Based on good reviews I bought KR Global SIMs for myself and my wife for a recent trip to Norway. Our daughter and son-in law, who accompanied us on the trip, also got KR global SIMs on my recommendation. My sister in-law did the same for her own separate trip to Norway. The executive summary is that while data and SMS worked for everyone, voice calling didn’t work for anyone, despite continuous efforts from tech support.

When I first got the SIMs I installed them in both my phone and my wife’s to try them out while still in the U.S. Everything functioned seamlessly, exactly as expected. Text, data, and voice in and out worked exactly as advertised. I put our regular SIMs back in, confident that our phones would work fine in Norway.

My sister-in-law took her trip to Norway first. She could not make voice calls, despite repeated exchanges with tech support by e-mail. Finally in desperation after 10 days of frustration, she put her ATT SIM back in, and and signed up for their $10/day deal to get her entire ATT voice/data package while traveling. It worked flawlessly. Her report was discouraging, but I hoped it was due to some kind of pilot error on her part (she is admittedly not very tech savvy), or the fact that she was using an iPhone (our phones are four different Android models).

When our party got to Norway voice calling didn’t work on any of our phones. My son in-law didn’t really care because he has Google Voice service, so all of his calls go through the internet. But the rest of us were stuck. Calls out all failed, with a message saying the number was not in service (sometimes in Norwegian, sometimes in English). Most importantly we couldn’t call each other using our KR US numbers. We limped by with texts. I exchanged 17-mails with tech support (which was very responsive) trying to make voice work. We changed every conceivable setting numerous times: Callback on or off, 3G instead of LTE, different networks, different profiles, etc. Occasionally we could call a recorded weather number in the US, but ironically never our own KR US numbers, so we couldn’t call each other. We finally got voice working on my and my wife’s phones after 3 days, and I heaved a sigh of relief. We were in Flam at the time. The next day we went on to Bergen, and everything went in the dumper again. Throughout the remaining 11 days of the trip, voice calling never worked.

I lost count of the emails I exchanged with tech support. Three days before our flight home, tech support gave up and “escalated” our problem to the network people at KR. I thought “better late than never!” They said they would send me an e-mail when the problem was sorted out. I never heard from them again. That was 26 days ago. I’m sure they’re still working diligently on the problem …

Hi Nathalie,

To answer your questions:
– the sticker has a ‘home SIM’ mode and a ‘Roaming’ mode, and you can manually switch between them. Usually while travelling, you’ll be in Roaming mode. To get calls and texts to your Swiss number, you’ll need to switch back to the home SIM mode. Since you’re then paying whatever your Swiss provider charges for international roaming, I’d recommend turning data off before switching back, and then turning it back on once you’ve gone back to ‘Roaming’ mode.
– WhatsApp use doesn’t count towards your data usage with KnowRoaming, but I don’t know for sure whether you can continue to use it if you have no data/credit on your account. You’ll need to check with KnowRoaming about that.
– You’ll continue to use your existing WhatsApp account. You don’t need to create a new one if you don’t want to. The only thing I would say is that if you had to reinstall Whatsapp for any reason, you’d need to briefly switch back to your home SIM to get the confirmation text.

Thank you so much for this really useful article.

I am going to go travelling in South America (Chile, Peru, Bolivia, Argentina) for two months and I am considering buying the KR SIM sticker. However, I have a few questions and was wondering if you’d mind answering them :
– I’m from Switzerland. What will happen when people try calling me on my normal Swiss number ? And texting ? Will I still get those ?
– About Whatsapp – that’s the main reason I’m interested in buying the sticker, as most of my communications both at home and while travelling are made through that app. If my intention was to just use KR to benefit from free Whatsapp, would that be possible ? I would basically just need to use up the original data on the sticker and then never top it up again and I would still be able to use Whatsapp, right ?
– Also about Whatsapp : what will happen to my original Whatsapp account ? Will I get a new one connected to a new phone number ? If people text me on my original account,will I get those messages ?

Thanks again,
Nathalie

Looking into it — thanks! I haven’t been able to recreate this myself yet, so if anyone else sees it, feel free to let me know. 🙂

Thanks so much for the help Dave!

Hi Cara,

That’s exactly how I use my KnowRoaming sticker — for a few hours, or a day or two, when first arriving in a new country, until I get a local SIM card sorted. Bear in mind you don’t have to use the $7.99/day ‘unlimited’ data package. You can just turn your data on briefly to (eg) check emails or put a location into Google Maps, and then turn it back off again. I usually only spend a couple of bucks a day that way. Always check the casual rates in the app or on the site beforehand, though — while most countries aren’t too bad for very light use like that, some are remarkably high.

You’d just load some money onto your account, and slowly use it up as you go. As far as SIM or sticker goes, it’s up to you. The sticker is best for people who are traveling for shorter periods between their home country and elsewhere, and don’t want to swap SIMs all the time. If you’re travelling long term, you’ll be equally fine with a physical SIM, and it’s a bit less effort at the beginning (ie, not having to apply the sticker). The only other thing to mention — it’s worth caching your Google Maps beforehand, so you’re not downloading map data over that expensive connection.

Hope that helps!

I’m from Canada and will be travelling around the world for the next year. According to the KnowRoaming website, all the countries I’m planning on visiting are covered until I arrive in South East Asia in Feb 2018 (I’ll cross that bridge when it comes). I have an unlocked Nexus 5X, and I’m trying to decide whether this product would be right for me. I know you said it isn’t the best option for long-term travellers, but would it be beneficial for me to use KR whenever I arrive in a new place before I can get a local SIM card – which would be cheaper than using KR all the time right? I would need data right away for maps to navigate to my destination, Google stuff, Uber rides, etc., and I’d also need local calling (but I could use the free WhatsApp for that right?). I’m very confused about all this international SIM stuff, so any advice would be much appreciated! $7.99 per day for data seems quite expensive, but maybe it’s worth the peace of mind when landing in a foreign place? Would I have to pre-load my account or just pay for what I use? And I’m not sure if I should get the SIM card or SIM sticker…

Help 🙂

Cara

Interesting to hear your experiences. I’ve been using the KnowRoaming on and off for a couple of years now, but almost always for data when I first arrive in a city — that’s been very reliable, but it’s been very rare for me to need to make a voice call, so I haven’t really tested that aspect much since my original review.