Truphone Uses VoIP, SIM Card to Cut Cost of Roaming
In May 2008, Truphone launched a service that brought a big benefit to its mobile VoIP customers. The service, Truphone Anywhere, let users access its global VoIP network via local cellular voice circuits. That meant they no longer had to rely on wifi or cellular data connections to cut their international calling charges while traveling. Users still, however, had to pay the hefty roaming fees their carriers charged for even local calls made overseas. Now, Truphone plans to remedy that problem as well. It has announced a planned service that will let customers make local calls – and thus access its VoIP network – at local rates when they’re traveling overseas.
The new service, called Truphone Local Anywhere, is the result of Truphone’s acquisition of travel SIM card provider SIM4travel in April 2008. It will provide customers with a single SIM card that lets them make and receive calls as if they lived in whatever country they’re visiting. They’ll be able to use local numbers and pay local cellular rates without having to buy local SIM cards in each country as savvy travelers often do.
Users will gain the biggest benefit when calling home or to another country from overseas. With Local Anywhere, they’ll be able to connect at local rates to Truphone Anywhere gateways. Their calls will then travel over the Truphone VoIP network to their home or another country. That will help users avoid the deadly duo of cellular charges: international roaming fees and international calling rates that can add up to dollars or euros per minute in costs.
Truphone will also provide additional virtual local numbers in different countries. That will let people in those countries call Truphone customers at local rates. Customers will also be able to port existing landline or mobile numbers to their Truphone accounts. If they do, Truphone will have replaced their existing carriers and become their main cellular service provider. As such, it will offer what the company claims are competitive domestic voice, data and texting rates, as well as savings of up to 80 percent on roaming charges when traveling to other countries.
Truphone, which announced the planned service at the Mobile World Congress in Barcelona, didn’t reveal the countries in which the Local Anywhere service will be available. It also said only that it will launch sometime in the second half of 2009.