If you are travelling aboard and worry about data roaming (and you should), then Singtel Bridge DataRoam Unlimited for iPhone might be a great thing for you. Sometimes when travelling, you do need to check your emails (especially business trips) as well as information on the internet (such as your google maps etc). Data roaming costs are crazy and hence, it is great to have a service like Singtel Bridge DataRoam Unlimited.
The idea is that you pay one price (SGD 20) for a full whole day of internet Surfing, emails and apps download for your iPhone. Basically anything and everything you can do in Singapore, you can do so in the 7 countries that Singtel so far provided this service for.
1. Australia (Optus)
2. Hong Kong (CSL)
3. Macau (CTM)
4. Malaysia (Maxis)
5. Philippines (Globe)
6. Taiwan (Taiwan Mobile)
7. Thailand (AIS)
It is a flexible Day to Day Usage. That means, you don’t have to subscribe to a plan or paying for every single day of your trip. Only if you activate the plan, you will be charged for the day.
To activate, when you are overseas, you need to make sure you are connected to the sole provider in that country that Singtel has worked with. For example, in Hong Kong, that’s CSL. That means, you must ALWAYS be using CSL. Else you will faint when you are data roaming, thinking you are on the CSL network but ended up in another network actually. The reason is because most phones have automatic network settings that connect you automatically to the best network. Well, you dun want the best network.. you want the ONLY network that Singtel has provided you with for the country you are visiting. So you MUST make sure you stay connected to that network. You can do so safely by manually setting the network to CSL instead of allowing your iPhone to choose a network and risking leaving CSL. Do that once you arrived at the country and then…
Then you just need to either dial *7626) or sms *7626 to 3333 while overseas.
I used the SMS method and found that a series of instructions will be sent to you. Each SMS will come and you can then answer the options available for that SMS. About 3 steps are needed (if I recall correctly). After that you are safely surfing with just SGD20 per day !
Also regardless of when you sign up, the service starts from midnight (Singapore time) and ends at 11:59 pm (Singapore time). That means, it makes most sense to sign up in the morning (and hence enjoy the service from morning to night) rather than sign up at night. So dun rush to sign up if you arrived at the destination when the Singapore time is actually 9 pm already 🙂
My personal experience has been great. In my recent trip to Hong Kong, I used it every day as I refer to google maps, trip itinerary in Dropbox servers, my trip notes in Evernote and also checking emails and using Wifi SMS services. I did some Facebooking as well as some Twittering too. I never felt out of touch at all with cyberspace.
These were my charges for the trip. As confirmed it is only SGD 20 per day.
These are my data roaming charges if I did not use the service above and daringly use overseas data roaming 🙂
Not too much. Just $2800 🙂
Try it on your next trip out of town !