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by andor 4159 days ago
That's interesting, but what are the rates for regular data and phone calls? I won't carry an extra phone for each messenger ;-) The site only lists the price for legacy MMS. Also, which country prefix will the phone number have, or do you get multiple numbers? People are usually hesitant to call numbers from other countries.

Edit: I would definitely pay 10 EUR for something like this on top of my current plan. In the spirit of net neutrality, it shouldn't be tied to a single service, though. Instead, they could just sell a low rate data connection.
2 comments
melvinmt 4159 days ago
> I won't carry an extra phone for each messenger

Then you're probably not part of the target market. In a lot of developing countries (India etc), WhatsApp is the primary reason to get a phone.

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dingaling 4159 days ago
Plus many phones in those markets are dual-SIM, so you would still have a voice / data SIM installed.
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brazzy 4159 days ago
Don't most dual-SIM phones allow only one of the SIM cards to be used for data connections?
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sanju 4159 days ago
but developing countries still prefer to talk over chat.. if it comes to phone. young people in india use WhatApp as an alternative to email. so like we dont pay for email address.. no one will pay for WhatApp.. there are alternative like viber.. quite popular in india
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unsigner 4159 days ago
You don't pay for an email address, because thanks to email interoperability (not openness, which is a separate albeit related thing) a free email address is a decent substitute for a non-free email address. Viber is not the same kind of substitute for WhatsApp when all your friends/family are on WhatsApp. (I live in a market where everybody is on Viber btw, so the WhatsApp card is worthless even if they paid me $0.01 for each WhatsApp message sent)
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ahomescu1 4159 days ago
From the FAQ at http://www.whatsim.com/en/faq:

  Can I make calls, send text messages or surf the Internet?

  No, WhatSim only allows you to chat with WhatsApp.
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ilyaeck 4159 days ago
Unless you can do all that via Whatsapp chat :) Wow, what a potential!
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mistagiggles 4159 days ago
Does this mean the phone needs to be a smartphone with WhatsApp installed? Or can a brickphone be used with this sim in order to communicate on WhatsApp?
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