Tru Wireless Freedom

This has surprised me. I thought mobile roaming would not go away before the end of the decade. It did. I am happy to report I changed my mobile service provider to Truphone. It is amazing. Actually it does what a mobile phone service should do in 21st century. Gives freedom. Globally. By - as they claim - redefining local.

From technical point of view Truphone is a mobile service provider. You can simply get a Truphone SIM. Here is where the nice things start. The SIM is multi-IMSI, meaning there can be many phone numbers attached to it. Up to eight. And each can be in a different country. I picked three: USA, Poland and Hong Kong. Then it has a smart CLI function, meaning when calling out, it presents itself with the number most appropriate to the called party. When I call a US-based number, my own US number is presented. When I call a number in Poland, my Polish is presented. Same with Hong Kong. So the called person can always call me back locally, while I can be on an entire different continent. Which, in Truphone's view, is local (ain't this way on the Internet?). This applies to the countries in so called Truphone zone (US, UK, Australia, Hong Kong, Netherlands, Germany, Poland and Spain).

Then there are 66 other countries (including China, Japan, New Zealand, Russia, Singapore and many more), where I cannot have a local number (yet!), but both minutes and data are bundled. 300minutes/300SMS/300MB for $50. Or 500/500/500 for $70. Suddenly I feel like at home. Two years ago in a solitary protest against high roaming charges I disabled data roaming on my phone, living only on WiFi when abroad. It was not too comfortable, but I was feeling even less comfortable paying the current roaming prices). With Truphone I feel free as a bird. Using my phone wherever and whenever I need, the way I should: without thinking "this is gonna cost me that....".

I just wonder why none of the incumbents dares to offer such service. Take T-Mobile for instance. It is in Poland, in Germany, in the US, UK and several other countries. Couldn't it offer a service like Tru? Yet another example why it is startups that change the world!