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The Cubic Experience

by Luca Filigheddu on November 11, 2007

Thanks to Pat Phelan, CEO and one of the minds behind MaxRoam and Cubic Telecom, I’m having the opportunity to test their new service out thanks to their bloggers relation program.

Screenshot 110
That said, I got a MaxRoam SIM card and a Pirelli dual-mode phone (DP-L10). The SIM is “linked” to two landline numbers, one italian and one of the US. If you bought the SIM when they launched the service, you couldn’t choose an Italian number for free, but now (starting from a few days ago) they just added this possibility.

First of all I have to say that they did more than what I expected. The Pirelli phone’s box is completely customized for Cubic Telecom and even the phone has the Cubic background and the boot animation completely Cubic-oriented.

Parigi 1

The phone is light and easy to use. It reminds me the first Nokia phones with color display, even if the menu is more similar to old Ericsson’s phones than Nokia.

Parigi 8-1

Configuration was easy and I can say that you don’t need to be an engineer to do that. The data about the Cubic SIP server was there already and I just had to make the phone “see” my home access point.

The sim recognized the Vodafone IT network after about 15 seconds. Then, after playing with the phone’s options, I’ve seen that according to the default behavior the phone tries to make a phone call through the Wifi connection first, if there’s any, then through the GSM one. But you can change this if you want.

Parigi 5

I noticed that the strength of the Wifi signal was not that great according to the phone, even if my Mac showed the maximum strength. I think it’s a problem of the phone, since I’ve seen that Nokia phones, even if slightly better (I’m speaking of €700 phones against a €99 phone), have the same problem.

The first call was good. The phone used the Wifi network and the quality, even if the signal was not that great, was good. I tried again close to the access point and the quality improved. The user experience is the same of a traditional call. The difference comes when you use the GSM coverage. As soon as you dial the called number (you need always to type the country code, in the format 39 instead of 0039 or +39) you receive a call then the other party starts ringing. It basically works through a call back. The quality is superb.



Even if through the call back, the user experience is good. The only annoyance I found is when you receive an SMS during the call. My credit was 5 euros and any time I made a call I received an SMS informing that my Airtime was low, recommending to top up my credit. This SMS arrived during the call and it’s not that great to hear the phone vibrating while close to your ear. But it’s a telephone’s issue, the fact that you receives the SMS is good, of course.

The other problem, but Pat assured me that they are going to solve it soon, is that CLI (the caller number) is not always shown while under GSM coverage. It’s a matter of roaming and Pat told me that in many countries it’s already working fine.

You can manage your SIM from the MaxRoam website.

Screenshot 111

Available options are still basic, but I presume they will add more options pretty soon, for example the ability to see the details of calls made (that would make me feel better in terms of cost control).

I can top-up my credit, buy another incoming number to link to my SIM and manage all my numbers (additional numbers cost €2 / month. In addition I can see my numbers and my credit. This information is available from the phone as well.

In conclusion, the service is working fine and it’s far from being “vaporware” (as a reader of my blog commented a few weeks ago). It’s real and really promising. And, in addition, they make you save money NOW. Pat and Co are working hard to add many new features and some of them will surely hit the press quickly (I can assure you that some of them are really cool).

Good job guys, I look forward to getting more and more features soon.

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  • Thank you Luca
    I am so glad it worked out for you, stand by for some amazing upgrades
  • Hi,
    abt addittional nationa number, keep eye abt price.
    they change on a time basis...
    alex
  • Great review that will help me to make my own for a German magazine.
  • @alessandro
    we buy DID (numbers) on a spot market basis, its the only way we could figure out how to keep prices somewhat real, we buy from 4 suppliers and our API checks all four based on quality and cost and offers this as a choice to the customer.
    we have just added Italy, Sweden and Poland as one of our first free countries and expect to add lots more as the weeks go on.
    We make zero margin on DID's but we only purchase tier1 ones.
  • Timothy Best
    Cubic web site says it's NOT currently available-

    "Monday, 12 November 2007
    Great Review from Luca Filigheddu
    Luca Filigheddu wrote a really nice review of MAXroam and our upcoming product Cubic Mobile.

    You can check out his review here.

    However please note that Cubic Mobile won't be available to the general public until Q1, 2008. When it does hit the streets though it's going to be a superb product."

    http://www.maxroam.com/blog.asp
  • Paul
    Pat wrote:
    "we have just added Italy, Sweden and Poland as one of our first free countries"

    I try to add numbers from Italy and Poland to my sim through maxroam website, but they aren't free (Italian number costs 5,60 and Polish one 2,99 euro/month).

    the rest works great, but this one detail doesn't - will it change in coming days?
    thx&greets,
    Paul
  • Paul
    they are free as a first number
    So you can buy a SIM today and pick Italy,Poland,Sweden, USA,UK,USA and France as your primary number and get it completely free, you already have a primary number and that's your free one.
  • Yep - its (was) a nice service.
    do u still have your Pirelli?
    Mine had 2 go back and no sign on a replacement

    Lal
  • Was that the FREE one we sent you to test Brendan?
    People might get an idea that we didn't get you a replacement for a paid handset reading this :-)
  • Pat, I actually get that idea. Thanks for pointing this out.
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