Digital Media Island

A Doppler Shift is that change in tone of a sound as a car whizzes past and changes from low pitch as it comes towards you to high pitch as it goes away from you. That’s what seems to be happening with Irish Startup Cubic Telecom and there MAXroam service as they team up with one of the biggest operators in the social travel market Dopplr to pull away from their competition.  

Pat Phelan, the CEO of Cubic Telecom, is “the Tinkerman” of the Irish startup scene with a hand in many of the recent web successes through advice, involvement or inspiration. His company, through it’s MAXroam offering, is one of the world’s first and largest suppliers of travel SIMs, which abolish high roaming fees that are usually charged by incumbent Mobile Network Operators (MNOs). Within nine months of its launch in September 2007, MaxRoam had saved travelers more than $1 million on their roaming mobile bill and almost $1.7 million to date. These savings will now be extended to Dopplr members with a Dopplr SIM and website to manage their mobile usage while traveling.

The partnership was announced today as Dopplr launched it’s online store with MAXroam as one of the key products. The store, which is available to all Dopplr travelers, contains a number of special offers on products and services to make travel better.

Speaking about the partnership, Cubic Telecom’s CEO Pat Phelan stated “We’re delighted to be working with Dopplr. MaxRoam’s SIM card will enable Dopplr travelers to save a minimum of 70% on their mobile travel bills.” MAXroam sims will be available in Dopplr’s online travel shop.

Dopplr helps you make more of your travels by sharing your future trips privately with friends and colleagues. The service then highlights coincidences, for example, telling you that three people you know will be in Tokyo when you will be there too. You can use Dopplr on your personal computer or mobile phone. It links with many popular online calendars and social networks.

Cubic Telecom also offers a 100% white label platform where MVNOs can customize everything as their own, including having their own branding of SIMs and web portal, plus customized audio prompts and short-codes. So if you’re interested in getting into this market or even in having something like this for your own travellers why not give them a ring.

It really looks like Pat Phelan and his team in Cork are taking Cubic Telecom to the next level and they are both a beacon for the tech sector here in terms of what a startup can achieve and also highlights the level of innovation and entrepreneurship out there in Irish companies.

Digital Media Island indeed…