Voice Plans

fring added a feature/service like SkypeOut that lets you call a conventional phone (landline or cell). Naturally, they call this feature fringOut.

NEW! fringOut for iPhone! Call the world less than 1c/min

The less than 1 cent per minute calls apply to the U.S., Canada, the UK and India. The fring for iPhone app is free.

fring 4.0.0.9 (iTunes App Store)

And, if you are stranded in Europe because of the usual snowfall, fring is providing $5 fringOut credit if you follow the instructions provided in their fringOut announcement (linked at the top of this blog entry). This includes tweeting your fring user ID, referencing @fring, the #freefringairport Twitter tag, and a photo of your ticket (I’m a bit leery about this last item).

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There’s an interesting discussion thread over on Ycombinator’s Hacker News that started with the simple question:

Using Google Voice Number for your startup?

A couple of voice message services I had never heard of are scattered in the responses. So, I thought I’d list them here as a public service and reminder for me to take a look at them in the near future.

- CallCentric

- Grasshopper

- OnSIP

- Phonebooth

Developers looking for a building block to base their own messaging systems on might want to take a look at:

- Tropo

- Twilio

Skype is playing some interesting games regarding their mobile phone Voice over IP clients. Skype pulled their generally well-regarded Windows Mobile client off their downloads area saying they would not support that platform nor the upcoming Windows Phone 7 release. Then, Skype released a Verizon branded app for the Droid but pulled Skype out of the Android Market for other phones. I cannot, for example, find the Skype app in the market on my Nexus One.

Skype has finally released an update for the iPhone that allows Skype VoIP calls while using 3G wireless data sevice. It was previously limited to use over WiFi connections.

Skype’s new iPhone application introduces 3G calling functionality

However, note this little service wrinkle in the second paragraph of the announcement:

Skype-to-Skype calls on 3G will be free for a trial period which will run until the end of 2010*. Details of pricing will be announced in the coming months and will be in line with Skype’s commitment to providing customers with great value. Skype-to-Skype calls over WiFi will still remain free.

Yes, Skype will start charging for VoIP calls over 3G starting in 2011.

By the way, this Skype 2.0.0 update for iPhone still is not a universal app that can also scale nicely on the iPad’s screen.

Skype 2.0.0 for iPhone

Congress has passed the Truth in Caller ID Act of 2010 that states…

It shall be unlawful for any person within the United States, in connection with any real time voice communication service, regardless of the technology or network utilized, to cause any caller ID service to transmit misleading or inaccurate caller ID information, with the intent to defraud or deceive.

The act goes on to state that it does not prevent one from having their phone number blocked from being transmitted by caller ID services.

I have seen several instances of calls appearing on my caller ID as coming from cell phones that turn out to be calls from telemarketers. Usually the call appears with the word “CELL” proceeding a phone number. Obviously telemarketers are trying to avoid call screening with the belief people are more likely to pick up a call coming in from a cell phone rather than one showing an 800 number. I believe the law passed by Congress is intended to make that practice illegal.

When I first heard about the law I was concerned about how it might affect Google Voice, which one can configure to send the Google Voice number to caller ID rather than the actual phone number of the cell phone the call is originating from. While I am not a legal expert, I think the key words in the act relevant to Google Voice are the last seven, “..with the intent to defraud or deceive.” I am providing people with my Google Voice number in a manner no different than if I bought a new cell phone service with a new phone number. Therefore, when someone sees my Google Voice number they know the call is from me because they recognize the number, and only the phone number is sent to caller ID. I have no intent to defraud or deceive someone when I make a call, and I prove that by providing the Google Voice number as my phone number. It is not my intent to say that Google Voice couldn’t be used by someone to defraud or deceive, but then the law doesn’t appear to me to apply to a service or technology, it explicitly states that “It shall be unlawful for any person…”.

In the end I think that the Truth in Caller ID Act is a step towards reigning in telemarketers who bombard our phones every day, to the extend that they have completely changed how we handle phone calls. When I was a child there was no caller ID nor answering machines and you wouldn’t think of not answering the phone when it rang because surely someone was calling you that you actually wanted to talk to. Today, whenever the phone rings at my house we look at the caller ID, and if we don’t recognize the number, we let the call go to the answering machine. In a way telemarketers have us hiding from our phones and I think that is a shame. If Congress really wanted to curb telemarketing, they ought to make it illegal for companies to sell phone numbers and to make the use of our phone numbers by companies completely an opt-in service where we explicitly give companies permission to call our phone numbers.

Skype’s decision to pull their Windows Mobile app last month surprised me. Here’s what I wrote about it then: This doesn’t make a lot of sense to me. I’ve tried Skype’s Windows Mobile app and it seemed to work as well as could be expected. It didn’t seem subpar to me. My theory at the time was that this was an indication of Windows Mobile’s downward spiral into irrelevancy.

Skype Dumped Its Windows Mobile App: Windows Mobile == TRS-80?

TechDirt has a different theory. One might call it a conspiracy theory. But, it is theory with what looks like good research behind it. And, quite honestly, I am quite happy to trade in my plausible but less interesting theory for TechDirt’s.

Skype Deliberately Crippling Functionality of iPhone and WinMo and Verizon Apps?

Their theory is backed by an interesting Skype timeline that leads to TechDirt’s conclusion that Skype has some kind of secret agreement with Verizon to cripped the existing mobile VoIP apps in order to create a demand for a full-featured premium (paid) Skype app.

Image courtesy of Truphone

This idea gets a big thumbs up from me even though I’m not a world traveler and will probably never use it…

Truphone Local Anywhere is now available!

Here’s what it is and how it works (based on what I read in the blog item linked above and service information page linked below)…

truphone local anywhere

- You must have an unlocked GSM phone
- Purchase a Truphone Local Anywhere SIM card
- Place the SIM card in your unlocked GSM phone
- Use the card in any Truphone country – just the US and UK now with Australia, Netherlands, and South Africa to join the list later this year
- Add a local phone number for each Truphone country
- Receive calls for free on any of those local numbers – people in those countries can call you as a local call
- Outgoing calls are charged a per minute fee (looks like 8 pence)

The Local Anywhere SIM card is available in various “packs”. The lowest cost one is a Starter Pack for $24.99 that includes $15 of calling credit (outgoing).

Great idea from what I see so far. Anyone try it yet?

I signed up for Ribbit’s beta voice service back in January. However, I never received an invitation to try the service. And, then, they were purchased by British Telecom (BT) in late July. They seem to be making noises again (pun intended). So, I headed over to…

Ribbit Mobile

…sign up for their beta service again. I don’t expect to hear anything back from them given their previous track record. But, who knows? So, why am I interested in a service that looks like will have a $30 per month fee associated with it (based on their “Try it Free – A $30/month value” web message)? To be honest, I’m not quite sure why I found it interesting. It appears to essentially duplicate services already offered by the free Google Voice (voicemail on your existing phone number, text transcription of voice mail, easy management of voicemail.

Note, if you look at Ribbit’s pricing plans, you’ll see they do plan to have a free offering with no business grade transcription service as well as a $10 per month plan with a limit of 40 transcriptions.

Some people (many?) might find an accurate “business grade” voicemail transcription service worth $10 or $30 per month instead of using Google Voice’s free but error prone transcription service.

YouTube video courtesy of Jajah

Jajah is a Voice over IP (VoIP) service that lets you call conventional telephones at a low cost. They just launched an interesting service (beta release) for Twitter users…

JAJAH Gives Voice To Twitter

You can see how it works by viewing the embedded video above. It lets two Jajah subscribers call one another via Twitter. The caller types in something like…

@call @twitter_username

Jajah first calls your phone. Then, it dials the called party and connects the two phones together to complete the call. Calls can be made for free during the beta test period. However, these free calls are limited to two minutes.

VoIP software developer Jajah has come out with new services for Windows Mobile, BlackBerry and Symbian handsets that let consumers make VoIP calls from their mobile phones, either over Wi-Fi or a carrier’s network.

Jajah offers the services as a white-label solution, so carriers and other service providers can launch the applications under their own brands.

The BlackBerry app, available as an over-the-air download, via the desktop manager or from a corporate BES server, adds “JAJAH Call” to the device’s phonebook menu. The Symbian app lets users with S60 phones choose whether to route their international calls over the Jajah IP network or the standard cellular network. The Windows Mobile app is a full SIP-over-HSDPA/Wi-Fi mobile VoIP solution that turns any device into a full-function VoIP phone.

Jajah is the same company that recently launched an application that turns an iPod touch into a mobile phone.

Bowing to competitive pressure from AT&T and various third-party services, Verizon has finally added Visual Voicemail to its lineup, although the service is currently limited to just one handset: the mobile-TV-equipped LG Voyager.

Engadget reports that the service will cost an extra $2.99 per month on top of your usual bill, and you’ll be able to store up to 40 messages for 40 days, with an option to create up to 10 greetings and 20 distribution lists as well.

Verizon didn’t take the opportunity to announce “any firm plans for a roll-out to any of the other phones supposedly in line to get the service,” the report said, with it only going so far as to say that additional devices will be getting it in the “coming months.”