advertisement
Facebook
X
LinkedIn
WhatsApp
Reddit

Telkom launches full international roaming for Prepaid and Top-Up customers

Travel is tricky at the moment but not altogether impossible so it’s good news then that Telkom has activated a full suite of international roaming services for its Prepaid and TopUp customers.

Previously, Telkom Prepaid and Top-Up customers could only activate SMS roaming but as of today customers can activate voice, data and SMS roaming.

“This is a good opportunity for Telkom that will enable us to provide roaming services to previously excluded customers, resulting in an improvement in our overall customer experience” explained executive of product portfolio management at Telkom, Andrew Dawnson.

The exec goes on to explain that this is part of a two-phase rollout. The first phases being roaming agreements with international partners while the second phases will target agreements with partners in the SADC region.

Before you get excited however, we recommend heading to this section of the Telkom website and becoming acquainted with the cost of these services.

For instance, roaming in the UK on the Vodafone network will cost the following:

  • Local calls – R15 per minute
  • Calls to South Africa – R15 per minute
  • Receiving a call – R15 per minute
  • Sending an SMS – R5
  • Data – R5 per MB

Any way you slice this, that’s a lot of money to stay in communication with people on your number while travelling but it pales in comparison to what it will cost you when roaming in Italy on the Vodafone network:

  • Local calls – R50 per minute
  • Calls to South Africa – R100 per minute
  • Receiving a call – R25 per minute
  • Sending an SMS – R10
  • Data – R300 per MB

Let that R300 per MB sink in for a moment because we’re still in shock. A 1GB file would cost you R300 000 to download.

This means that we could fly from Italy to South Africa, catch an Uber, grab the file and place it on a thumbdrive, catch a flight back to Italy and still come up better off than if you’d downloaded that file on Telkom’s roaming data.

Absolute madness.

For those who are not deterred by the prospect of spending R300 000 on a 1GB download in Italy, Telkom international roaming for Prepaid and TopUp is now available in the following countries on the following networks:

Country Roaming Partner
United Kingdom Vodafone
United States Telna
United States T-Mobile
United Arab Emirates DU
Botswana Mascom
Botswana Btc Mobile
Botswana Orange
Mozambique Movitel S.A.
Germany Vodafone
Zambia Zamtel
Nigeria MTN Nigeria
Congo (DRC) Africell
Turkey Vodafone Turkey
Italy Vodafone
Cameroon MTN Cameroon
Lesotho Econet

If you need to activate roaming head to this URL or dial *180#. Telkom Customers using an Android device can also activate the service on the Telkom app.

However, we must implore you to check the cost of communicating in the country you’re travelling to.

It may make more sense to purchase a prepaid SIM card and make use of data bundles in that country to stay in touch via email, IM and even video conferencing rather than paying Telkom a premium for the comfort of having your number active while away from home.

R300 000 for a 1GB file though, we need a drink.

advertisement

About Author

advertisement

Related News

advertisement