Any experiences with Truphone?

[Pabster]

I tried it on 3 different 3G phones. It only worked on 2G.......never accessed 3G.

That is normal; Tru does NOT support 3G data. You should have EDGE access on BOTH AT&T and T-Mobile. Never had any trouble there.

[dmarkson]

To be clear, Tru data will work as follows:

Voice: T-Mobile 2g network, T-Mobile 3g network, AT&T 2g network
Data: T-Mobile 2g network, T-Mobile 3g network, AT&T 2g network
You can use T-Mobile high speed data. You can NOT use AT&T high speed data.

Tru *may* work on other regional networks. All I know is that it will NOT register on Verizon's x-Unicel network here.

[Pabster]

To be clear, Tru data will work as follows:

Voice: T-Mobile 2g network, T-Mobile 3g network, AT&T 2g network
Data: T-Mobile 2g network, T-Mobile 3g network, AT&T 2g network
You can use T-Mobile high speed data. You can NOT use AT&T high speed data.

Tru *may* work on other regional networks. All I know is that it will NOT register on Verizon's x-Unicel network here.

Neither of my Tru SIMs have access to T-Mobile 3G, EDGE only. Same with AT&T. I was told previously they did not support 3G on any network, ever, period.

Also no regional GSM roaming, I've never been able to register with a Tru SIM on anything other than AT&T or T-Mobile. (At least domestically-no idea abroad.)

[dmarkson]

Do you have an AWS capable phone that you tried and were unable to get a Tmo 3g connection?

[Pabster]

Do you have an AWS capable phone that you tried and were unable to get a Tmo 3g connection?

Yes, several of them, in fact. And by using a T-Mobile SIM I am able to verify HSPA+ availability, but Tru will not register on it. Ever.

[dmarkson]

My first Tru sim would not register on Tmo HSDPA when Tmo was installing an new tower near here. In fact at first it said local for 2g and roaming for 3g. Eventually it did not show roaming anymore. That is how it shows on Android, other phones show it's roaming on all networks here.

My other two Tru sims register on Tmo 3g no problem. Other than the Boston metro most other places I go do not have Tmo 3g so this is the only area I have been able to test it.

[Pabster]

I guess we need a few more Tru users to get a better picture of it across the country.

Frankly I was fine with no 3G access going in - at 17c/MB high speed data will get expensive real quick. EDGE is just fine for what I would ever use it for - basic email and an occasional web query.

[abeagler]

Could someone share what kinds of data speeds you get on EDGE with T-Mobile? My baseline is the highly throttled 3G from AT&T pay-as-you-go, so it's possible that EDGE won't be that much slower. Thanks in advance.

[Pabster]

I get about 100Kbps +/- 20Kbps on the T-Mobile affiliate here - iwireless. They are not known for great data speeds. On the native T-Mobile network I typically get around 140 to 160Kbps depending on the area. It is slow by any definition but more than sufficient for email and web queries, which is all I would do at 17c/MB.

[cacophony555]

I guess we need a few more Tru users to get a better picture of it across the country.

Frankly I was fine with no 3G access going in - at 17c/MB high speed data will get expensive real quick. EDGE is just fine for what I would ever use it for - basic email and an occasional web query.

Well, sad to report that at least in Palo Alto, CA my Tru Sim on my iPhone 3gs is only getting edge network. I did a speedtest and it was: (ping=658ms, download=0.12Mbps, upload=0.08Mbps)

[Pabster]

Well, sad to report that at least in Palo Alto, CA my Tru Sim on my iPhone 3gs is only getting edge network. I did a speedtest and it was: (ping=658ms, download=0.12Mbps, upload=0.08Mbps)

As expected. Thanks for the update.

[cacophony555]

The 100KB data rounding looks like it's going to be a deal breaker.

The iPhone appears to make almost hourly 3G connections, even when plugged in, connected to wifi, and not in use. Each of these connections is only a few KB, but Tru is rounding each instance to 100KB and charging 2 cents. 2 cents per hour = 50 cents per day = ~$14/month!!! For essentially no data usage.

And yes my phone has push notifications disabled, auto email fetching disabled, etc

[Pabster]

The 100KB data rounding looks like it's going to be a deal breaker.

The iPhone appears to make almost hourly 3G connections, even when plugged in, connected to wifi, and not in use. Each of these connections is only a few KB, but Tru is rounding each instance to 100KB and charging 2 cents. 2 cents per hour = 50 cents per day = ~$14/month!!! For essentially no data usage.

And yes my phone has push notifications disabled, auto email fetching disabled, etc

Yes, you need to disable cellular data when not in use. It's a simple flip switch in the options. iPhone does use some small random cellular data even with push stuff disabled.

[cacophony555]

Yes, you need to disable cellular data when not in use. It's a simple flip switch in the options. iPhone does use some small random cellular data even with push stuff disabled.

Having to enable and then disable the cellular modem manually each time I need to use data sounds like a pretty big pain. Especially considering you have to go through multiple levels of preference screens.

Maybe there's a cydia app/mod that prevents cellular usage when the phone isn't in use?

[ChiAn]

Dang, the way they calculate data usage kinda sucks. I'm trying to ditch ATT after what they did to the gophone data plans.
But Tru calculates billing based on each session not each day?
That is pretty annoying since I was planning on leaving it on to poll for emails and sms. And I have 3g Watchdog and Droidwall to prevent random apps from accessing data so my usage would have been low...

Not quite a dealbreaker for me since it's just one click to fully enable/disable data, but it will probably severely limit my usage.

@cacophony555: sbsettings should have that button to enable/disable data. I had it on my ipod (never used it though, obviously lol). It also lets you control a bunch of other useful stuff though.