International data roaming: a market primed for disruption

An associate, who is a regular traveller across various European countries and China, told me of a recent outrageous bill that he received from his Singapore telco provider, Starhub, to an estimated tune of US$4,000! Despite his pleas and explanation that there was no alert from the telco sent to his Blackberry which was silently downloading heavy file attachments in the background, the customer service was unforgiving and unwilling to relent on the bill payment. The bill is still currently in dispute.

Bill shocks are not uncommon as friends who have travelled overseas have complained of similar situations. And while telcos claim that they act in the best interests of customers by alerting them, they are still more than happy to pound hefty charges onto unsuspecting travellers, using extensive overloaded legal jargon agreements as their right to bill you. In 2011, a Singapore traveller to Taiwan was charged by Singtel a whopping US$8,500 in data roaming charges that was not within the Bridgeroam plan. Legal to bill? Yes. Ethical pricing? It is daylight robbery.

With the rise of the frequent traveller moving across multiple countries and the insatiable demand to be connected with convenience, is the data roaming market a market ripe for disruption, especially for the huge increase of smartphone Asian global travellers?

Opportunities for disruption

According to Juniper Research, global operator revenues from mobile roaming data is to set hit US$42b by 2018. This is a real huge market opportunity. An article by Telecoms.com further adds, “Mobile data roaming is expected to show substantial growth due to the popularity of app stores and the ongoing success of smartphones, delivering a 28 per cent CAGR or a 246 per cent increase over the five year period.”

The article further comments that “EU regulations have presently limit roaming spend to €50 per trip”. This is great for EU countries but I have been unable to find any regulations set in other parts of the world, especially for Asia. And knowing the differences in telco development stages for each Asian country, it will take a very long time before an established regulatory framework on data roaming pricing will come into place. But until then, Asian incumbent telco providers would have been laughing their way to the bank, preying on unsuspecting travelers. While they claim that they alert you, I liken it to an honourable robber who informs you first before he robs you.

Few existing solutions

I googled “international data roaming sim cards” and a list of potential startup telco providers are available. Some boast of 1 unified sim card which can cross into multiple countries. I browsed through a few of the websites but found the various configurations complicated. To my heavy traveling friends I have asked, many are unaware of such services and would not mind considering such an option. They highlighted the trust and simplicity factors are must-haves before signing up.

In any case, I do hope for a solution to disrupt this unfair and unethical charging. Tri5 Ventures is open to invest in a telco startup that one day brings alignment of international data roaming, just like how Whatsapp brought the telcos down to its knees on their SMS/MMS market segment. Maybe then, telcos will have to eat humble pie and re-train their customer service to be more accommodating and friendly to customers.

This is a new market vertical to me. I would love to hear from the community on any policies that has been established in Asia, solutions for data roaming that you have tried and think it is great or anything in regards to this topic. Let’s make life easier together.