Truphone Forces Telephone Number Change on Early Adopters

I’ve been singing praises about the UK-based VoIP company Truphone to all of my friends and would call it the killer application for the latest generation of VoIP-equipped Nokia phones. To my dismay I received the following e-mail from Truphone Support this morning:

Truphone numbers are changing

Hello,

We’d like to give you advance notice that we will soon be switching all UK customers to Truphone’s very own new number range.

When this happens your phone number will change from 07624… to one beginning 07978…

Switching to a new set of numbers allows us to grow and evolve the service. As an early subscriber (thank you!), you were one of the few people to be assigned a number from our old 07624 range.

You don’t need to do anything yet. We will contact you again shortly to let you know your new number so you can begin telling your friends and contacts.

If you have any questions or queries, please visit the mobilevoipforum or email support@truphone.com

Thank you very much for all your support,

All at Truphone

Like any responsible business Truphone was prudent in giving a heads up to its customers regarding the upcoming change. I may be jumping the gun but no where do I see any indication of a concrete migration plan to make this change easy for us early adopters.

Number changes are difficult to handle in any medium be it VoIP, traditional landline, or mobile phone. This situation would be ideal for a Plaxo-like central address book service where I could update my contact details for all of my friends but not everyone uses Plaxo. Actually most of my friends don’t even sync their phones with their computers. Unfortunately this means that I have to cater to the lowest common denominator by spending several hours calling, emailing, and texting everyone before this change becomes permanent. Even then it’s almost guaranteed that I will miss someone.

I’d appreciate Truphone publicly post answers to its customer’s questions in the coming days. Some of the items I’d like to know are:

  1. Will there be free call forwarding for all calls originating from traditional mobile and landline calls for the first few weeks to our new Truphone numbers?
  2. Once forwarding ends, will there be a recording when someone calls my number alerting them of my new contact details for a few more weeks?
  3. Will the old SIP URI starting with 447624xxxxxx@truphone.com be terminated as well? If so, how long will forwarding work?
  4. Is there an option to maintain the SIP URI indefinitely once we are moved over to the new number? If not, how long will it be active?
  5. Is Truphone offering a way for me to send SMS messages out to my entire phonebook alerting them of my new number without forcing me to pay 0.07 GBP (about 14 US cents) per message?
  6. Rumors have persisted for quite some time that the new 07978 number range doesn’t properly support SMS. Has this been rectified?
  7. Has Truphone finally organized with OFCOM to bring down costs of incoming calls and to get the new number range included in the bundle of included minutes with mobile and landline operators?

I’m hoping to have answers to these questions so everything is clear before they flip the switch. Truphone can continue to set the benchmark of how VoIP companies conduct themselves by making this transition as easy and painless for its customers as possible. With this said I’m hoping this outstanding service that I’ve come to rely on for my daily communication doesn’t let me down.

January 25, 2008 | Filed Under Tech/Gadgets | Leave a Comment