Just saw an advertisement pop up above my gmail today for potentially another service. After visiting the website, it said that you can call 8 different countries for free!
The website for MediaRing also advertises Free PC-to-PC - high quality VoIP calls to anywhere in the world! It also says that you can call any phone number with PC-to-Phone service.
AT&T is offering a bunch of free camera phones if you click here. Don’t forget they usually require a contract though for the free phone. They have a bunch of free Samsung phones, free Nokia phones, and free LG & Motorola phones available.
T-mobile doesn’t offer much, but they are giving the Samsung Beat phone supposedly free here. As usual, the plan is required for the free phone.
Didn’t look like Verizon offered much in terms of free phones. Nextel-Sprint also weren’t being too generous with their cheapest phone being about $19.99. It may have been my region. Who knows?
Just downloaded the iCall Internet Phone for the second time. I remember the first time being a little funny. Now, I just remembered why.
I tried to dial out to a call to the United States from Korea. No luck. (Read the article)
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According to an About.com article here, they tell you that you can get a free phone number:
” Stanaphone has been offering a free phone number that allows you to receive free calls and free voice mail for quite some time. All you need to do is register and select the area code and they will assign you a free phone number. You can receive calls using their Windows based software or you can stay offline and just use them as free voice mail that gets forwarded to your email account.”
Well, this should be updated because if you go to Stanaphone.com’s website, you’ll see this message which is 100% to the contrary. (Read the article)
First come, first serve…
I have about $7-8 bucks left on this phone card I couldn’t use entirely during my stay in Seattle. Since it will probably expire (November 2008) before I go back to Seattle (which most likely won’t be for another few months), I thought I’d put up the information here and let anyone use it. The phone number to call is 1-800-440-0383 and the pin # is 165 114 1390.
Chances are the minutes will be used up since I’m going to post it on two websites that have a bit of traffic, but you never know….
By Colleen Barry
AP Business Writer
updated 2:38 p.m. ET Feb. 10, 2008
BARCELONA, Spain - Wireless industry players place their bets on the future during the four-day Mobile World Congress opening Monday in Barcelona, laying stakes on the next big thing with new product launches, services and alliances. (Read the article)
Skype.com definitely has one of the better Skype to Skype phone calls out there. Also, since it’s free from one Skype user to the next, it’s also a great service.
However, I think they are VERY misleading when it comes to fees. When looking over their fees for calls, the price to call the United States looked very good…about .017 per minute. The odd thing is that I don’t even use a minute before charged more than this. I ripped through $10 in about 2-3 weeks of occasional calls whereas with Voipwise, it took me 3+ months before I used the $10. A huge difference! It will be good for eBay since they own Skype, but not for it’s users. It’s not much of a deal unless you use their Skype to Skype service, in my humble opinion.
Well, the service does tell you how long you have on the original 10 Euros and counts down like 3 months or so & then counts down. Once you do use up the time of free calls minus some areas that do require a few cents/Euro cents — not sure what you call those…well, it turns into .01 cent per minute. So, we’ve been using our remaining Euro credit … the amazing thing is that we’ve been calling for more than 3 months and making tons and tons of calls, but haven’t used up that original 10 Euros yet! Amazing…
It’s quite the deal for phone services and like Jumi said, the quality of the calls are EXCELLENT!
From the NYT:
By John Markoff
Can an untested Silicon Valley start-up with the slightly embarrassing name Ribbit take on corporate giants like Microsoft and Avaya?
On Monday, Ribbit, based in Mountain View, Calif., will announce a telephone Web service intended to make it possible for programmers to add telephone features to any Web page. This isn’t just a widget for talking to your friends, like Skype and its many “Voice 2.0” imitators.
Rather, Ribbit is offering a full telephone switchboard on its server, connected both to the Internet and to the public-switched telephone network. That makes it possible for developers ranging from companies offering customer-relationship management services, to online shopping Web sites to add a phone feature by just embedding Adobe Flash into a Web site. (Om Malik has written a quick look at some of the technical features of Ribbit.) (Read the article)
OK, I have been trying few different Voip services for a while without any luck on true “free” calls, today might be my luck day!
Today, I found this site http://voipwise.com. This one, just like any other VOIP services, you download their app and call to the listed countries for “free”. Most other services require you to buy “credit” up front before you can start making calls (and usually expires in 3 months or so). Well, well, well, I am happy to announce that I have just made LONG international calls (exactly 2 calls to Japan for about an one hour each) for totally FREE!!! I did NOT have to pay any credit up front either! The interface of the app is very simple to use. No confusion whatsoever. I simply dialed, and BOOM! I am connected to my friend’s landline in Japan. The quality of calls are EXCELLENT. Actually, this may have been the best one yet. It is SOOO clear that I even forgot I was talking using the Voip. As many other “good services” won’t be lasting forever, I am not sure how long this will be around. But certainly worth a try. Hey, what the heck, you really have nothing to lose for “free”, right?!
UPDATE:
After making more than 3-4 hours of free calls to overseas, I finally reached the “Totally Free” calling time limit… Now the system won’t connect me unless I buy a credit (10 euro). I have been extremely happy with the service, so I thought “what the heck…! Let’s give it a try.” I had a little difficulty paying (go figure… they didn’t want to take my money?!?) so I sent a “HELP!” email to their support. They actually replied in timely manner, and after going back and forth for a couple of times, I was finally able to get through the process to pay and got the credit:) (for those of you accessing from the US, when you get an error message regarding your phone number, you have to enter your phone number as the following format: 001-xxx-xxx-xxxx. Instead of just typing “1″, put “001″ in front of your area code. For other countries, I assume the same and put 00 in front of your country code. For example, the UK country code is +44, so input 0044.
As soon as I paid (I used PayPal service), immediately the credit appeared on my account and I was able to continue making callsJ This credit is good for 120 days and you can make something like 300 minutes a week (which is plenty for a normal use, right?). For 4 months of calling, I think this is a great deal. I can call any landline listed “FREE” without getting charged. If I do call numbers not listed free (like say calling Japan cell phone line), then they will deduct whatever I used from the credit I have. If I call a ton of non-free call and use up all my credit before 120 days, then you have to buy credits again.
Anyway, so far I am a happy VoipWise userJ For 10 euro, I can call all my friends all over the world for 4 months, I think this is a pretty good deal and well worth it. It is ALMOST freeJ
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