By Michelle Amodio, TMCnet Contributor

As mobile phone usage starts to take the place of its landline counterpart, consumers are in search of inexpensive ways to communicate with friends and relatives across the globe. With VoIP being the global phenomenon that it is, text messaging and long-distance calls have seen a decrease over mobile networks as VoIP services are more easily available. Network providers are in constant battle to compete with consumer’s attraction to VoIP’s smart costs.

Truphone is the one company that has pioneered VoIP on iOS. Prior to that, the company started in mobile Internet telephony by developing apps for Nokia, BlackBerry, Apple iOS and Android (News - Alert) for global telephone calls at inexpensive rates.

The company recently updated its app for Android and iOS, the largest update since its last 5.0 release in November.

The new update introduces cheaper taxes and removes the connection fees associated with outgoing calls while introducing secure calling. Two new indicators — the Call Quality Indicator and the Call Cost Indicator — have been added, the former of which is visible whether or not you’re on a call. A number of UI tweaks and bug fixes is also part of the update.

Among the most notable changes are the Truphone Anywhere integration and the SD Card (News - Alert) installation support.

Truphone’s Adam Linford broke exclusive news at the most recent ITEXPO (News - Alert) in January, telling TMCnet’s Rich Tehrani that Truphone’s newest VoIP app rolled out for Blackberry 10. 

“Truphone has a great record for creating mobile applications in the real time communications space. We were the very first company to put voice over IP on iOS and we were the first company to put voice over IP applications into what was then the Google (News - Alert) market place, and today the first, I believe, to announce that we’ve got a voice over IP application on the exciting new BlackBerry 10 system, which was launched today,” said Linford to Tehrani.

Tru App for BlackBerry (News - Alert) 10 features an enhanced user interface. Tru 5.0 will be available in the updated BlackBerry World even before the first BlackBerry 10 devices went on sale.

Watch to learn more about Truphone’s breaking news at this year’s ITEXPO East.