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Ask HN: One World One Simcard

8 points by cheekypaolo ↗ HN
Hi everyone. I would like to get feedback on an idea I had to gauge its viability:

The Problem: As a frequent traveler (on a budget) to different countries I always find myself having to buy new sim cards in each country I visit to get network and data access while I'm in that country.

This involves keeping tracking of all my different sim cards for each country and taking them with me everywhere I go. Using the roaming features is just not viable due to the insane charges that are incurred. There are currently providers that offer a "one-sim" service but these services still dictate the prices that you have to use and have somewhat limited offerings / selections when it comes to packages.

The Solution: Why not create a service (website / app)that allows you to use one generic sim card all the time, but manage the networks you belong to via a website / app? For example, when currently visiting a new country, you would have to go into a shop / contact call center and get a new sim card to use any of a network provider's services.

Instead, now you would just log into your "One-Sim" account, select the network and package you want to join from a list of networks available in that country. The service would then register you on that network and then add that network to your global list of available networks. You then just switch to that network via the website / app and voila you are on the new network using one of their packages / contracts. When you return to another country, you simply go back to the app, select the network for that country and then the app connects you to that network.

Advantages / Disadvantages to follow...

3 comments

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cheekypaolo
Advantages: - Let's you choose your own network provider(s) in a country - Let's you take advantage of a network's specials (for example a cheap 20GB data bundle) - Let's you switch network providers by visiting a website/app instead of changing sim cards. - The networks still get their full rates

Disadvantages / Problems: I'm sure there are some so feel free to add. The main obstacle that I can think of is that you might have to contact and create relationships with all the network providers around the globe, which may be a very political process. I don't have much knowledge in this area but maybe someone in the mobile industry could fill in the possible setbacks and problems related to the mobile industry.

skram
It's no doubt a VERY political process. They will likely not be interested in working with you unless you have a ton of users or will pay for the time they need to integrate with whatever system you build and even then I'm sure it'd be hard to convince them.

I'm pretty convinced that the only way to have a phone that will work in EVERY country, for now, is to get a satellite phone which has a moderate up front cost and a comparatively significant marginal cost (per minute).

Good luck though!

schoash
What about the places, which don't use sim cards?