[wolfbln]

Hi.
As some of you may know, I'm the admin of the Prepaid Data Wiki.

When it comes to international SIM cards, they are struggling hard to maintain their position or find a new niche in the market. I can see that in the fact, that there is hardly another category/country where I need to tone down the offers as much and bring them to a level which is closer to reality. Some of them have gone down in price and some do now really offer good deals for some countries or regions. It remains a question whether this is too little or too late. Generally, the market for international roaming is changing rapidly and for me on the Wiki is hard to keep on track.

1.) More and more countries or operators unite in roaming regions. This happens by force in the EU, the Balcans or the Gulf states, but also voluntarily in North America and other regions.
This means for Europeans it has become much cheaper and easier to roam in neighbouring states, the same for US citizens going north or south.
But there are many countries not yet included within the regions and often some dangerous gaps remain (e.g. Switzerland).

2.) International SIM cards rarely offer better rates within these roaming regions. But their opportunity lies beyond in the regions not included, countries not covered and gaps remaining. Many soccer fans are going to travel to Russia for the World Cup for instance. Some also offer a good alternative to bypass local restrictions like Hong Kong roaming SIMs that break the Great Firewall of mainland China.

3.) Of course, there is always the chance to buy a local prepaid SIM in more than 200 countries as we have proven in the Prepaid Data Wiki with only few exceptions. This is why I will keep on administering the Wiki. For many countries it's still the cheapest choice. Of course, it's getting even better when you stay for longer and use it a lot.

So I think this triple market is what we are going to face for a while to come:
1.) more roaming unions for surcharge-free roaming zones in a region like the EU/EEA roaming zone
2.) international SIM cards for travellers who crisscross serveral regions and countries in a short time like business travellers, e.g. in combination with a wireless hotspot router (Skyroam, GLocalMe).
3.) local SIM cards predominantly for those who stay for longer, come back from time to time or have any other fixed link to that particular country.