The Irish company behind a mobile phone which is claimed to drastically reduce international roaming and call charges has revealed plans to introduce a small business package this month after being “blown away” by the response from small companies to the initial announcement of the Cubic mobile.
Telecoms blogger Pat Phelan, who is chief executivce of Cubic Telecom, told Smart Company that of 1,000 enquiries it received in the first week following the announcement of its Cubic Mobile phone package, 750 had been from small businesses. “We were very surprised,” he said. “It’s something we didn’t imagine. We have been blown away by the response from small businesses.” He confirmed that Cubic plans to introduce a “complete small business package” this month. One company that contacted Cubic Telecom had five employees who frequently travel to Russia, resulting in typical roaming charges of EUR*1,500 a month. Phelan estimated Cubic’s small business package could save that business as much as EUR*1,000 a month.
Phelan suggested the Cubic Mobile could reduce roaming charges by up to 60 % in EU countries and by as much as 95% in countries outside the EU. The company has just launched a dual-band GSM/WiFi mobile phone for EUR*99.95 (a Windows Mobile version costs EUR*159.95). Customers of the service are able to log onto the company’s site and allocate local numbers in different countries for EUR*2 a month. This allows customers, suppliers or employees in those countries to call the customer’s Cubic Mobile phone for the price of a local call. This is possible because the phone uses WiFi, which Phelan describes as “Skype on a mobile”. But he claimed the call quality was much better as there was only a VoIP connection from the phone to Cubic Telecom’s switch because all the carriers were wired into the switch. Phelan compared it to giving a user “a global footprint on a EUR*99 phone”. Among other uses, small businesses that lacked a landline could use the Cubic Mobile to put a Dublin number (or a number from any other part of the country) onto their mobile. In addition, they could get Cubic to forward VoIP calls to their mobile when they are not in the office and not on WiFi, for a small charge. “It gives them a total PBX on a phone,” Phelan said. Interest had not been confined to small businesses, Phelan revealed. He said has also had enquiries from Wall Street companies. The company’s other product, a universal SIM card (MAXroam) that operates on any unlocked GSM phone, is also available for EUR*29.99, and he claims it offer users “the best country-to-country phone rates anywhere”. Phelan claimed the company had received an enquiry from a business interested in acquiring 1,700 MAXroam SIMs.
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