Webe roaming in Singapore

Webe’s international roaming gives you unlimited data usage in 18 selected countries for RM39/day. Is it any good? Well, I went to Singapore to find out.

To be able to roam, you’ll need to place a deposit of RM300 which can be made through the webe self-service app. Once that’s done you will be able to connect to webe’s partner telcos in each country. In Singapore, that’s StarHub.

Once I crossed the causeway, my phone automatically switched from webe to StarHub and I received a welcome message. For those who don’t know, in order for you to use your data overseas, you will need to enable data roaming in your phone’s network settings.

Once webe detected that my data roaming has been enabled, they sent me another text message informing me that my RM39 daily Data Roam pass has been activated and I could access the internet. However, this is a daily pass so it expires on 11.59pm on the day that you activate it. So, you will be charged another RM39 if you leave data roaming enabled come midnight.

For those who are worried about roaming with the wrong telco, webe says that users are safeguarded against bill shock situations. If a user connects to a telco that’s not webe’s roaming partner, they will not be able to access the internet or have a data connection.

Left = webe SIM, right = tethered speed

The speeds so far have been reasonable, but the connection is not seamless. You can watch YouTube videos in Full HD, but sometimes the connection will drop and you’ll have to wait for it to reconnect.

But I know you’re probably most curious about tethering and if you can do it while roaming. Well, the answer is “it depends”. Webe says that whether or not you can tether depends on their roaming partner in the selected country. In Singapore, for example, I can tether no problem but some countries might block it like webe does in Malaysia.

Another thing on your mind would probably be if there is a daily cap on high speed internet. Well, so far I’ve used about 800MB worth of data and I haven’t noticed any signs of throttling yet so it does appear to be truly unlimited. Webe also assures me that as long as you’re in the 18 selected countries, you will get unlimited data without any throttling — similar to the experience you get with webe in Malaysia, at least as far as data goes.

Overall, I’d say the roaming experience has been pretty good so far and I definitely like that you can tether to make full use of your unlimited data. However, I think the RM300 deposit is rather archaic and webe should come up with a better way around this, especially for long-term customers. As it stands now, for a new telco who should be able to shake things up, webe seems to be erecting old barriers instead of creating new avenues. One other thing to note is that webe’s daily data roaming plan is also the most expensive of any telco at RM39/day. However, the benefit is that you do get an unlimited quota with webe, compared to the other telco’s 500MB daily cap.

Webe’s international roaming is also available in over 180 countries worldwide. Of those countries, 18 selected countries — Singapore, Australia, China, Hong Kong, Indonesia, Japan, Thailand, Philippines, Rep. of Korea,  Taiwan, Macao, Qatar, France, Germany, India, Saudi Arabia, United Arab Emirates and the United Kingdom — you get unlimited data when roaming for RM39/day. Call and SMS charges, on the other hand, have different rates that vary depending on the country you’re visiting. For more information on the specific rates, head on over to webe’s website.