One SIM. Multiple Numbers. Multiple Countries.

From Afghanistan to Zimbabwe, users of MaxROAM SIMs can assign as many as 50 separate phone numbers to their MaxRoam SIM from as many as 28 countries simultaneously (MaxRoam on the whole can offer you numbers from 160 different countries, but only 28 of them simultaneously).

Through the Buy another number menu item on the left hand side of the screen, MaxRoam users are offered the opportunity to buy a new number from any one of the supported countries for an average cost of 2 euros per number per month.

If, for example, you buy a number for France, it will greatly reduce the inbound roaming charges to you when people from France call that number (while saving them the cost associated with making international calls).

For David Berlind’s write-up on MaxRoam, see his post in ZDNet’s TestBed blog.

Picking a USA-based number for a phone

When selecting a number to map to a MaxRoam SIM, the user interface is very much like the way Skype works when picking a Skype-In number for mapping inbound plain old telephone system calls to your Skype account. Once you pick a number, anybody who dials that number (anybody who you give that number to) can reach you on your cell phone.

MaxRoam SIMs also support WiFi-based outbound and inbound calling. So, if you buy a WiFi number for your phone and you’re connected to a WiFi network, people can call any of the numbers that are associated to the WiFi radio, and it will ring through to your phone.

For David Berlind’s write-up on MaxRoam, see his post in ZDNet’s TestBed blog.

MaxRoam numbers can be freely forwarded

Any of the MaxRoam numbers associated with your SIM can be forwarded to another number (eg: a landline) at no forwarding cost. Roaming charges would still apply though… for example, if someone called one of your numbers and it involved some form of roaming. Even then however, the roaming charges are still remarkably less expensive than those you’d typically get with other carriers.

For David Berlind’s write-up on MaxRoam, see his post in ZDNet’s TestBed blog.

Cubic Telecom/MaxRoam WiFi Phone Setup Screen

After “selecting” the antenna on the previous screen, this is the resulting menu. The choice we are looking for (to continue with WiFi setup) is “HotSpot” (see next screen).

For David Berlind’s write-up on MaxRoam, see his post in ZDNet’s TestBed blog.

Cubic Telecom/MaxRoam WiFi Phone Setup Screen

Here, we’ve “moused down” to “HotSpot” and now, we press the silver rocker button to select the Hotspot menu item.

For David Berlind’s write-up on MaxRoam, see his post in ZDNet’s TestBed blog.

Cubic Telecom/MaxRoam WiFi Setup Screen

Picking “Edit Act. Settings”

For David Berlind’s write-up on MaxRoam, see his post in ZDNet’s TestBed blog.

Cubic Telecom/MaxRoam WiFi Setup Screen

After selecting “Edit Act. Settings,” we want to scan the airwaves for available WiFi networks to connect the phone to.

For David Berlind’s write-up on MaxRoam, see his post in ZDNet’s TestBed blog.

Cubic Telecom/MaxRoam WiFi Setup Screen

Choices at this point are scan or security. The security screen is where you’d enter encryption key data (eg: WEP). We want scan to look for an open WiFi hotspot.

For David Berlind’s write-up on MaxRoam, see his post in ZDNet’s TestBed blog.

Cubic Telecom/MaxRoam WiFi Setup Screen

We can manually enter a hotspot’s SSID or we can scan for it. For simplicities sake, we’ll pick “Scan.”

For David Berlind’s write-up on MaxRoam, see his post in ZDNet’s TestBed blog.

Cubic Telecom/MaxRoam WiFi Setup Screen

The phone begins its scan of the airwaves….

For David Berlind’s write-up on MaxRoam, see his post in ZDNet’s TestBed blog.

Cubic Telecom/MaxRoam WiFi Setup Screen

The phone says it has saved the bitbuzz hotspot as its WiFi connection….

For David Berlind’s write-up on MaxRoam, see his post in ZDNet’s TestBed blog.

Cubic Telecom/MaxRoam Home Screen w/WiFi Connection

And now, we are back at the phone’s “home screen” where it shows that it has signal strength from two different networks: the GSM signal on the left (note that it says Vodaphone IE in the middle.. that’s the GSM carrier in Ireland) and WiFi on the right (when it says “Cubic” in the middle, it means that the phone is registered as a handset on the Cubic Telecom network via a WiFi connection).

For David Berlind’s write-up on MaxRoam, see his post in ZDNet’s TestBed blog.

Picking GSM or WiFi for a call

When getting ready to make a a call, you dial the number and select the “Options” button in order to pull up a choice to place the call over GSM (SIM) or WiFi. Calling via WiFi to anywhere in the world is 1 cent per minute for all outbound calls and free when receiving calls.

For David Berlind’s write-up on MaxRoam, see his post in ZDNet’s TestBed blog.

Picking GSM or WiFi for a call

To place a call using the WiFi hotspot, you pick “Call via WLAN”

For David Berlind’s write-up on MaxRoam, see his post in ZDNet’s TestBed blog.

Picking GSM or WiFi for a call

After choosing WLAN, you briefly get a “Requesting” status screen.

For David Berlind’s write-up on MaxRoam, see his post in ZDNet’s TestBed blog.

WiFi Call in Progress

Once the call is in progress, you’ll see a small “W” indicating that the call was placed over the WiFi connection instead of the SIM (or GSM) connection.

For David Berlind’s write-up on MaxRoam, see his post in ZDNet’s TestBed blog.