For only €10 (~$11.60) you can use WhatsApp for a year in 150 countries. Very cool, although it only provides basic texting functionality. Photos, videos, and other multimedia cost more using a credit system with variable pricing by country, according to @kfitchard at Gigaom.
@kfitchard@rrhoover I think basic texting is the critical component abroad. Main urgent use case is meeting people at specific dates/times without having data/cell coverage to contact them.
@kfitchard@rrhoover well well. careful here. 10Euros is the price for the sim card but then you have to pay for recharging it and you get credits that you can use based on the geography you re in and the type of file or message you re sharing.....not clear cut... http://www.whatsim.com/en/rates
@kfitchard@rrhoover@ourielohayon I read their Press Release and this excerpt explains it:
WhatSim costs just €10 and you can chat for free all over the world for a year. To continue chatting free and with no limits for a year, you will always pay €10. Of course only if you choose to use it. WhatSim has neither fixed costs nor monthly payments and it never expires.
WhatSim lets you exchange not only words, but also multimedia messages. To enable sharing photos, videos, voice messages or your location and contacts (which are notified free even without recharging), just buy a credit package starting from a minimum charge of €5. As Manuel Zanella explained, “The solution we have developed is simple and intuitive. With €5 you get 1000 credits that you can use, for instance, to exchange 50 photos or 10
videos in many countries around the world. There are no limits to sharing your position and contacts. This way we guarantee the utmost transparency. Buying a recharge is quick and easy: just go to our website even from your smartphone and soon even from a dedicated app.”
@kfitchard@rrhoover@ourielohayon@frankthousand this ruins the entire point of it, IMO. Their headline reads "Rates. All you pay is €10 and you can use it everywhere."
Yet, they have 6 zones and a complicated credit system. When will anyone learn that we already have the perfect "credits" system -- it's called money.
http://www.manuelzanella.it/abou.... I am Asking him to come here on PH.
Everyone would ask me: "Do you have WhatsApp?" But there's more. Many of our customers and Zeromobile dealers have started telling us recently: "OK, Zeromobile is really interesting and it makes me save money compared to my service provider but I'll be using WhatsApp during my trip." So I asked myself "WhatsApp?" One day in early December I decided to download the app on my iPhone and I tried it. I was immediately struck by something that I couldn't believe: over 90% of my contacts had WhatsApp. The world was really changing. WhatsApp is an app created two years ago and it now has over 700 million users. WhatsApp will probably be the future of mobile communication. What to do? The idea that came to mind a little later was to create a SIM specifically for WhatsApp: a WhatsApp Sim. The name came easy: "WhatSim" - Our potential customers are the 700 million people who are currently using WhatsApp.
Very cool, does something like this exist where you can you just buy a SIM that works everywhere for data as well? The whole researching a prepaid carrier in a new country and signing up for a new plan once you land can be frustrating sometimes.
Obviously, T-Mobile in the US does this to some extent, but for those of us who don't have T-Mobile...
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