The days of ultra-high mobile phone charges for making a call while abroad or calling internationally are finally over. Truphone, the mobile operator for the internet age, has revealed a revolutionary new pricing structure that means roaming charges have vanished completely for its customers.
From anywhere on the planet, Truphone’s customers can call countries in its ‘Tru Zone’, on their mobile, at the fabulously low rates of just GBP0.03 per minute to landlines [USD0.06 per minute for Truphone customers from outside the UK] and GBP0.15 [USD0.30] per minute to mobiles. The 40 countries in the Tru Zone together account for 60% of the world’s mobile phones and include most EU countries, Australia, Japan and Russia. Calls to some countries – including China, Hong Kong, USA and Canada – will cost even less, at just GBP0.03 [USD0.06] per minute to both landlines and mobiles.
The potential savings for customers quickly mount up. At current prices, a 10 minute mobile call from Europe to a UK landline for a Vodafone UK customer with Vodafone’s International Call Saver option (which attracts a monthly GBP2.50 charge just to be on it) will cost GBP3.80, while the same call with Truphone costs a mere GBP0.30. Worse still, a Vodafone UK customer calling home from the USA on the same tariff will currently be charged an eye-watering GBP11.00 for a 10 minute call – but the same call with Truphone costs just GBP0.30.
In the USA, a Verizon Wireless customer without an international calling plan could pay as much as USD1.49 per minute to call a landline phone or USD1.68 to call a mobile phone in Germany. That same person calling from Germany (using a rented mobile phone) to the United States would be charged about USD1.29 per minute. With Truphone, it costs just USD0.06 per minute to call a landline in Germany, and USD0.30 to call a mobile – and to call the USA costs just USD0.06 whether to a landline or a mobile.
Truphone frees people not only from high prices but from the fear of those high prices. “People don’t know how much they’ll be charged to make a mobile call to friends abroad or to call back home from holiday. But they do know it’s expensive,” explained James Tagg, Truphone’s CEO. “So we’ve abolished roaming charges to make it the same low price to call, wherever you are in the world.”
“Wi-Fi and the internet, which we use to carry our customers’ calls, is everywhere. People on holiday, expatriates, migrant workers, business people, anyone with friends, family or colleagues in a different country… they can all now sidestep high roaming fees.
“People should be hanging up on roaming charges, not be hung up on them,” he said.
Truphone has also killed off roaming charges for receiving mobile calls abroad, something that routinely catches out travellers who don’t realise that they pay a high price for inbound calls. Receiving a call abroad costs absolutely nothing with Truphone – yet a Vodafone UK customer with Vodafone’s International Call Saver option is currently charged GBP0.75 per minute in the USA to answer a call from home. The same Vodafone customer is only marginally better off accepting an inbound call in Europe, where accepting an inbound call costs GBP0.19 per minute.
Accessible from countries across the world, Truphone has already attracted customers from more than 100 countries.
Because it routes calls over Wi-Fi and the internet, Truphone’s tariff structure relates solely to the destination being called, and whether that destination is a landline or a mobile. Where the call is made from becomes irrelevant, making roaming charges redundant – at last.
Truphone-to-Truphone calls remain free, no matter where in the world the two parties are.
Notes to editors
- See the new Truphone website for more information.
- Comparison pricing is correct as at February 29th 2008.
- All customers based outside the UK are billed in US dollars.
- Beyond the Tru Zone is an outer zone containing a further 30 countries, including India, Pakistan, South Africa and Bangladesh. Calls to these countries cost just GBP0.25 [USD0.50] per minute to mobiles, and just GBP0.05 [USD0.10] per minute to landlines.
- Text messages to mobiles cost GBP0.10 [USD0.20] from/to anywhere in the world.
- Calls charges to mobiles and landlines outside of either the Tru Zone or the outer zone vary, but are all at low, internet rates.
- Pricing structure excludes calls to some premium and non-geographic rates.
Truphone has phased in important new service improvements that ensure its customers need never run out of credit again. The improvements are fourfold:
The top-up improvements benefit all Truphone customers, including users of Truphone for the Apple® iPhone™. Designed to provide low-priced international calls for iPhone users, Truphone hit Apple’s new App Store on July 11th and was the first internet telephony application available for the iPhone.
“We’ve fully addressed the issues of topping-up credit while on the move, because running out is one of the most irritating things for any mobile phone user,” said Gavin Miller, Truphone’s director of customer services. “We listened to a range of suggestions from our customers, and we’ve acted on all of them. No-one ever needs to find themselves unable to use Truphone.”
