Sometime ago I signed up for Truphone. It’s a service that works with specific cellular telephones that have wifi capability. What Truphone does is link your cellular telephone to the Internet and then allows you to make telephone calls for free, or for substantially less than you would pay your cellular service. In other words, VOIP (Voice Over Internet Protocol).

How does it work?

If you happen to be near a hotspot, such as a hotel, or even at home, you simply link your wifi-enabled phone to a wirless router and then place a telephone call to a regular telephone somewhere else in the world. In most instances such calls are free. Yep, free. You can also place calls to cellular telephones in other countries as well, but the charge for that is a tad higher, around $.10 per minute, but heck that’s really cheap.

But things just got better. Now you can place a VOIP call from anywhere your cellular telephone has a cellular signal. Yep, anywhere. There is a charge for this service, again around $.10 per minute.

I own the Nokia E61 phone, it is wifi-enabled. So, when traveling internationally, in the past I have called my family for free, mostly when I was in a hotel with a wireless Internet service available. As well, many Internet cafes offer the same service for free, if you buy a cup of coffee.

Recently I was in Scotland, staying at a hotel, I called my family using my E61, talked for 47 minutes. What did it cost me? Nothing, zero, zit. The call was totally free. Now, let me compare what the call would have cost if I had used T-mobile, my cellular carrier. It would have been $1.85 per minute or $86.95!

I hope you get the idea here, if you travel internationally, the Truphone service can save you a bundle.

But, now things are even better. I can make such a call from anywhere my cell phone has a cellular connection. So, let’s say I am at a friend’s house and he wants to call his sister who is in the United Kingdom. Not a problem. I just dial the International telephone number with a + sign and use the country code for that country, it is really quite simple to do, and walla, my cell phone connects to a router somewhere in the United States using my T-mobile service, the router then places the call through the Internet to my friend’s sister in the United Kingdom. It will cost me about $.10 a minute for the call, but heck it’s worth a buck or two to see my friend happy. BTW, I can also call a cellular telephone number in most countries of the world the same way. As long as you have the correct phone number it works seamlessly.

So how’s the quality? Just as good as any other call. Yep, just as good.

Currently, Truphone only works with selected Nokia phones, you can see a list here.

And, for those of you who have iPhones, the Truphone folks are currently at work developing software that will do the same thing on the iPhone.

I like technology and I really like it when it saves me money. You might go have a look at the Truphone service, especially if you travel Internationally or you have friends or family who live in other countries, it’s a great way to stay in touch, sometimes for free.