Review of Truphone

[snidely]

Thanks to a member here - I learned that there were new unlocked quad-band phones with Truphone SIMS on Ebay going for about $24. There was $15 in prepaid credits on the SIM.
We spent two weeks touring Portugal and Spain via car. Strictly a personal trip. We only ran up 14.5 minutes. All calls were local within the country we were in. Only 4 calls.
Quality was excellent. We got no incoming calls. Their website is easy to use and we could have recharged easily. However, unless you are traveling in what they call "Tru Countries", the cost is quite high. Now they only have 3 countries (UK, US, Australia). They claim they will have 20 by the end of 2012 with 6 of those "coming soon".
Eg. Calls within the 2 countries were 51 cents/min. Incoming would have been 21. Calls to the US would have been a prohibitive 86 cents. I had a US number on the phone.

We did make moderate use of the free UMA calling to US numbers where we had wifi w. our TMobile BBerrys. We always try to pick a hotel with free wifi - which we were able to do just over half the time. There were a few restaurants with open wifi as well.

Bottom line - Truphone is not a "tru" international SIM when it comes to saving money in most of the 200 countries they do provide service. Their data rates, when compared with other SIMS, are good - $2.17/mb in many countries. However, if its mainly data you need via cell - Abroadband.com will be the way to go at 59 Euro cents/mb in about 55 countries. I see on their web site they do intend to make product available everywhere "soon".

...mike

[rfranzq]

If only you could have received some calls from the US to your american number. That would have been nice. 21 cents. Thanks for the report. Did you happen to see if Tru used more than one network in either country? Thanks for the report.

[snidely]

Originally Posted by rfranzq

If only you could have received some calls from the US to your american number. That would have been nice. 21 cents. Thanks for the report. Did you happen to see if Tru used more than one network in either country? Thanks for the report.

You are right - should have had a friend make a test call. Could have had wife call me from one of our BBerry phones. And, didn't make notice what systems it had logged in in either country.
I'll do better reporting next time. The main points I can make was that dialing and connecting was as quick as at home and voice quality was excellent.


...mike

[davidtheprof]

We recently were in Australia for 2 weeks, and had no trouble with truphone sim cards using US and Australian numbers, as data was only 10c/MB compared to $30/day for hotel wifi!

here is something weird, though,
using an unlocked Samsung Vibrant on Froyo and I just put in the tru sim +1(857)362-7977 for my wife in her (identical) phone for a trip to Canada.
Testing it out while still in Boston, I found that it makes calls OK, picks up 3G data, but cannot receive calls while wifi is on! I switch wifi off, and it can receive calls, at least around 50% of the time.

When I call the phone, after about 5 rings, I get a man’s voice saying call cannot be connected, subscriber might be out of the service area.
========================
- just now tried to replicate this on my own Vibrant with a different tru sim (we have two), and no problems....


anyone had a similar problem receiving calls using truphone sim while connected to wifi?

[davidtheprof]

I'm traveling to Europe tomorrow, and was checking out sim card options for my Samsung Vibrant...

Truphone has just reduced their rates, by taking away the monthly $15 "membership" fee, so the low rates are now standard in the US, UK, and Australia. see http://www.truphone.com/en-AU/Produc.../Rate-Checker/

You can also buy a local number in these 3 countries for $8 a month (and cancel as soon as you don't need it).


of course, it's still more than skype, but competitive with locally available sim cards - I've usually used Orange for UK trips.

[rfranzq]

Originally Posted by davidtheprof

Truphone has just reduced their rates, by taking away the monthly $15 "membership" fee, so the low rates are now standard in the US, UK, and Australia. see What you pay - Tru

Good catch! I am a little disappointed I did not catch that first as I check their site almost daily. Of course, the two test SMSs I sent 12 hours ago and now still were charged at the old rate of 12cents instead of the new 10cents.

The PDF rate chart makes absolutely no sense to me.

[cellguru]

Originally Posted by rfranzq

Good catch! I am a little disappointed I did not catch that first as I check their site almost daily. Of course, the two test SMSs I sent 12 hours ago and now still were charged at the old rate of 12cents instead of the new 10cents.

The PDF rate chart makes absolutely no sense to me.

The 12c had tax/fees included and the 10c does not. The rate is the same. Personally I like having the tax/fees included so you know the true rate. However adding 2c to all the rates seems to be what they are charging. The PDF does work but it's harder to read than the old rate listed on the web page.

My concerns is that with the elimination of the membership fee, there is some monthly fee to be charged for all. I will be pleased to be proven wrong, guess we have to wait a couple months and see what happens.

[davidtheprof]

no monthly fee, as far I can see from the Truphone forum, but there is possibly a $3/month fee for inactive accounts (which a free balance-check call would avoid). They claim to be checking this, as their policies are unclear.

[rfranzq]

Originally Posted by davidtheprof

no monthly fee, as far I can see from the Truphone forum, but there is possibly a $3/month fee for inactive accounts (which a free balance-check call would avoid). They claim to be checking this, as their policies are unclear.

Especially since the dropping of the 'membership' concept, I suspect the rank and file CS representitives do not know with certainty what it takes to keep the SIM 'alive' without any inactivity fee. It was not all that clear before either. I fear that the

(which a free balance-check call would avoid)

is part of the great uncertainty. Rather than finding out if that is true or not I plan to make short phone calls on the first of the month [9cents instead of 12cents for SMSes] to do a monthly event. Of course some pesky months have 31 days and the last number I saw for activity was '30'. In earlier threads here the numbers 'floating' around were 90 and 120.

If anyone ever does get the inactivity fee could you please tell us the circumstances? I don't recall seeing here or in anyother forum anyone claiming to have been charged it. Perhaps Tru system is not yet programmed to charge it yet? Or correctly?

So far, Tru has proved to be a relatively inexpensive long life SIM for Americans. With the additional benefits of low cost use in UK and Oz; and moderate rates for Europe and the rest of the world when comparied to US carriers. The moderately 'high' initial price of $30 was offset for many of us here by getting a phone with the SIM for less on eBay a while back.

The doubt/frustation of not knowing the 'real' cost is offset by the fact that we have not gotten to that river yet.

[davidtheprof]

though to be honest I'm surprised their business has survived this long, given the excruciatingly slow rollout to more countries. I don't understand if its technical or contractual issues, Abroadband managed to launch with dozens of countries in February (data only).