Truphone - low cost cellular phone service
Truphone is a British cellular phone company that offers an unusual service to us Yanks.
In Great Britain ( and Europe ), the cellular phone service payment system works a little differently than the type American capitalists came up with. In Europe, all incoming calls to one's cell phone are free, while the cell phone user pays for all outbound calls.
Truphone offers this Euro-style payment system to Americans.
Yes, you read that right - Truphone cellular service includes FREE incoming voice calls and FREE incoming SMS'.
Truphone charges $.09 a minute for outbound voice calls and $.09 a minute for outbound SMS messages ( again, both inbound voice calls & SMS are free with Truphone ). Data is charged at $.09 a megabyte ( no free data ).
To get started with Truphone, you'll need an AT&T compatible cellular phone. It can be locked to AT&T, but can't be blacklisted by them.
Log on to the Truphone website and order your SIM card. They will charge you $29.95 for this, but turn around and give you a $15 service credit on your account.
When your SIM card arrives, you can go through the account activation dance and all that fooforaw. Congratulations! You've spent $15 for cell phone service and have 179 days to decide who to call!
Hmm, what's that? Six months?
With Truphone, you only have to make an outbound call once every 180 days to maintain your service. So long as you make that one call before the six months goes by, your airtime will roll over as you buy more airtime. Each time you make a call or send a SMS message, you restart the six month period.
As Truphone's minimum recharge costs $15, theoretically, you could have "minimal usage" cellular service for around $30/year.
So, a quick overview of Truphone:
- Service startup: $29.95 - includes a $15 account credit
- Outbound voice calls cost nine cents a minute. Inbound voice calls are free.
- Outbound SMS cost nine cents a minute. Inbound text messages are free.
- Six month account duration. Each outbound voice call or SMS restarts this clock
- Utilizes AT&T's 4G network here in the USA
- US customers can obtain a UK phone number for $8/mo extra ( allows British folks to make a local call & get you )
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Tags: Truphone, low-cost-cell-service
