Wow... it's been quite sometimes i haven't write anything on this blog. My last post was in April, when i wrote about Nikon D40 and SB-400. Now, i'm back! Hope i will have the time to update this blog regularly.
Early this year, on January 23rd, i wrote a blog titled "Free calls to regular phone. Seriously?". It's a VOIP service that enabled you to call to regular phone from your pc over internet. Recently, i found out another VOIP service that enabled you to call to regular phone over internet, but this time exclusively from your SIP-Enabled device such Nokia E-Series. It's called Truphone.
What is Truphone? From their website, "Truphone routes your mobile calls via the internet. That means free mobile calls to other Truphone users & very cheap calls to anyone else." See? "Very cheap calls to anyone else." But that is not my main attraction. The main attraction is, they are doing an offer, "Terrific offer: free calls until Dec 31st. Sign up before 30th September and get free mobile calls to 40 countries worldwide for the rest of the year." But as usual, read thoroughly before you sign up. Especially the fine print. Ok, enough of that. Let me share my experience of using Truphone.
As i owned Nokia E70 and subscribed to Unlimited 3G data usage, why don't i fully utilize the usage of my E70? So, i subscribed to Truphone. As i mentioned earlier, Truphone is meant for SIP-enabled mobile device. It doesn't have a client for pc. So, for people without SIP-enabled device, just forget it. Installation is done in two ways, either you download the client directly from your phone by SMS, or download to your pc and transfer the installation file to your phone. But everytime you install the client, it will send a sms to request for configuration file. And you'll get a couple of smses in return. I'm not sure the charges on sms. It didn't stated anywhere on the website.
Once configured, you can make a VOIP call to any regular phone as they gave USD2 for a start. I prefer to connect from the SIP service rather than the Truphone client. It consumes less memory. Oh did i mention that you can connect to Truphone by 3G or WiFi? Yes, we could. Making a call to regular phone is not a problem at all. I've done a couple of phone calls using Truphone and it works without any glitch. The best part is, you can also call google talk using from Truphone! I really really love this feature. As i don't have any of my friends using Truphone, i do have friends using google talk. Just imagine, you can call them from your handphone! Isn't cool?
But, i have a problem making a call to google talk id. When i tried to call my own id, which i log in during office hour, it's always unsuccessful. Same goes to my colleague. So, i log an incident to the support team. After exchanging emails, finally the support team decided to give me a call. Isn't great? You are using a free service, and they call you to solve your problem. After a couple of test, it worked as it should. However, when i try to call a friend in India, i faced another problem, unable to listen to his voice. Sheezz..... it's ok. I'll keep on trying. And it will be nice if they can provide the SIP password! So that we can use Truphone with third party application.
I recommend this service to anyone who own SIP-enabled device. Currently it only supports selected Nokia E-series and N-series. I believe they will try to expand the list of supported device. While there is a lag a second or two during the call, it still acceptable. I still hoping that i can resolve the google talk issue. And the support team, they really try their best to resolve the issue. So guys, try to call me on my Truphone. The number is +12064248375.
