Can't you just sign up for one of their "individual" business plans? It has data packages for the Truphone 8 countries.

http://www.truphone.com/us/business/Price-Plans/

Their cheapest plan is $50 for 300 MB, 300 min, 300 sms. I'd barely use the minutes or SMS, so I'd be paying $50 for 300MB, which is 16.7 cents per MB. I'd be better off pay for pay-as-you-go data at 9 cents a MB ($27 for 300 MB).

Here are the tariffs in Euro: https://www.truphone.com/row/lp/hello-world-eu/

Finally a positive news for us PAYG customers!
P.S.: Did you notice that in the US incoming calls are free even on the US number?

For anyone with a Truphone SIM in the US: can you confirm whether you can use AT&T's 3G network now? Last I knew you could only use AT&T's 2G data, so I emailed asking if this would change with the upcoming pricing change, and the reply stated that you can connect to AT&T 3G now.

Whoa. Thank you. I hadn't caught that, and that's definitely a big deal. No US providers do free incoming calls on prepaid, and I never thought that would change.

As of today, in southern California; no, it only works on 2G.

yep, Edge here in Boston, that's 2G

Test rates after July 1st
 

I assure all of you I will test the new rates in California soon after July 1st.

Lots of posts in the last few days from U.S. users.
I am confused. Why would a U.S. user bother with Truphone (or any other intl card) since they can use a T-Mobile U.S. account and roam with unlimited data and text and 20¢/min voice (free voice back to U.S. when on wifi w. most Android phones)?

That does require activation of a monthly plan at $50 per month. Though you can cancel at anytime. But if I am going to go somewhere for one week, I don't think it is worth it.

Snidely, if a US user is traveling to one of those countries not included on T-Mobile's plan. Personally, my use/need of international SIM cards has diminished significantly.

"Happy Camp" who posted before you only uses less than 100 min./mo. when at home! Says he has a 100 min. prepaid plan from Walmart.
He is right that the first line on a TM account (which gives you unlimited in/out voice, text and data (altho data is slowed after 1G) costs $50, 2nd line only costs $30 and each line after that $10. (all come with the unlimited voice, data text that the lst line has).
As I recall, you travel a lot to Africa - and many countries on that continent are not included in the 115+ that are by TM.

I do have the 100 minute T-Mobile "Wal-mart" plan. I use Skype's $2.50/month unlimited calling plan for most of my outgoing calling. I also have my incoming calls go to my Google Voice number and if at home answer the phone via my Obihai. Google was supposed to turn off that service at some point. When that happens I'll transition to using Localphone.com $1/month phone number and have it forward the call to the Obihai.

13 days into my 30 day plan I haves used 34/100 minutes. I mainly care about data usage. But even that I haven't used that much. 220 MB, as I use Wifi while at home and at work.

Unfortunately for Android the T-Mobile "Wifi calling" appears to require a T-Mobile Android phone. I have a Google Play Store Nexus 5, which is unsupported.

Some people believe in prepaid only.
 

Some people believe in prepaid only.

Let me take a stab at why a Yank would use a roaming SIM. My wife and I are grandfathered on ATT's international iPhone plan. I get unlimited (non-throttled) data worldwide on my iPhone. This includes high priced roams. I pay US$65 a month for it rather than $35 for the privilege and there are years that it may not be a good deal, but other years where it is worth its weight in gold.

This doesn't give me cheap inbound calls abroad so a roaming SIM makes a great deal of sense. Many times I can make a respectable VOIP Over 3g call, but this is not 100% of those times. When that happens, I trigger a callback (to the roaming SIM).

Neither me or anyone else gets legal tethering on this plan or on TMobile. I have an old jailbroken phone which I can cheat with or I suppose I good switch to Android where rooting is a much more consistent experience than jailbreaking. This means that there is some times that I need to get something else online beyond my phone. For example, I live fifteen miles (24k) from the Canadian border right off the motorway connecting to the border. This month, my wife will be working three of four weeks in Canada. I was there twice last week, almost went last night, and will be there for a week this month. For these reasons, we have a contract flex data account on a hotspot for Canada. If we don't use it, it is $5 a month. We scale upto 5gigs a month for $35. (We also pay ATT $20 more a month on our family plan to extend our family plan for voice into Canada).

I have a Toggle Mobile SIM card for voice off US shores and also a Piranha Mobile card. My best friend lives in Australia and it means we have a local number when we visit. My wife's company's European headquarters in the Netherlands. Same story. My wife has a client in Hong Kong and I have relatives in the UK. My wife also transits through the Netherlands on her way to Dubai.

When we make those trips, we carry a small Nokia pentaband Asha. On none of those trips do we bother with a prepaid SIM anymore.

also, if I'm in Europe, it's useful for local friends, family, etc. to have local number, or at least, UK number to call back to, as calling to US number is expensive for them.
So I'm back to taking 2 phones, the TMobile one for free roaming and cheap calls, and a Tru or Piranha sim.

You might check out the T-Mobile LG Optimus F6 which has been selling for $100 or less in the past couple months though Newegg and Target. Do a search on slickdeals.net forums. Easily unlocked for less than $2. The thing with T-Mobile's Wi-Fi calling though is that it counts toward your plan minutes (or prepaid) which I personally find rather stupid. You can accomplish the same thing by setting up a VOIP account with the "Internet calling" feature of your Nexus 5, or using a VOIP app, and perhaps combining their use with Google Voice.

Just heard back from Truphone regarding an inquiry I made about the upcoming rate change and whether there might be a change in support for AT&T's 3G:

"Once we apply the rate changes in July AT&T will remain as our secondary network in the US so you will only be able to receive 2G/EDGE data." -- Truphone CS

So that's one area where Piranha will still have them beat.

A blast from the past.
 

On ebay right now someone is selling ['More than 10 available'] Truphone Local Anywhere No Contract Samsung E2210 Cell Phone for $99.99. These include a Tru SIM.
Two or more years ago these were selling for less than $20 on eBay and another auction site.

Yes - And thanks to you (or someone here) bought that $20 deal! Now that I can roam for free on TMobile- that phone is useless!

Well, you can use it for drop testing.

New Rates have come--NINE CENTS--USA
 

I tested my Truphone SIMs last night and the new nine cents for calling and SMS are working.
Free incoming calls.
Free incoming SMS [still]. Voicemail is free.
These tests were USA to USA.

Wow! Like some of their new voice rates... Data pricing has a lot to be desired. Always had real good luck with Truphone. But have let my SIM account lapse... Would buy another SIM if they could provide some better data pricing...

Confirmed the free incoming calls here in Germany last night. I'll definitely be using my Truphone SIM more, especially in the US. Interesting strategy they have going focusing on these select "popular" countries, a list which will hopefully grow longer. For now, Piranha still has them beat (only slightly) for the rest of Europe, and far more so globally, where Truphone still charges over $1/minute for calls (outgoing and incoming) in many countries.

Strategy?
 

I am not so sure this is a strategy, as much as a necessity in that these were the deals they were able to get and either through uncooperative local providers or not having tried hard enough yet to get other providers signed up to the plan. They have been quite open about this strategy since they started and things have just not happened. I am pretty sure it is incumbent local carriers who have blocked Truphone's progress.

Still, a good deal for some countries, I'll be lending someone a phone for a week in the US with the truphone SIM, it's generally more reliable than Piranha, and will be cheap for calling back to UK and Germany. Wish Piranha could sort out the texting issues and make it easier to change the primary number from US to UK and back.
T-Mobile US free roaming and cheap calls has become our easiest choice when traveling.

Just set the network to automatic and you are good to go with Truphone.
With Piranha, now that both AT&T and T-Mobile is the same price [0.16 Data Per MB]
the issue is where are they going to be and are they going to make phone calls.

Is the primary number even changeable? You make it sound doable but too hard.

for Piranha, they claim that if you call them, they can change the primary from US to UK, but didn't work for me.

So now that TMo USA is so good for international roaming, and I was about to archive my collection of international sims, I realize that I might need them for US travel - TMobile now has amazing coverage in almost every country in the world, thanks to its partners, but very spotty coverage in rural US, where I've been recently. And there are some large areas (eg. central NH) where the roaming agreement with ATT is not in effect.
So I've taken to using Piranha for backup in the US on ATT (which is more expensive for phone, slow 2g data, but at least a signal!)
Truphone defaults to Tmob, but I've read that you can force it to ATT via phone settings - but that doesn't work on my phone, says sim does not allow registration on that network. Wonder if part of going to cheapo 9/9/9 pricing required abandoning agreement with ATT, who apparently charges a lot more than that to MVNOs?

Well, I quick went and checked the nearest phone I have and it fired up on AT&T which I assume was the network I that it had been connected to last time I turned the phone on over a week ago. So, AT&T seems to still work. In my experience, if your phone lets you choose networks it might take 3-5 tries choosing the 'other' network so it 'takes'.

I have 11 Truphone SIMs and have had them for years and this has been true always. The big if is whether your phone allows network choice. Some of my phones do not.

Bet you never thought of international SIMs for US roaming purposes!

thanks for checking - I was using an older Samsung Vibrant, and it shows me two networks available, Truphone (Tmob I assume) and ATT, but gives the error message if I try to select ATT (after 30 secs or so of showing 'registering'). Are you saying some phones don't have the hardware, even if Android allows network choice? I did try 2-3 times.

With Piranha, you select online on their website, but 30c/min outgoing, 24c incoming in US for ATT.

PS
does your Truphone sim find ATT using "automatic network selection" in areas where Tmob has no signal?

Not using Android--just non-smart phones. Some phones do not show option of choosing network. For instance I have unlocked AT&T Huawei U2800A phones that have no option but find 'Truphone' as the network fine. It is 'automatic' with out the choice to turn it off. I have looked to find such a setting but have never found it.
It sometimes [at least two phones today in further testing after original posts] finds AT&T on startup where T-Mobile HAS signal. I am in southerrn Califorrnia [L.A. County along I-5 one third the way to Disneyland from Downtown L.A.] So, I do not know about no T-Mobile signal, but it finds AT&T even if T-Mobile is present.

"Persistence"
 

I have furthered played with [I mean experimented with] AT&T network connectivity with Truphone. Three phones that I have manually switched to AT&T network and then turned off. When, hours later, I turned them back on they connected to AT&T. This is what I term 'persistence'. Staying on the same network the phone was on when it was last turned off.

I have tried around eight GSM phones over the years with Truphone and have never been unable to choose AT&T. So perhaps, it is the phone?

that is quite normal, the last used network is stored on the SIM card and on restart the phone will try to get this network first - especially in roaming scenario this can speed up the network connection significantly when using a already known working network instead of testing trough all available ones...

Thanks for the explanation
 

Well, that explains 'persistence'.
That seems to cover more than 90% of my experience when in multi-network roaming situations.

was in Western Mass this weekend, in area that TMob map says should have coverage, but no signal even in the towns, and Truphone would not connect to ATT, even if I tried to choose it manually. I tried a few times again.

Google Voice app blocked?
 

Has anyone else had problems running the Google Voice app on Android while using Truphone? It works fine while I'm connected via Wi-Fi, but when I try connecting via mobile data I get a login error. I suspect that Truphone has blocked the app from connecting -- and if that's the case, it should be made known.

Truphone now also on 3G on AT&T in USA
 

I do not know what this all means.
Truphone is now also on 3G on the AT&T network in the USA.

Also more interestingly, instead of the T-Mobile network being called 'Truphone' in the list of networks, AT&T is now called 'Truphone' and the other is now called T-Mobile.

http://www.howardforums.com/showthre...1#post15897871

Incoming calls are also free
 

Just now noticed that incoming calls are free for US/UK sim holders using it in US/UK. It's probably been so for a while, but I am just now noticing it.