The San Francisco Chronicle has a nice comprehensive overview about some of the most importantVoIP companies and minute stealers:

Numbers are adding up for international callers
Internet services help to cut consumers' phone bills
Thursday, June 21, 2007

They cover Jajah, Rebtel, Talkplus, Truphone, EQO Mobile, Mino Wireless and iSkoot. I would have liked to read also about Gizmo Project, Mobivox, Fring or Mobiboo. But then again the article appeared on page C - 1 of the San Francisco Chronicle, and paper isn't endless.

Labels: Fring, Gizmo Project, Iskoot, Jajah, MINO, Mobiboo, Mobivox, Rebtel, Talkplus, Truphone, VoIP

                                      

I was wondering what would happen with Truphone's free calls to 40 countries. The promotional offer finishes on june, 30th.

But now it leaked out, even before the offial press release:

"We're extending the launch offer of free calling to 40 countries around the world to Dec 31!", says Truphones forum.


UPDATE:
Here is the official announcement from Truphone.

Labels: Truphone, VoIP

                                      

I nearly forgot to mention: The Inquirer reports that yet another mobile Voip provider has problems with the crippled Nokia N95, supplied by Orange and Vodafone in the UK. Vyke Mobile has also fallen into the Truphone trap.

Labels: Orange, Truphone, Vodafone, VoIP, Vyke

                                      

The air is getting even thinner for mobile VoIP companies like Truphone or Wifimobile, tells The Register. The Open Mobile Terminal Alliance, a organisation of big mobile operators like Orange, Vodafone, T-Mobile and 3 has published a guidance for network operators and handset manufacturers on provisioning and maintaining VoIP settings on new handsets. It covers only the usage of pre-installed VoIP clients on handsets, such as that used by Truphone or Wifimobile. Applications which are downloaded later, like Fring or Vyke, go free.

According to the OMTP specifications, operators are entitled to remove or lock down VoIP applications on subsidised handsets, but they must provide the ability to remove that lock when the contract period expires, just as they now will release a handset to be used on another network (SIM lock).

Bad luck for some independent mobile VoIP providers, as the incumbents agree on that the initial VoIP settings should be securely protected in the terminal, and can only be changed by the operator. When the service contract comes to an end, the customer can request the provider to unlock the Terminal’s VoIP settings and associate the pre-installed voice applications with alternative VoIP service providers.

This means in most cases: No Truphone or Wifimobile in the first two years of a contract.

Much better off are independent mobile VoIP companies which install their own applications, such as Skype, Fring, Gizmo Project, Jajah, iSkoot, Nimbuzz or Yeigo. The customer may be able to install third-party applications (Java or other Terminal OS applications) that offer VoIP calling using third-party VoIP providers. The only VoIP applications that are forced to use the operator’s settings are those that were pre-installed on the Terminal, and only during the term of the contract that the Terminal was supplied with.

The mobile phone users must be informed that VoIP has been locked or disabled. So the removal of menu items, in the way that Vodafone and Orange crippled their Nokia N95, wouldn't be allowed. The Register states that the guidance is not binding to the member companies. But as so many network operators were involved in writing, it's surely what we will see next on the entire European or world market.

Let's see if that's acceptable to regulators such as UK's Ofcom and what e. g. Truphone will do. Their new software Truphone 3.0 is so feature rich and has presence functions so that it seems quite similar to the mentioned "alternative VoIP applications" to me. If Truphone 4.0 packed it all in the software, instead of using Nokias underlying SIP functions, they would be out of trouble.

But then Truphone would suck as much battery as Fring does.


UPDATE:

I got an email from Wifimobile's John O'Prey. He says that his company is NOT affected. "This is not the case as our client is a stand alone application which can be installed. I would be most grateful if you could kindly correct this."

Sorry for that!

Labels: Fring, Gizmo Project, Iskoot, Jajah, Mobile, Nimbuzz, Ofcom, Orange, Skype, T-Mobile, Truphone, Vodafone, VoIP, Vyke, Wifimobile, Yeigo

                                      

There were rumours about a new deal of the investment company Qino Flagship which recently had invested in Jajah. Now it's out: Daniel Mattes, co-founder and chairman of Jajah, joins Qino's advisory board. Mattes and his fellow founder Roman Scharf also bought a less then five per cent equity stake from Qino.

Mattes says they want to provide their network and experience to Qino's other companies. One directly starts to wonder which ones. Update Software? Pankl?

With Jajah's Mattes in Qino's advisory board the two companies want to emphasize their long term relationship. It started in 2000 and brought Qino already a 5 per cent share in Jajah as compensation for consulting and financial help. With the latest deal Qino now controls nearly 8 per cent of Jajah. Its stock price has doubled in just one month.

Labels: Jajah, VoIP

                                      

There where rumours that Google would take over Jajah because last week "three Google airplanes" had landed in the Austrian city of Salzburg.

One small detail escaped the rumourers: There is no Jajah in Salzburg. Most of their people are still working in Vienna and in Israel. On the other hand the new Jajah office in Mountain View (California) is, as far as I know, barely staffed. So Google would probably have to travel to Austria for a takeover. But nothing of that is true, as we learn now from the local Newspaper Salzburger Nachrichten.

It was just Google's CEO Eric Schmidt meeting with his old friends from university. A high profile Princeton alumni meeting, hosted by Austrian industrialist Gerhard Andlinger, attended also by Forbes' publisher Steve Forbes and Germany's ex foreign secretary Joschka Fischer. Names like Newton and Guggenheim were also mentioned.

But still the question remains: Why would Schmidt travel in three airplaines? But maybe this was just a gross exaggeration.

Labels: Google, Jajah, VoIP

                                      

The Swiss investment company Qino Flagship has announced that they bought more than 1 million stocks of Jajah (2,81 per cent), thus holding now nearly 8 per cent (directly and indirectly) of the internet callback service company. That's the interesting news of today.

But what even more my interest was captured the background information: Jajah is already worth 2.9 billion dollars, calculated RRS Capital Strategies Services from Vienna yet in may after the investments by Deutsche Telekom and Intel. They deduct this virtual price from Jajah's user data and the conditions under which Skype had been sold to Ebay in 2005. Based on that Qino's first Jajah investment of 56.000 Euros is already worth more than 100 million Euros. I couldn't find much information on RRS since they don't even have a website, but just a phone number and an email address. But their numbers have been quoted on some trader websites.

Jajah plans to go public on Nasdaq next year, said founder Daniel Mattes in an interview. That's when Intel, Deutsche Telekom, Qino and others get their money back. The company is just a year old! Skype cost Ebay 4,1 billion dollars, but at least they had an own advanced technology. Jajah instead can be copied easily.

The 2.9 billion dollars rating is quite impressive for Jajah's rather simple internet callback service that you can also have in similar shape from companies like Nikotalk, Smart2Talk, Raketu, MINO, Webcalldirect (and all the other Betamax companies), Sitňfono - and probably soon from Yahoo. Sometimes even for free, like at Peterzahlt.de.

Or you can build your own Jajah at Voxalot.

Labels: Betamax, Jajah, MINO, Peterzahlt, Sitňfono, Skype, Smart2Talk, VoIP, Voxalot, Yahoo

                                      

T-Mobile UK is blocking calls to mobile VoIP start-up Truphone. That's a serious issue which caused interesting discussions and points of view. As GigaOM puts it: "CellCarriers fear mobile VoIP planet". That's more or less how I see it as well.

After the fixed line carriers got shaken up by VoIP now it's the mobiles' turn. T-Mobile UK tries to defend its well established business. Maybe Truphone shouldn't have said that they now support VoIP over 3G. It's the old fear of the traditional mobile carriers and one of the main reasons why they kept the mobile data rates sky high in the last years: To loose their comfortable voice revenues.

Rebtel's CEO Hjalmar Windbladh explained to me not so long ago that mobile carries pay only 0.8 Cent to connect a call between Germany and China. But they charge 1 Euro or more from the customer, depending on his contract. These big margins would get lost with VoIP over 3G and maybe that's the reason why T-Mobile UK wants to dry out its competition before it gets too strong.

But this is like trying to cut all of Hydra's heads. It's not only Truphone which is offering VoIP over 3G and over Wifi. It's also Fring, Wifimobile, Mobiboo, Yeigo, aql and thousands of other companies worldwide. In fact every SIP based VoIP provider can do a quite similar job like Truphone. It makes no difference if you install your SIP login data into a mobile phone or an ATA or a soft phone.

I especially like it to have my fixed line home number ring on my mobile phone. For that I use Wifi or a call forward over GSM. Outgoing calls are nearly free or free via calltrough or Wifi.

Just like at Truphone.

Labels: Fring, Mobiboo, Rebtel, Truphone, VoIP, Wifimobile, Yeigo

                                      

One day after my blog post about the comeback of Easymobile the story got quoted at GigaOM. That was nice because it brought me some traffic on this website. Thank you, Om Malik!

Labels: easyMobile, free phone calls, Media, Mobile

                                      

Today I spoke in Berlin to serial entrepreneur Stelios Haji-Ioannou, founder of the airline easyJet and other successful low cost product ventures. It was during a press conference about the launch of easyHotel.com, which wants to open 10 budget hotels across Germany over the next four years. But much more interesting I found what we talked aside: His mobile virtual network operator (MVNO) easyMobile will come back and offer free cell phone calls, sponsored by advertising.

Until not long ago there already was another easyMobile, planned as pan European MVNO. The Danish operator TDC had licensed the brand from Stelios' easyGroup but things didn't turn out so well. TDC got bought and changed their business strategy which made Stelios retract the brandname. In just 48 hours the German branch changed its name into callmobile. „You always have to be cautious that the franchisees don't damage your established brand name“, Stelios said today.

Now he is planning to start a new MVNO under the name of easyMobile early next year. „The MVNOs brought the cell phone costs down but until now nobody offers completely free phone calls“, he said to me today. „People are used to pay for mobile communication and still cannot imagine that it could be free like televison.“ Therefore he is looking for the right partner to start a free phone calls MVNO, sponsored by advertising. A similar approach we already know from Blyk, a UK based start-up by the former president of Nokia Corporation, Pekka Ala-Pietilä, which is due to launch this summer.

Before every phone call Stelios wants to play an advertising message, which is not necessarily an easy business model, he admits. „To found a cheap MVNO is easy“, he says „but the trick is on the advertising side“. In his plans the advertising should be location based, at least on city level, and requires a lot of personalization. „A person that every thursday night orders at Pizza Hut could be played a Domino's advertising“, he jokes. But to use all the personal data that's necessary for such a service the new easyMobile needs ample permissions from its customers. „People are aware that they give away their data in exchange for free phone calls“, Stelios dismisses any doubts.

Actually he is looking for the right advertising partner to provide the necessary technology and data. He even asked me for a recommendation. When I mentioned Google/Doubleclick he said „yes, but Google today is very much into everything.“

So let's wait and see. After all I wouldn't even be surprised to realize that Blyk is in fact just a place holder for the new easyMobile. The two companies have not yet launched, they share the same business model, are located in the same city and want to start their businesses in the same market at nearly the same time.

Maybe they just are the same?

Labels: Blyk, easyMobile, free phone calls, Mobile, Nokia