KnowRoaming review
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I finally got to test the KnowRoaming sim
sticker out on a recent trip to Singapore (I originally wanted to test it out
on previous trip to South Korea, but I just could not get the service to work. Sorry, didn’t take any photos of the sim
sticker, etc but the KnowRoaming website does explain everything in quite a bit
of detail, including various Youtube videos.
Just to back-up a bit, what is KnowRoaming? Basically it is a service whereby you place a
specially designed sticker (that has various sim contacts) over your existing
sim card. You then use your sim card as
you would usually do. With Android
phones, KnowRoaming utilises the Sim application toolkit (Sim Toolkit). When you are in your “home” country you use
your phone as usual. However the magic
is supposed to happen when you are abroad. When abroad, you use the KnowRoaming service
to help reduce roaming rates. The ultimate
benefit is for data roaming, where, you are charged about US$8 a day in
countries where KnowRoaming has an agreement. At moment the coverage includes most of Europe
and North America (but not Canada) and some parts of Asia Pacific (the Asia
Pacific coverage is limited to the bigger economies and at present China isn’t
covered). US$8 a considerably cheaper
than what local networks are charging for data roaming (for example with Hong
Kong mobile carriers daily data roaming rates are roughly US$17 – 25 a day). You can also benefit from cheaper call and
SMS rates.
So that’s the theory, how was it in
practice? I should point out, I’m basing
my experience on an Android phone (Sony Xperia D6633, which is a dual sim
phone). The procedures for iphones may
vary slightly.
Overall I was able to get the service to
work, but this was after numerous emails to KnowRoaming support and many phone
restarts, going into Sim Toolkit.
Applying the sim sticker was generally
fine, just follow the instructions provided by KnowRoaming. What I did find though, was that after the
sticker was applied, putting the sim back into the phone, was a bit of a
tighter squeeze (no surprise there though). You then download the Knowroaming app and this
is where things are supposed to run.
With Android, you have a constant notification with the Sim Toolkit,
which can be annoying. This can be
turned off, but you need to email KnowRoaming support for instructions. While in your “home” country, there is really
no difference from using your phone as normal.
You can purchase 1 day, 3 day or 7 days
data passes, however the price still works out at about US$8 a day. Reason for purchasing multi day passes is you
don’t need to worry about buying a pass daily, which can be important (more details
below). You can purchase the passes
before you get to your destination, but they can only be activated when you are
using the KnowRoaming sim.
Now when abroad what should theoretically
happen is that you should automatically switch over to the KnowRoaming sim. You do need to have data roaming
enabled. You should know the KnowRoaming
sim is working, because this should be updated on the Sim Toolkit and on the KnowRoaming
app, which should show the KnowRoaming sim as the active sim. Once this happens, you need to update your
APN but this wasn’t working. This is
where things got a bit convoluted for me.
While Sim Toolkit was showing the KnowRoaming sim as active, the KnowRoaming
app wasn’t. Also it seems I was not
being connected to a network. After
emailing support I basically had to go through a 12 step process of disabling
the KnowRoaming service and then re-enabling it. After that the APN worked. Word of caution here, the minute the APN
starts working and you are abroad, data starts getting used. This means any credit you have starts getting
eaten. You need to activate your
pre-purchased data pass ASAP. This is
quite annoying I have to say. And this
is why, if you can, you might want to purchase the multi day packages, because once
your package runs out, your prepaid credit will get eaten up.
I noticed that while Sim Toolkit was
showing I was using the KnowRoaming sim, the KnowRoaming app had me on my “home”
sim. There were a lot of emails with
support to try and fix this. This
involved things like reinstalling the KnowRoaming app, logging in and out of
the app and manually disabling the service and re-enabling it, but to no avail. This did mean to that it took a few tries to
actually get my data service to be activated.
The data service was working fine once activated, but I would not be
able to activate another day’s service, unless the KnowRoaming app shows you on
the Knowroaming service. Speaking of the
app, I did find using it quite cumbersome, and sometimes took a few key presses
to actually get it to react. The problem
was down to the fact I was using a dual sim phone. It seems the KnowRoaming app does not like
dual sim phones. I have a dual sim phone
so I can keep my work number and personal number on the same phone. The only way I was able to get the KnowRoaming
app to work was to disable my other sim card.
So what do I think of the service? When it works it’s great. The price point is probably very good for a
weekend trip, anything longer, you are probably better off getting a local sim
card. This is the perspective of an
individual user. For a business, the KnowRoaming
service does has some obvious benefits. You
save on data roaming and your employees don’t have to mess about with changing sim
cards, etc. However the setup of the
service (especially the first time round) is a bit convoluted, which I can see
people being put off by. KnowRoaming
support is very responsive, but I found they didn’t really solve my problem
(this was down to me trying different things out).
Would I use this service again? That really depends. The fact that for me, I had to turn off my
other sim card, this is really not practical.
If they are able to deal with this issue with their app, then maybe I
would use the service. I also feel it
needs to be a bit more “user friendly”.
I am reasonably technologically capable, but I could see the likes of my
wife or some of my colleagues struggling to deal with the service if things do
not work. If KnowRoaming are able to
sort their app and the process of using their service out, then I would maybe
use it again. I would definitely use it
again if they bring the price of their data plan down and also increase their
coverage, especially in Asia Pacific. At
the moment, as it presently stands, I won’t be using their service.
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