Truphone/Truphone Local Anywhere rebrands it all to 'Tru'
 

Well, change is coming.

As i write these lines I can see that Truphone Local Anywhere is rebranding the whole operation to simply 'Tru'. Check out the new site www.truphone.com to see the fresh look of the company and the services.

Glad to see that the mobile app is being pushed aside and now its called 'Tru app'. I've always felt that truphone is wasting time with their phone application service given the fact that there are zillions of services out there that do the same or better (Skype!??)

Their main differentiator should be their global SIM service, and from the looks of this rebranding seems like that's where they are going.

At this time the website is in total flux and I can't access to many sections of it. Will try to update this post when things stabilize.

New web pages for Tru formerly Truphone
 

bartolo5, thanks for starting a new thread--I would have been too timid and added to the previous live one.
They seem to be mostly finished with the website--I could not find anything undone or too broken.

They are marching on into new countries, it appears:
This image shows them currently and 'coming next' to Australia. Attachment 61

I believe both are true [pun realized] right now in some sense. They do not yet offer a phone number, but they DO show member rates for Australia. Also, on a different page they show Australia 'coming next'.

Previous thread was about their incorrect rates, which by the way they are STILL incorrect. Incoming calls in Europe is still showing at $0.70 when Truphone itself confirmed it's wrong. Actually if you select to see the prices in GBP it shows ok on their site.

Just wanted to make sure people know there is movement on the Truphone front, even when we haven't got any real news in terms of countries or pricing which is sort of sad :down:

If you look through the site this has been a total change of their brand, from the name of the product, now simply Tru to a much more focused approach on their SIM business. From my point of view they are just laying the groundwork for what's to come. 'Tru', let's start calling it like that, can only gain traction if more countries are added to the service, and an interesting count of countries is still far away.

But it's good to know they are working hard at it. My life will be a lot simpler if Tru is able to deliver on its promise.

The problem is that Truphone started its prices too high and is only now getting them in line. You're correct that the Truphone VOIP app isn't overly compelling right now. What they should do is fold their membership rate and their VOIP rate into one and combine the phone numbers so the two services are integrated.

Hmm... this morning I got an SMS asking me to confirm renewing my "local membership"... and foolishly, I replied "YES" thinking I had missed my monthly call last month (I had). All of a sudden I received an email thanking me for renewing my local rate (what rate??? I'm in Canada, no local rates here or probably ever!) for another month(!) and got charged $15 for it :eek:

Anyway, I sent them an email asking for clarification, I hope they have just been messing up transferring to a new website & all. Now, to stay on topic, I STILL can't change any of my settings, nor top up. I really love Tru(phone) in so many ways, but they REALLY need to improve a lot of things as well... :nono:

Don't tell me Local Anywhere charges $15/month now? In that case, I have no choice but to buy a *shudder* local sim card...

Local membership not required for local rate in home country.
 

No. See quote below. Call them and ask nicely [iow beg] to undo the local membership charge.

From tru's web site:
Your home country rate does not expire. Also, they gave everyone who already had the sIM 'free' local membership' for a 'month' [They actually extended it at least once.] that in my case expires 12/10/2010.

Since they seem unable to communicate the local rate thing they should really refund the charge for you.

Haha thanks for the quick reply and PM :) I promise not to hijack this thread but I asked them to transfer the $15 to my credit, since I am unable to upgrade using the site :)

They really do have a problem communicating though, because I panicked when I read their new explanation:

( Tru for You - TruPhone )

I guess I saw red at that point and forgot to read on :D

(emphasis mine)

How did they get your money?
 

Did you have a credit balance over $15.00 or did they charge a credit card on file?

They charged the credit card on file :)

While there are certainly advantages to having a credit card on file with these companies, this is certainly one of the disadvantages. With a credit card on file, even a mistake like this can be costly to the consumer, if for some reason they refuse to do a refund.

Another example, to use TelnaMobile, one needs to have a credit card on file. Well, they charged me their $19 yearly fee in July and they have been temporary out of service since sometime around July or so. I hope TelnaMobile can come back though.

What is annoying to me is that if the UK jaws my local country, I get EU roaming rates capped by the EU's roaming regs, but with the US as my home country, the rates are considerably higher.

Well, according to Truphone's answer in this thread the US european pricing is incorrect.

Just to wrap up a "moan" I started earlier in this thread :) I got the nicest reply from Tru, and they transferred the $15 without a hassle... also they found out why I could not top up. All is well again :D

This is what they wrote:

I live in the U.S. and I'm thinking about using Tru for my cell phone service here. I expect everything will be alright if I can get good cell tower reception throughout the country, as Tru promises, and if they don't raise their US-to-US calling rates. I plan on keeping the same phone number I currently have when I leave AT&T very soon.

Anyone else in the U.S. using Tru full-time? If so, have you been satisfied? Thanks.

I use it often and works anywhere where there is T-Mobile coverage which is pretty much everywhere I go. They are definitely one of the best offers on prepaid if you live in the US.

SIM Magic
 

Remember that they use T-Mobile, so if T-Mobile is good coverage for you, than Tru can be.

And now to my topic. When I turned on my phone today, it said, "Welcome to Tru", not "Welcome to Truphone" like it used to. Also, On the screen when it shows network as T-Mobile, underneath it now says Tru and not Truphone.

Austalia back, but
 

In an email I received today, Tru indicated [and the website verifies] that Australia is now available as a membership rate country and phones numbers are available. The 'BUT'? An Austalian phone number at this point cannot be a primary number. You have to add it to your US or UK phone number.

A step forward, at least.

How much do they charge for a virtual number? My best friend is an American ex-pat living in London who will be moving to Australia in the fall of 2011. It is almost as if they designed the product for him.

Well...........
 

That is the easy question to answer:Does he need a US & a UK number? $8/month each [once tru perfects an austalian primary number]. And the memberhip rate for the non-home countries is $15/month.

If cost is not an issue, than the product seems to be the optimum for him. If he stays in Australia most of the time, he would only need the membership rates when he traveled. I would think, that the inspired could find US & UK forwarding numbers that would be more economical. But this could be for the non-prepaidgsm.net types who want a minimum of hassle.

Mark is a technophobe who thinks I make things too complicated and mocks me about the number of SIM chips I have. Living in the UK, however, has taught him the value of being parsimonious.

He has a hard time keeping one alive and unlike his teenage son and wife, he rarely uses the phone. As he is taking charge of the family's migration project, however, he is coming to the US with his son for a month and a half this summer to get him a US driver's license and finalize his US citizenship. He is then going for two weeks to France (their rates match EU prepaid SIM rates there), and then going to OZ to help set up their new home, and then returning to England to pack up the UK house.

I don't know that he should give Truphone $15 a month forever, but I think that June through October may be a good bet for him to be reached in one place worldwide without having to deal with callbacks, etc.

I was thinking that he should get an OZ number, pay the $15. I can give him a US number and a UK number (UK DDI). I have a source for Michigan DIDs. One of my clients is a small Michigan VOIP service and they give me as many DIDs as I want. Once he is in OZ for good, stop paying the $15 and use the phone as his local phone. He is the perfect candidate for prepaid and a few cents more than a local SIM isn't going to matter for his light usage.

My roaming SIMs have gravitated to Ekit and Maxroam (buying a US virtual number). I now have an iPhone with ATT's unlimited worldwide data which gives me free VOIP over 3g, a great callback trigger device, and the ability to forward my DID on the fly to the prepaid SIM de jour. I effectively have 8 US cents a minute calling everywhere in most of Western Europe, OZ, etc. I'm paying only US$0.10 a minute in the Bahamas!

I then loan my roaming SIMs to friends who wind up making enough outbound calls ib tgen that even the roaming SIM companies do well off me. I'm down to a UAE and a UK prepaid SIM and will probably ditch the UK one when I run out of money, but the free Skype calls <=> my Asterisks box make it tempting.

Bundles are currently available exclusively for UK customers.
 

UK Bundles
Some interesting 'bundles' offered to Tru UK customers on the business side of things.