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Sebastian Harrison Cellular Abroad Interview - Hear what the CEO has to say!
Cellular
Abroad, Inc. offers international phone, SIMs, and wireless broadband
for worldwide cellular communication. Sebastian Harrison,
CEO was generous enough to share his time with
Prepaid-Wireless-Guide.com to ask him some questions about his thriving
business. Thank you!
Interview Date:
November 1, 2010
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1.
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[PWG]
Can you share a little about how Cellular Abroad was created, and came
to be a leading provider of international mobile services?
[Harrison] I
grew up between Rome, Italy and Los Angeles, CA and have always
traveled back and forth. About 15 years ago, when having a cell phone
became common, I had two
phones – one for the United
States and one for
Italy. Since I didn’t incur roaming charges, it was a very cost
effective and way of staying in touch. I felt that it would be a great
solution to offer to travelers going to Italy and hence, after much
initial resistance, we became distributors of the Italian carrier
Telecom Italia Mobile in the United States. The initial resistance was
because TIM didn’t initially have a program in place to distribute
their services outside of Italy. TIM was our first carrier that we
worked with, and now we have about 50 direct relationships with
carriers.
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2.
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[PWG] What’s Cellular Abroad’s
target demographic? Are you targeting business travelers or
casual travelers?
[Harrison]
Our demographic is anyone going abroad who wants reliable and
affordable cellular service. Leisure travelers, students, and business
travelers are our market. We really do not target, nor seek out
corporate clients, as they tend to be difficult to penetrate and slow
for them to make changes. They usually have relationships with the huge
carriers and, as the money is not coming out of their pockets directly,
are in no rush to do the work to save money.
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3.
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[PWG] What’s
Cellular Abroad’s value proposition? How
do you differentiate your services from your competitors?
[Harrison]
If people know about our services they are almost always interested. We
have
two types of services, “country specific” and roaming. Country specific
services
are when a customer would get a pay as you go SIM card for a specific
country
like Italy
or France
and have
a local number as well as pay local rates. There are a handful of
countries
that offer calls back to the US
for about a nickel a minute. As an example, in China,
T-Mobile charges $2.99 per
minute plus tax, and our service, with the local provider China Mobile,
is $0.05
per minute.
The roaming
solution is branded under the National Geographic banner, and in
terms of coverage, is essentially the same service and coverage one
could
expect from Verizon, AT&T, or T-Mobile but at fraction of the
price,
including unlimited free incoming calls in 70 countries.
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4.
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[PWG] Wireless broadband is a
rapidly growing segment. Can you describe your current
offerings and future plans?
[Harrison]
The interest for international broadband while traveling abroad
parallels the growth and interest here in the United States, but
roaming
through US carriers is incredibly expensive. What makes the most sense
is not to roam and get a local solution. Again, costs are small
fractions compared to roaming. Cellular Abroad is adding countries to
our list. Currently we only offer broadband services in select
locations, but are expanding
our services to other countries as we speak, and it is of paramount
priority for us.
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5.
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[PWG] As
wireless carriers begin to offer more flexible services, with
competitive international pricing, how will Cellular Abroad position
itself as the better option?
[Harrison]
The major wireless carriers invest millions of dollars in marketing
their international solutions, but their focus is not on competitive
pricing as really, they do not have much outside competition. On
pricing, I think it would be very difficult for them to compete with a
company like ours, particularly for non roaming solutions. As an
example, China Mobile charges them significantly more than $0.05 per
minute for voice services. In terms of customer service, in general,
they have a long way to go regarding international services. Having
said that, it is certainly not always straightforward.
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6.
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[PWG] Other
than direct from your website, where can prospective customers purchase
your products? Do you, or do you plan to have distribution in
any
airports?
[Harrison]
Customers can purchase the National Geographic Travel Phone or the
stand alone travel SIM through many online stores, including
Amazon.com, Buy.com, NationalGeographic.com as well as
CellularAbroad.com. There are a few brick and mortar stores that sell
the products as well, including J and R in New York. We are also
working on selling directly in airports and are in talks with a couple
well-known stores with multiple outlets.
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7.
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[PWG]
Figuring out what cellular service to use while traveling abroad can be
a fairly overwhelming process for the average traveler. How
does
Cellular Abroad make the purchasing and customer experience better than
your competitors?
[Harrison]
There are many different options and travelers have individual needs.
We encourage our customers to call us and speak to a live rep so that
we can give them the best solution for their specific needs. I think
that we are unique in the sense that we are always focused on the
customer’s perspective, and we always encourage them to go the least
expensive route, as well as offer tips on how they can best save money
for their communication needs.
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8.
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[PWG]
Cellular Abroad offers phone rental, phone/SIM purchase, and SIM only
options; how do customers use your site to determine what’s the best
option for them?
[Harrison]
We usually break travelers’ needs into two categories; travel
to
two or more countries or travel to only one country. If a traveler is
going to two or more countries, we generally recommend a National
Geographic Travel Phone solution. If they are going to one country, we
usually recommend a country-specific solution. There are of course
exceptions. For example, if a customer requires a US based phone number
we will always recommend the Nat Geo solution. Since many travelers
have unique services, this is why we recommend them to call and speak
to a customer service representative directly.
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9.
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[PWG] Can
customers activate their own compatible mobile broadband card on your
service, or are they required to purchase a broadband modem from
Cellular Abroad?
[Harrison]
Currently
we only offer the service on our hardware. One important reason for
this is that we need to make sure that there are no configuration or
compatibility issues.
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10.
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[PWG] Can you tell us about the
National Geographic talk abroad travel phone?
[Harrison]
The National Geographic Travel Phone is an easy to use, pay as you go
cell
phone service for international travelers. Many US based phones do
not work internationally. Those that do are very expensive to use. The
major benefit is the low rates without a contract. Service is available
in over 200 countries and there is free incoming calls in 70 of them.
There
are destinations that the major telecoms literally charge $4.99 per
minute, and we offer unlimited free incoming calls. The number one
question we get is, “how do you do it?” It really is not a miracle. The
only thing that is miraculous is how AT&T, T-Mobile, Verizon,
Sprint and the others is how they can get away with charging so much.
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11.
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[PWG]
Innovation has a lot to do with staying ahead of the competition; is
there anything you can share about any exciting new products or
services that customers can look forward to seeing from Cellular Abroad
in the next couple of years.
[Harrison]
We
are always looking to improve and expand our service and offerings. We
recently launched a $99 National Geographic Travel Phone and we are
launching international MiFi broadband services. The MiFi
is an
incredible device. It basically allows you to create your own hotspot
and use any device that has WiFi. Therefore, say you have an iPhone and
an iPad, but your spouse has a Blackberry and you are going to Italy.
You can simultaneously use any of those devices. Up to five devices can
be used at one time. The MiFi is about the size of a cell phone and is
battery operated so you do not have to be tethered to a socket. In
fact, it works quite well even on a train or in a car.
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12.
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[PWG]
Unlimited service is really getting a lot of attention, specifically in
the prepaid market. Will Cellular Abroad offer any unlimited
services, perhaps even combining voice and mobile wireless broadband
for people on extended travel?
[Harrison]
We work with many international MVNOs
and, for our country-specific
solutions, whatever they offer is what we offer. There are a few
unlimited options for broadband but fewer for voice. A couple of the
carriers we offer service for have free network-to-network calling.
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13.
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[PWG]
Is there anything else about Cellular Abroad that you’d like to call
out that you think would be of interest to prospective customers?
[Harrison]
Almost every day there is something that gets my attention. Just today
I learned that our customers in New Zealand can call back to the United
States or Canada for a $2.00 flat fee for a call up to an
hour.
We are also working on a pay as you go solution for international
wireless broadband with National Geographic. The solution currently
exists but we will not take it to market until there are vastly
significant savings over roaming with a US provider. I would
recommend that customers visit www.cellularabroad.com and explore
our
ever evolving services.
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