An announcement earlier this week that Apple SIM is now available in 140 additional countries is not cause for celebration from prospective travelers to Vietnam, which is excluded from the list of new destinations to have the coverage.
Apple SIM partner GigSky said on Tuesday that it will offer cellular data plans to iPad travelers with Apple SIM in over 140 countries, including all top travel destinations, an increase from the over 90 countries and territories it had previously supported.
Despite the huge number of countries where Apple Sim, an initiative from the U.S. tech titan to help its iPad users avoid the hassle of buying a local SIM while traveling, is now available, Vietnam is not included, which may upset incoming tourists.
The Apple SIM supports wireless services across multiple supported carriers, which can be selected from a user interface within their operating systems on different versions of the iPad, removing the need to install a SIM provided by the carrier itself.
When travelers are in a country where local mobile carriers support Apple SIM, they will not need to buy new SIM cards for that country, but instead can simply purchase a prepaid plan using Apple SIM service on their iPad.
“Our expanded coverage means travelers can use GigSky service on iPad most anywhere this summer to get online and connect, like they do at home," GigSky CEO Ravi Rishy-Maharaj said in a statement.
“Customers select the data they need, for just the time they need it. No extra fees or taxes, and no contracts.”
While mobile carriers in other Southeast Asian countries such as Singapore, Indonesia, Malaysia, Thailand, Cambodia, and Laos all partnered with GigSky to allow Apple SIM coverage, their Vietnamese counterparts have never reached any similar agreement.
This means foreign tourists will have to buy SIM Card and subscribe to data plans offered by Vietnam’s major mobile carriers, Viettel, Mobifone and Vinaphone, if they want to go online in the country, as iPads with the embedded Apple SIM will be useless without local SIMs.
A Vinaphone representative told Tuoi Tre (Youth) newspaper on Thursday that they have no plans to even test, let alone launch, Apple SIM in the country.
“Apple will have to facilitate talks between Apple SIM and local carriers if they want to enter the Vietnamese market,” he said.
Representatives of all Vietnamese mobile network operators, however, told Tuoi Tre they have no interest in Apple SIM, and cooperation is unlikely.
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