Telna Mobile - Temporary difficulties
 

I do not think most folks here use Telna. I just received this from them.
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Dear telna Mobile customer,

the telna Mobile service has been temporarily suspended a few days ago without warning by the overseas wireless services supplier we were using as part of this product. Our attempts to have the service reinstated by the supplier have failed so far, the supplier seems to be unable to do so due to financial difficulties. We would like to inform you, our valued customers, of the steps we are taking:

- effective immediately, customers are no longer able to use their existing telna Mobile SIM card. Your telna Mobile phone number and voicemail however, will remain active, so that when someone calls your telna Mobile phone number, they will still reach your voicemail, and voicemail messages can be retrieved online or received as email attachments
- over the last year, telna has been hard at work getting licensed as a US wireless operator and building its own wireless infrastructure, in order to control the telna Mobile service from start to end, thus increasing the coverage and adding text messaging and data service capabilities. Unfortunately, this new service is still weeks away from launch.
- when the new service is ready for launch, all customers will receive a replacement SIM card. This SIM card will use the same phone number as the one currently assigned to you. As a courtesy, we will be able to overnight the replacement card to you anywhere in the world if necessary.
- for existing customers, we will waive the annual fee for the next year of telna Mobile service as a gesture for the inconvenience caused by this sudden loss of service
- please note that all other telna services are unaffected, notably our free travel-card which allows you to place inexpensive calls from 67 popular travel destinations.
For the avoidance of doubt, the only affected service "telna Mobile" is the service where telna provides you with a SIM card allowing you to be reachable on a mobile phone in 174 countries around the world.

We realize that some customers are currently traveling, and particularly affected by the sudden loss of reachability. To help these customers as much as possible, we recommend the following course of action: you should purchase a local prepaid SIM card in the country where you are currently located (usually available for under $10), and we will forward your US (or Canadian) telna Mobile phone number to your new foreign number free of charge for the duration of your stay. This will ensure that you remain reachable even if you forwarded your US based cellphone to your telna Mobile number prior to your departure. To setup this feature, please contact customer service with the phone number to which you would like your calls to be forwarded.

We apologize for the inconvenience caused by these events outside of our control, and assure you that we are working hard to prevent a similar situation from occurring in the future. You will hear from us again as soon as your replacement SIM card is ready to be mailed out.

We thank you for your understanding and for your patience.

Best regards,


The customer service
1-800-972-7538

Kudos to Telna for addressing the issue and I believe handling it in a great manner. I have used the Telna service sparingly but have been happy with it when I have used it. Customer service has also been prompt. I hope they can get everything worked out soon. More and more I rely on VOIP solutions though.

New service coming soon
 

Thank you Bossman for beating us to chase and posting this here. We are very disappointed by this interruption which we were hoping to avoid. When the service comes back, it will be back for good as the simcards which are currently in production will contain our own network code (IMSI) and we won't depend on other companies' good fortune to keep the service working.
The product will also fully integrate VOIP, with a single number being shared between the mobile phone and a voip terminal.

When it is ready for beta testing, we will come back to this forum to recruit testers.

cross your fingers, hope for the best
 

:down:

What I was happy with more than anything was honesty. We all remember United-mobiles months of brief interruption (the site last I checked finally expired) and celtrek's flame out. I have used Telna and have had clients use it. I was happy, the billing was easy for me to show my clients and all was good. I will not invest in another plan, but am willing to give them a shot when they are back on line.

Like some former providers, I guess I should change my sig! Just noticed the reference to a defunct company!

Any guesses when Telna will be back? Looks like the 'outage' is coming up on 2 months....??????

I do not think anyone has a clue. Probably best to contact them directly.