Too Good to be True?
 

Check out this offer:

Voyager Mobile promises free global roaming with 'patent-pending' technology -- Engadget

Hmmm... Unlimited US service for $19/month... It really makes me wonder if their "Voyager Mobile Nationwide Network" is not WiFi based.

So far lots of sizzle but no steak. From: Roaming - Voyager Mobile

Sounds something like Republic Wireless, a MVNO on Sprint (CDMA) that costs $20/mo for unlimited everything but the catch is that only usage on WiFi is unlimited. Usage on the cellular carrier is very limited. The phone automatically attempts to connect to WiFi signals and use them rather than cellular. Republic mentions that you can take your RW phone on international trips and use it where you have access to WiFi.

Note my snide comment in the comment section: "no 'roaming' on a wifi net near you."

The press release does says that it is coming in 2013 so the FAQs are not inconsistent. Her is the press release:

http://www.voyagermobile.com/newsroo...ternationally/

I pay $9 a month for "Line2" which is a VOIP number which is like a virtual mobile number in terms of text and phone calls over wifi. When I am off net, it forwards the numbers to me and I can call through it as well. When I first signed up, it had a callback service as well but they killed it. I have ATT's old unlimited international iPhone data plan and it does a particularly good job with VOIP Over 3g. They have an Android version as well, but it is not quite as good. The advantage to the Android version is that Android has better tight integration. Answering an inbound VOIP call on a password protected iPhone can be a trick.

Voyager talks about a hybrid CDMA/GSM phone coming next year. I can think of dual IMSI SIMs, callback numbers, VOIP Over 3g but I have a hard time believing you can put out a consumer friendly phone that does all these things dynamically. Trying to tell non-technical people about judgment factors to use when trying a VOIP Over 3g call is pretty hard.

You can limit roaming so that certain expensive countries simply aren't options, but I'm having a hard time with this one.

as in their phone shop are some SPRINT phones this is most likely the used network :-)

Their coverage map also duplicates Sprint's native coverage map.

My read of this is that they are trying to be cagey and not telling you what they're about. They have unlimited international roaming but they don't support use outside the US. Seems fishy to me. It sounds like a rework of Republic, where you can use your Republic handset anywhere in the world as long as you have a high speed WiFi connection.

Again, the release speaking about the unlimited international roaming speaks about a GSM/CDMA hybrid so they have said something which discounts the notion that it is US coverage plus wifi without any geographic restrictions. Let's assume that they exclude the most pricey roams, add fair usage restrictions, etc.

I still don't see how a small carrier could make it work. Vodafone might have the muscle to bulldoze through enough favorable roamings to pull something like that off. If they did, I would anticipate you would be paying at least €200 a month with some restriction to make sure that the person actually lives in a Vodafone region (e.g. at least one day every 60 days on your home network).

Then there is data. I pay US$64.99 for unlimited worldwide data with ATT. They ringfenced the program as soon as the iPhone took off. VOIP Over 3g works in areas with upgraded networks about 70% of the time. I don't see how it can ever work 100% of the time.