This is the terrific result of global mobile operator Truphone’s first minutes ‘bundle’ – Tru Saver – which offers iPhone and Nokia handset owners 1,000 minutes to the USA and Canada for only US$14.99 per month.
For purposes of comparison:
• UK customers pay UK7.49 per month for the Tru Saver bundle.
• A UK ‘pay monthly’ iPhone owner making a call to the USA or Canada, with O2’s International Traveller Service option, is charged UK0.17 per minute. This means that someone making more than 45 minutes of calls to the USA/Canada in a month will be better off with the Tru Saver bundle.
• Without the International Traveller Service option (i.e. a customer on O2’s 30 per month tariff), the otherwise-identical O2 customer is charged UK0.99 per minute. For this customer, the payback period on the Tru Saver bundle is reduced to a little over seven and a half minutes of calls – offering, effectively, a further 992.5 Tru Saver minutes for free.
• Since the Tru Saver bundle applies for calls to the United States and Canada from anywhere in the world, the payback period for an iPhone user calling these countries while roaming are even shorter – as little as three or four minutes in some cases, giving up to 996 effectively free Tru Saver minutes.
James Tagg, Truphone’s CEO, said, “iPhone and Nokia owners who regularly call North America can purchase Truphone’s bundle to get ‘peace of mind’ pricing of just 1.5 US cents – 0.75 pence – per minute to the USA and Canada from anywhere in the world. People don’t want to calculate precise ‘per minute’ rates, or check tariff websites, or take a paid-for tariff ‘bolt-on’ to get a still-high rate. They simply want to feel comfortable about what they’re going to pay for the call they want to make.”
Truphone carries calls via Wi-Fi and the internet. However, for Nokia handset owners with bundled GSM minutes as part of their GSM operator’s plan, the combination of Truphone’s new bundle with Truphone Anywhere – which enables cheap mobile calls via the internet even when not connected to the Internet – makes possible mobile calls to the USA or Canada at the amazing price of just 1.5 US cents per minute [UK0.0075 per minute] even when the caller is on the move and outside Wi-Fi.