Telna Again?
 

Just got a call from Telna advising that they are back up and running and that I should get replacement SIM cards next week. Shall we all cross our fingers and touch wood together? :D

That will be interesting to see. They charged me the annual fee about a day before they "temporarily" suspended service. That was about 9 months ago.

True. 9 months is a long time in this industry. Same thing happened to me (a week before suspending service), however I asked for, and got it refunded.

Theoretically no fees for the next year and well, look at my sig for how much a true believer I am these days :roll:

Never the less these cards have been useful to me in my travel business, I let clients use them provided they pay for the calls. The service costs me little and the benefits are relatively large. That said I had to say no to too many clients last year when these guys went on hiatus . . . I may not advertise the service quite as much in the future.

I am with you morayoo. Of all the international dims that I have used, the only one that has been somewhat reliable and consistent in terms of service is Ekit. The rest, Maxroam, Yackie, etc. Have changed so much that I can care less what they are offering now. The usefulness of these international sims has really diminished in recent years anyway.

Well, I ought to put my history in my sig. Swiss EasyRoam (†), Riiing x2 (†), UM (†), 09 (†), CelTrek (†), Telna Mobile (?), Mobal (*) It's a tough call to say that what I saved using the dead ones (†) was greater than what I lost when they went Tango Uniform or not. I'm no longer traveling the way I used to, so it's now all water over the dam.

Another question that remains is - how many people are still going to be willing to pay the $19 annual fee for the benefit of having a US number. Other sim cards, for example Ekit, offers the option to keep a US number for $0.50/month. OTOH, one can do the forwarding on their own. Anyway let's see what they offer in terms of rates. My credit card on file has expired and I have received several emails about updating it, however I am still debating if I should or not.

Post paid is the benefit.
 

Telna's claim to fame is that it is post paid. $19.00 is the price one pays for that. For some people that is doable and OK and others no so much.

All things being equal, I don't mine paying a known $19/y fee. It really irks me to have a company go bankrupt and take my $100+ credit balance with them. One thing I liked about Telna is that they quickly implemented an incoming SIP address for their original SIMs when we here suggested it. I hope this feature will be retained in their new SIMs.

This is personal...I don't like postpaid...if the sim card is lost, and I've heard many cases of lost sim cards say by a son or daughter who may not even realize the sim card has been lost, you are responsible for all calls made till its reported lost. With prepaid, the most you can be out is the value on the card...the solution to the bankruptcy problem of so many of the international cards is to keep small balances and only top up when absolutely necessary.

There is that. With a prepaid you can easily loan the card to someone and know the exact extent of your risk. The solution for the card being lost is to use a PIN and don't loan the card out. I've traveled extensively and never lost a SIM but maybe I've just been lucky (or very careful). I have had phones saved by using a shoestring as belt lanyard attached to the phone. Having worked on ships so long, I tend to keep important things attached so they can't fall overboard.

Very good point. They are postpaid. So, like other postpaids, one has to factor in taxes. Just looked at my last bill from them for when I used it in Jamaica last year. Taxes were 23% of the total bill.
-----------------------------------------
Usage for telna Mobile (XXX) XXX - XXXX
Total call usage $8.94
Il state excise tax $0.670
Federal universal service fund $1.261
Federal trs fund $0.102
Simplified muni telecomm tax $0.574
Il state imf $0.048
Total taxes and surcharges $2.65

Total charges $11.60

They have the new Telna Mobile rates posted; a lot of the web pages say "Beta." Rates look very good for some countries but rather high for others (would rather use my Digicel sim in Bermuda or my ekit Simple Calling sim in the Cayman Islands for better rates). Still, depending on someone's itinerary, it could be a good value. Intriguing that the Telna sim will auto-select direct dial or call-back mode depending on carrier and country.

US rates are very reasonable at US$.05/minute incoming and US$.08/minute outgoing; primary US carrier is T-Mobile. Canada rates are rather high. Could be a good alternative for someone wanting a US postpaid sim card that can roam internationally without buying a huge bucket of minutes directly from a US carrier every month (whether or not they used them).

When I went through the sign-up form out of curiosity, it came up with a 3U Mobile pop-up message that I didn't sign up successfully (wasn't planning on buying at this time; but wanted to see the options presented). That's a German website under construction. I'm guessing 3U is the back-end provider for services outside North America.

Has any current customer received the new sim card?

Hello,

indeed the telna Mobile service is now open for business again. It took us much longer than expected to have the new service working to our standards, but we believe that it was worth the extra wait.

What has happened during that timeframe (we actually started working on this project about a year and half ago, long before the vendor for the previous service went bankrupt) is that telna is now a licensed mobile operator (1900 Mhz) in Missouri, and a full member of the GSM association (as you can see here: GSM Coverage Maps | United States | Telecom North America Mobile Inc.(telna Mobile) | Coverage and Network Information). We built our own GSM core network, own all the equipment involved, manufacture our own SIM cards, develop the software that resides on the SIM cards, negotiate our own roaming agreements and basically control everything, so that there are no more vendors involved who go bankrupt and put the service to halt.

At the moment, the service includes the following:

- US or Canadian phone number (UK numbers will be added soon). We can port in existing phone numbers. This is not available through the website yet, so if interested, simply contact customer service by email or phone.

- Coverage in 201 countries with low rates including in the USA. You can check the rates here: telna Mobile - Low cost cellular service for international travelers(international sim card for reduced roaming for inbound and outbound calls while abroad)

- Inbound and outbound voice and SMS service. Inside the USA we use direct dialing for outbound calls, and not callback. Other countries use callback at the moment.

- Data service in 138 countries. There is no data service inside USA yet, this will be launched soon.


What will be added in the future:

- Voip service that uses the same phone number and account as the wireless service. This will provide free incoming calls when calls are received through VOIP, and much lower rates when calls go out through VOIP. Actually, we are looking for beta testers for this service, so if you are a telna Mobile customer, and have an Android phone, you can download the telna app in the market and PM me to get SIP credentials. The app makes everything seamless: when you enter a wifi covered area with your phone, calls are routed in and out via Wifi automatically.

- There will be a prepaid version of the service, for those customers who prefer prepaid

- We are continuously negotiating new roaming agreements. As these are launched, rates, in particular data rates, will go down in many countries. In certain countries, we will switch from callback to direct dialing when it is possible to do so at a good price. In some cases, we will reduce the number of networks available in a country, because we will have a specially negotiated rate on one specific network.

To address MATHA531's comment, please note that although the service is sold as a postpaid service, everything is rated in realtime in our billing platform, and we currently have a cap of $300 of monthly usage configured for each customer. When you get close to this cap, customer service will contact you to ensure that the usage is legitimate, before increasing the cap. In addition, there can be separate caps for classes or service, for example we set a 70$ monthly cap on data usage, to make sure that customers don't inadvertently leave a laptop connected to the internet.
In the near future, these values will be available for customers to adjust themselves in mytelna. It will also be possible to entirely block data service (or SMS service) if required. Our goal as a company is to operate a long term, profitable business while trying to help customers save money, so we certainly want to help prevent "billshock" in any way we can.

Bossman: Yes, every former customer whom we were able to contact and confirm that they would like a replacement card, have received their replacement card in the last 2 weeks or so.

GadgetKen: Thank you for mentioning the popup incorrectly showing the "3U" name. 3U Telecom was the former name of Telecom North America prior to 2009. The bug has been corrected.

Please feel free to ask any question you may have.

PS: We also have a wholesale/white-label version of the service and are looking for resellers around the world. Anyone reading this and interested can contact us through Telecom North America, formerly 3U Telecom

new sim cards
 

I got mine about 2 weeks ago and set them up this morning. Telna needed to tweak something in the software, but it was good that they did as I was going to use the phone this weekend . . .:D

I received a shipping notice. The card is supposed to arrive today.
Would this feature be able to work with other phones that have WiFi & VoIP, such as Nokia S60 phones? It would seem that it could be possible that if a SIP connection was active that calls would automatically route that way rather than via GSM. TruPhone does something like this.

Hello,

yes, you can use any phone with a voip client, including Nokia, however you will be responsible to dial outbound calls the correct way (either through the phone's dialer or through the voip client) if the voip client doesn't integrate into the phone's dialer. The only benefit of our client is that it does this automatically, but it only exists on Android at the moment.

For inbound calls, we determine where to route them from the network side, so it doesn't matter which client you use.

My TelnaMobile SIM arrived today. I dropped it into my Moto V550 and it came right up on T-Mobile. I tried to register it as a Google Voice mobile phone but Google Voice would not recognize the keypad tones needed to enter the verification code. I sent a SMS from Telna to GoogleVoice, which was quickly received but the reverse (Google->Telna) got lost. I tried the SIM in my Nokia E61 and it would not stay registered on either ATT or T-Mobile. I'll try a few more phones later. The neither the PIN nor the PUK are provided with the SIM (AFAICT).

The SIM went from working to "Emergency Only" to "Unregistered SIM" and back to working again within a few hours. I was eventually able to get Google Voice to hear the DTMF confirmation code to register the number for use with Google Voice. So far, I can send SMS to just about number (smsBug, Google Voice, Cellular South) but have only been able to receive SMS from T-Mobile. I've been told that there is no provision for a SIM PIN, which is somewhat troubling, as I normally use a PIN.

All in all, I'm very hopeful about TelnaMobile. I've been concerned about what I will do after the demise of T-Mobile (one way or another). If TelnaMobile works well it will allow me to retain a viable international roaming capability while allowing me to solve my domestic service problem without having to consider international coverage.

P.S. I was able to receive a SMS from FishText.com

Thank you for above information but I am confussed.

checked the link and it says:

Roaming Partners

Telecom North America Mobile Inc. (telna Mobile) has not declared any active roaming agreements with other network operators to the GSM Association.

So if you do have roaming agreements I suggest to update the page to show them if you have them.

If you look at many of the carriers listed on GSMWorld, you will see that this information is often lacking or hopelessly out of date.

Which is exactly why we are not publishing it at the moment, because it changes every few weeks. Once it has stabilized, we will maintain it there. Plus, seeing a roaming agreement listed there doesn't mean that customers have access to it, since we use steering to optimize costs in certain countries. So the most accurate (and binding) list is the one on our website.

Has anyone here used Telna internationally? In July I plan to send my Moto V980 & TelnaMobile SIM with family going to Japan, Camboida & Vietnam. I have not heard any feedback here of how well it's working.

Not this new sim, but I have used them internationally in the past with the old sim.

On a side note - I noticed that I have not been able to log into my account in the last couple of weeks or so. I always get the error below. Voicemail is not working on my sim, and I wanted to see if I have to set it up online or so.


Fatal error: Class 'Scrambler' not found in /www/www.telna.com/mytelna_home.inc on line 33

This error only occurs on the TelnaMobile site. Try the Telna.com site. I actually reported this error on Sunday.

Thanks DrNewcomb. Never knew one could log in via Telna.com.

BTW, I have bbeen informed by their customer service that the voicemail is not yet functional, and that it should in the near future.

Well, I sent my TelnaMobile SIM & Moto V980 phone to my Luddite friends to take on their vacation. They went to Japan, Camboida & Vietnam and never turned it on until they got back to Dallas. :-/ So, I have obtained no information on how well it works outside the US. At least they didn't loose it.

telna Mobile: progress report
 

Hi

This is Herve from telna Mobile. I just wanted to keep you updated on our progress and the new services/features/bug fixing we've been working on recently.

In the past few weeks, we've corrected online access to the account. It should be available to all telna Mobile customers either on telna Mobile - Low cost cellular service for international travelers(international sim card for reduced roaming for inbound and outbound calls while abroad) or Telna - Telecom North America, formerly 3U Telecom (cheap long distance and low international phone rates) .

We've put back the page that allows anyone to send free text messages (SMS) to telna Mobile subscribers on our website: telna Mobile - Low cost cellular service for international travelers(international sim card for reduced roaming for inbound and outbound calls while abroad)

We lowered the rate when you call another telna Mobile customer. The cost is now the same as an inbound call if you call another telna Mobile customer directly on their telna Mobile number. This makes the service even more interesting for groups/families when they travel since calling each other is very important while abroad.

And finally the voip part of telna Mobile is live: we call it wifi calling service. You can use the telna SIP client on Android or any other client that you might prefer. The wifi calling service uses the same phone number and account as the wireless service. This will provide free incoming calls when calls are received through wifi, and much lower rates when calls go out through wifi. More information here: telna Mobile - Low cost cellular service for international travelers(international sim card for reduced roaming for inbound and outbound calls while abroad)

And we know we still have a lot more work to add more features that our customers are asking.

As usual feel free to ask any questions.

Thanks!

I've been playing around with TelnaMobile's new VoIP service. It seems to work reasonably well. One observation & suggestion: Their Android app appears to be a "lite" version of the free "CSipSimple" app that has been slightly customized so that the the service name and server are pre-entered. Anyone here might as well install the actual CSipSimple app rather than Telna's version. It has many additional features. Their SIP service also works through Fring, although I have not checked to see that Fring deregisters the connection when you drop WiFi connection, which is necessary if you wish to receive calls via cellular.

DrNewcomb, are you able to send sms successfully? I tried a few times but was not. They all failed. Is this not functional yet? No problem receiving sms.

I was able to send and receive texts between Telna and a number of carriers, including Google Voice. The one I had a problem with was CellularSouth (now rebranded CSpire Wireless) and as I recall, that was just in one direction (CSpire -> Telna). Haven't tested it recently.

The connection does drop a couple of minutes after you exit Fring, so that's a viable alternative.

Thanks. Sending sms seems to be working now.

On Android phones the VoIP service also works well with SipDroid. Now if I could just get it to work with the native SIP client on my Nokia E61. I have two other SIP accounts working on that phone but can't get Telna to work.

Telna Mobile and taxes - be advised
 

On Dec. 16, 2011, received monthly bill from Telna. It included for the first time charges for Mobile calls that were the result of Telna SIM card purchased in June 2011. The plan was that the SIM would be used for overseas, and once back stateside, in US locations. Fortunately, it did not work overseas and in the remote US locations. Thus, it was only used for one day in June and four days in August.

Here are the charges for (5) days of Mobile SIM use. Calls and Text all placed within US and to US mobile lines.

From Dec. 16, 2011, invoice:
$3.91 for Telna Mobile
$0.00 for WIFI

$169.53 - Federal UniversalServiceFund
$288.82 - state sales tax and state gross receipts tax

I am not pleased. If I had received the June charges on my July bill, I would have noticed something was askew and would have prevented the August use of the SIM.

I'd suggest you contact telna right away. Those tax amounts certainly look like an error. It's impossible to have those kinds of taxes on a $3.91 usage. When I used the Old telna, my taxes came to about 20% or so of my usage. What you are showing better be an error in their billing system

This has to be an error in the billing system. Any company that did this intentionally would have a life expectancy measured in nanoseconds. :flush:

Joyful, let us know if you contacted Telna and were able to resolve this obvious billing error. Below is my taxes for when I used it a couple of years ago. The new sim is with my son and he uses it mostly for sms (to US number), which is free. But, I have not got the bill yet, for the few calls he has made.


Total call usage $8.94
Il state excise tax $0.670
Federal universal service fund $1.261
Federal trs fund $0.102
Simplified muni telecomm tax $0.574
Il state imf $0.048
Total taxes and surcharges $2.65

Just chiming in here: the issue that occurred with "joyful" where the customer was charged 450$ in taxes for $3.91 in usage was of course a problem in our billing system. The bill was adjusted on the same day the customer reported this to us, and we have fixed the underlying cause so that this issue will not occur again.

I definitely concur with this comment: "Any company that did this intentionally would have a life expectancy measured in nanoseconds."