.
Due to some glitch, someone did manage to activate roaming and it did take a long time before I knew anything about it as the charges only showed up - late - on my monthly statements.
OIC~ Interesting that someone could activate roaming… but I suppose if phones are hacked enough these days to remove SIM card restrictions, then roaming should be able to be hacked too…
Roaming is controlled by the network (for each number / SIM), not in the phone. As Loretta mentioned there was some glitch, probably it was not deactivated and the user of that SIM figured this out.
Thanks for all the feedback.
But just for the record, Loretta: Most European GSM operators do offer roaming on pre-paid cards.
So the technical reasons behind why Taiwanese ones don’t must be flawed somewhere…
The charges ARE ridiculous. I’ll never understand why I have to pay 10 times more for calling, say, London from Paris than for calling Marseille…
SWR
There is now some progress in Europe concerning the ridiculous roaming fees. There is a new European law coming that will restrict the roaming prices to be more expensive than a defined amount, I think 50 €urocent/minute.
Bye, Sebastian