WhatSim, a SIM Card for WhatsApp(whatsim.com) |
WhatSim, a SIM Card for WhatsApp(whatsim.com) |
All Sims make you chat. But this one for free and without limits.
It's not free, it costs €10 for a year. Why then do they also claim 'it never expires' ? Why do they say that it has no limits, when the Rates page is full of limits?
I despise such deliberately misleading text. These people are behaving appallingly. Put up a simple page explaining the costs please (even the Rates page talks in terms of 'credits' and can't bring itself to talk about actual money except in the small print).
The website leaves me with the impression that this company is out to con me.
€10 per year but they say "no expiry".
€.25 per photo (sent or received, I think)
€.50 per video
That's just for Zone 1. More than triple those prices if you're in Australia or any Zone 2 country.. and more than 6 times those prices if you're in Canada or any Zone 3 country.
It may be obvious to someone else, but I'd like to know how they detect a photo or video being sent, rather than text? WhatsApp is end-to-end encrypted, so they can't be proxying the data to the servers. Are they just guessing from the total data transfer seen from the subscriber?
There's a lot of unanswered questions. The CEO appears to have a fairly poor track record of running this kind of freemium global-SIM project, too, having done some digging. I'll watch with interest.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Multimedia_Messaging_Service
Edit: apparently not. The FAQ page states the SIM works only for Whatsapp, not for texts.
Okay they do say chat, but for users chat means much more than just text chat. But... its not free of charge, indeed its 10$ a year. and the 5$ for 10 vids or 20 pics is rediculous.
Realistically, this is just par for the Telecom Space. I've put together a nice collage that is ready to print to brochure. It could easily be an AT&T/Verizon/Comcast/Dish/DirectTV/TimeWarner newspaper insert.
`WhatSim is the stroke of genius of Manuel Zanella, founder and CEO of Zeromobile.`
To be able to send photos, videos, and voice messages and to share your location and contacts, all you need to do is buy a recharge. With a €5 recharge you receive 1,000 credits that allow you to exchange 50 photos, 10 videos or 200 voice messages in most countries. Plus sharing your position and contacts is unlimited.
Wow, so many contradictions!
There are no monthly payments, but it's €10/year.
It never expires, but you have to renew it every year.
You can chat for free and without limits, but multimedia messages cost extra.
To share our contacts and location you must buy a "recharge", but sharing your position and contacts is unlimited.
I don't trust this service one bit, I suspect it will be full of sneaky charges and misleading smallprint.
If this is the trend, then those quad-sim crappy phones I got from China will finally be useful! One for WhatsApp, one for netflix, one for phone, one for internet.
Honestly I don't know who will ever use this..
Also, when I first read the title, I thought: cool, they implemented the WhatsApp protocol on a sim card, so feature phones can chat on WhatsApp! How disappointed I am.
The Moto G is an affordable, 5", dual-sim phone that sells for 200 USD here, no contract. That's 1/8 of an iPhone 6+ (here).
This could sell like crazy in my country (even more if one could also use Waze - make it the w-sim).
Or even layovers in foreign countries where I want to leave the airport for a few hours and not buy a SIM.
That being said I'd like it if the website was a bit more straight forward and ,if they feel like it, maybe some ssl on the Buy page.
- It's a SIM Sticker that sticks onto your existing SIM - When you roam, it activates, and uses its networks (but you can disable it, as you wish) - Calls, SMS etc are available at very decent rates. - Data is available at very reasonable rates (10c - 25c per MB - this is amazing for roaming) - Coverage is very, very good. I worked my way through Turkey, Iran, Iraq, the stans, Asia, Australia, South America, Russia.. all with coverage.
Highly recommended, and not some dodgy service.
If it works as promised that's a great product so the marketing profession in me is disappointed with the website.
Seems like it is legit. The payment gateway page shows that payment goes to ZeroMobile.it. Yeah.. i think they need a better flow.
They probably use Jasper Wireless (just like Kindle 3G)
This just reeks of bad design and the limitations of tying the chat-protocol user-ID to a phone-number.
Until I can log on (anywhere) using a username or email, I'm not going to consider whatsapp a messaging-service for the internet-age.
It doesn't. This is a way to get flat-rate global pricing for texting.
I understand that it is a sim that permits data-only connectivity for a large number of networks around the world. What I'm having difficulty with is understanding how the sim limits the user to using only whatsapp. Does the sim analyse network traffic content or endpoint to block non-whatsapp data? Is the whatsapp software supplied on the sim as an STK application that has sole access to the data channel? Something else?
What am I missing?
1. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mobile_virtual_network_operator
Does WhatSim work on all phones?
Yes, it works on all unlocked phones.
That question should be answered with a NO then. It doesn't work on all phones.
For most countries where SIMs are commonly in use (i.e. not the US where CDMA is still a thing and not all consumers are comfortable with GSM), people generally understand that to change SIM you need an unlocked phone. I think the question is intended to answer whether you need a phone on a specific GSM or UMTS band, which you don't.
<block>WhatSim is the stroke of genius of Manuel Zanella, founder and CEO of Zeromobile. In 2003, after his honeymoon in Kenya where he spent a fortune in phone calls, Manuel Zanella had the idea of creating a SIM card to reduce the cost of international roaming. In 2007 he created Zeromobile, the mobile company for low cost roaming that allows you to save up to 85% on the cost of incoming and outgoing calls, text messages and mobile Internet. And you can receive free in over 140 countries. Now with this new idea, WhatSim, he has created a revolutionary SIM card to chat for free with WhatsApp, the world's most popular messaging system.</block>
Will I have to switch between a dozen SIM cards in a few years when I want to send an iMessage, a Facebook message, upload an Instagram photo, conduct a Google Hangout session. Oh hell no.
Just give me a 4G enabled SIM card, a reasonable data limit (ie. 5GB) for an affordable price. I'll figure out by myself what I will use this mobile broad band connection for, thanks.
I'd get an unlimited voice and unlimited data SIM and that would be the end of it.
Edit: I would definitely pay 10 EUR for something like this on top of my current plan. In the spirit of net neutrality, it shouldn't be tied to a single service, though. Instead, they could just sell a low rate data connection.
Then you're probably not part of the target market. In a lot of developing countries (India etc), WhatsApp is the primary reason to get a phone.
Can I make calls, send text messages or surf the Internet?
No, WhatSim only allows you to chat with WhatsApp.Why is there a limit on sending photos, etc..? WhatsApp doesn't limit such thing right?
1) Customer browser on seller site: the customer clicks on Pay
2) Seller server to payment gateway (hopefully over an encrypted channel): I'm S (important) and somebody is about the come to you to buy Y with order number Z. In case of success please redirect to U1, in case of failure redirect to U2.
3) Payment gateway to seller server: ok, thanks, my transaction code for this is T
4) Seller server to browser: redirect to the payment gateway (the browser has been waiting since step 1) for order Z (you don't mind if somebody pays for you)
5) Customer on payment gateway (https): check that S and Y are what is expected (this is fundamental), type in credit card data, click Pay.
6) Payment gateway to seller server (on a safe channel): transaction T has been paid for.
7) Payment gateway to customer browser: redirect to U1
8) Customer browser on seller server: page U1 says thank you for paying, goods are being delivered.
What makes you sure that the payment gateway is not a rogue one and will pay your seller? It's that you can see the order's data in step 5. However you can't be sure that the seller site has not been MITMed and you've been redirected to the wrong payment gateway. The only safeguard for that is the authentication and encryption in step 2, but that's not under your control. Https between the customer and the seller site doesn't make the transaction any safer.
On the other side, what makes the seller site safe against scammy customers is step 6, but I saw some eshops relying only on the information sent in step 7, which in some cases could be forged by the client.
That question is, at least, fairly easy to answer.
MVNO = Mobile Virtual Network Operator.
the app could count photo and images send and supply that data through a different channel.