So I got caught up in a long IM conversation with Ewan MacLeod of SMS Text News fame today. We were chatting about Truphone. One of my all time favorite companies and by far my favorite VOIP companies. Ewan wrote a post about it titled “How do you find Truphone?” and I wanted to talk a bit about what he wrote.

I’m a big fan of the Truphone offering. I buy it — I buy the concept behind the service. 3G and WiFi represents a good medium for calling.

The on-handset deployment is phenomenally well implemented (as best you can on Symbian, I suspect).

The service works nicely.

There’s only one person I know who uses it like no tomorrow, though.

That’s Jeb, from Brilliant Expos. Jeb uses Truphone all day, all night. Jeb cites one of the key reasons for doing so, apart from his support of everything mobile (he’s a big mobile fan), is price. Truphone offers some really competitive rates. I’m not sure how they’re able to make cash — if any — at these rates though.

Switch off the rates and Jeb, a big international caller, will (I suspect) have to look elsewhere. I don’t quite know if the service itself is compelling enough to keep his attention.

I’ve got an account. I used it a few times. I just… I find it quite difficult to remember to use it. For the longest time, my internet connection here in the UK was so shit that I couldn’t even use Skype on it, let alone consider trying out Truphone.

Then I’ve been swapping between all sorts of different handsets, most of which haven’t been Truphone compatible.

The team — the people I’ve come across — are some of the best in the business — talented, friendly, capable.

So here’s my question: How do you use Truphone? What are your experiences?

If you haven’t actually tried it, do me a favour, sign-up (it’s free, actually you get 2 pounds calling credit!) and check it out and knock me over your thoughts?

Like Ewan said, I am a Truphone user and honestly an evangelist. I use them as much as I can. I won’t say they don’t have a few places they could shine a little brighter but as a whole they provide a fantastic service. I am concerned about what will happen now that they plan on charging for the service. Will the general public think it’s worth while to use them? Will you use them? Will you actually pay your mobile bill and on top of that go out and pay Truphone for additional minutes? Don’t get me wrong their rates are comparable with the rates you pay your mobile operator. But the big question for Truphone is will you pay them in addition to your mobile operator?

I am personally making all kinds of calculations and notes. I know for a fact I plan on continuing my use but to what capacity is my question. I will definatly use them when I travel outside the United States. I will continue to use them when I find mysef in a low signal area. I will continue to use them in my day to day life to some extent. The questions comes back to the numbers. I want to pay as little as possible but still get the most for my dollar spent.

My question to you is what will you do? Will you use Truphone once the fee free service has expired? Will you use them just to receive calls and SMS or will you give them your hard earned money and make calls and send SMS using their service?