Why Truphone's new flatrate prices might be a bad idea

Truphone announces new flatrate prices. Gigaom had the news first, but my comment doesn't show up. So I answer with a blog post. I am afraid that this is a bad move of Truphone.

TruUnlimited for Landlines
For people who need to communicate regularly with colleagues, friends or family around the world, the TruUnlimited for Landlines monthly plan gives unlimited calls to landlines in 38 countries for just £10 / $17 per month. As a bonus, the plan also permits calls to mobile phones in some top destinations such as the USA, Canada, China, and Hong Kong at no extra charge.

TruUnlimited for Mobiles
For people calling mobile phones more frequently, the TruUnlimited for Mobiles monthly plan provides subscribers with unlimited calls to mobiles and landlines in 64 countries for just £25 / $40 per month.

Does anybody remember Wifimobile? They offered the same and probably went bust, at least there is nothing to be heard of them anymore.

Wifimobile started at the same time as Truphone with a similar business: VoIP calls from Nokia handsets, using an own VoIP software for Wifi. Later they introduced VoIP calls outside of Wifi via callthrough numbers, similiar to Truphone Out+ which got introduced 4 days later. Read my regarding blog post about their feature competition: Funny feature race between Truphone and Wifimobile

Wifimobile's distingushing business case from Truphone was free unlimited calls to landlines in 40 countries for $14.99/€10.99/£7.99 - which they started to offer in May 2007, similar to what Truphone announces now. They never could get enough clients because Truphone took their breath away with their introductory offer: free calls to most countries, which Truphone extened for more than one year.

Free is even cheaper than flatrate!

Wifimobile was dismayed, every time Truphone extended its introductory offer. They had no VC to compete with that. Finally Wifimobile had to surrender and went to per minute prices on a prepaid base, similar to what Truphone offered in the last months. I covered that too in a blog post: Wifimobile again outsmarted by Truphone's free offer

From Wifimobile there is nothing to be heard anymore. No PR and their website has changed. Now they offer only the callthrough option which makes them look like a cheap calling card provider. Their founder concentrates on a business which offers cheap roaming SIM cards, similar to Truphone's SIM4travel.

Why would Truphone introduce a feature which didn't help their competitor? Are those new iPhone and Blackberry users really that price insensible?

We all know that you can get the same unlimited free calls to landlines for only €2.50 ($3.31) from Voipzoom and Voipbuster. These Betamax companies undercut every price. TruUnlimited for Mobiles is only attractive for very happy users. You have to make a lot of calls to mobile until it pays off.

Why Truphone and Gizmo5 applaud that Nokia turns it's back on mobile VoIP

Om Malik has asked "Is Nokia Turning Its Back on MobileVoIP?", pinpointing to the fact that the new Nseries devices N78 and N96 lack an own SIP client, while Nokia before embraced mobile VoIP on it's Nseries and Eseries devices. Charlie Schick of Nokia Conversations says the report of the death of VoIP has been "grossly exaggerated" and people like Phoneboy, Gizmo5's Michael Robertson or the company Truphone are buying that argumentation, although it has its flaws. Truphone, Gizmo5 and Fring must have realized immediately that they are winning from Nokia's move. That's why they are holding back their horses.

Nokia says that it's no problem that they have removed the native SIP client from their latest handsets, since companies can develop their own VoIP software based on great APIs. But it's not as easy as Nokia is trying to say: There are hundreds or thousands of companies without an own software for mobile VoIP. They just rely on the SIP standard. In Germany it's GMX, 1&1, Sipgate and the several Betamax daughters. Together they have millions of customers, I am one of them. These people cannot use VoIP on the new Nokia phones. I have always ten or more VoIP providers installed on my Nokia E61i's SIP client. This way I can always use the cheapest route and leverage free on net calls.

It would be nasty if had to install ten or more pieces of software for that purpose. It's already annoying that Truphone requires a special software because they don't give me my SIP password. That's a perversion of the idea of standards. If I need a special software for every company's offer why is there a standard called SIP?

So as a VoIP tinkerer I have to stay with the older Nokia devices, or at most I can change to the E71. But Nokia's new Symbian release, S60 3.2, is no option for me - as long as it has no own SIP client. It's obvious why companies like Fring, Truphone, Gizmo5, Vyke and others are applauding the Nokia move. It ties their customer to them and makes it more difficult to use other companies' offers. With a native SIP client, which allows to be connected to several different SIP services at the same time, I can be promiscuous. Even the most disruptive mobile VoIP companies prefer to lock me in their walled garden, but I don't want that.

I still believe that pressure from mobile operators has caused this move of Nokia. HSDPA and HSUPA have brought great bandwith to the latest handsets, enough to use it for Voice over 3G. With the right voice codec you can talk about 15 minutes and use only 1 Megabyte of data. Filtering for VoIP packets slows down the mobile data networks and therefore it's not very common. If you combine that with the right VoIP provider, like Betamax, this means free mobile phone calls to more than 30 countries. Only data prices apply.

easyMobile comes back, but the calls aren't free as Stelios had announced

The British phone company easyMobile is back, 18 months after it had to shut down. But this time the brand name doesn't stand for a mobile virtual network operator (MVNO). The Greek serial entrepreneur Stelios Haji-Ioannou, also founder of the airline easyJet and other successful low cost product ventures, has changed the business model entirely and doesn't comply with his former announcement about the future of easyMobile.

Exactly one year ago Stelios told me that he wanted to resuscitate the company as MVNO with free phone calls, sponsored by advertising. A similar business was already in the making under the name of Blyk, a UK based start-up by the former president of Nokia Corporation, Pekka Ala-Pietilä. It launched some months later but it seems that Blyk hasn't conviced Stelios, because the new easyMobile is nothing more than a new face for the Swedish VoIP company Rebtel. The press release says:

Rebtel, the people's global communications company, today announced a brand licensing agreement with easyGroup that will allow Rebtel to increase its presence in the UK and reach new markets for its mobile VoIP services.

easyGroup is the business of easyJet founder and serial entrepreneur Sir Stelios Haji-Ioannou.

Under the agreement, Rebtel-powered services for making low cost international phone calls from any mobile phone, over any UK network, will be sold and marketed on easyGroup's http://www.easyMobile.com web site.

Rebtel's CEO Hjalmar Windbladh sounds very enthusiastic. "Sir Stelios and easyGroup are our kind of partners", he says. "They want to make a difference in people's lives. They offer services for the many, not the few. They take on the big boys in the market and treasure relentless innovation. And most importantly they're open and honest. Those are all values that Rebtel was built on."

Hopefully his cooperation lasts longer than the former easyMobile. Stelios is a genius in lending his brand name, but he also tends to end franchising very fast. The first easyMobile was planned as pan European MVNO in 12 countries. The Danish operator TDC 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 had to change its name into callmobile. „You always have to be cautious that the franchisees don't damage your established brand name“, Stelios said in our interview.

Hjalmar be careful!

A free bridge from Skype to phone

Do you remember my blog post "A SIP address for Skype? Better the other way around!"? This mission has now been accomplished. As of yesterday you can call me on Skype and I will answer this call on my desk phone or cell phone using SIP VoIP telephony. As I always try to achieve, this is a totally free solution.

I have joined Voxeo's developer program for their Evolution application, a visual design tool for interactive voice response (IVR) systems. Part of the deal is that you get a strange phone number with a +990 country code. There is no country associated with this code and Skype users can call these numbers for free. My Skype account is now being forwarded over Voxeo to a SIP address from Gizmo Project which I manage on Voxalot to make use of it's call connection rules and voice mail.

Have a peek on my settings:

A better explanation can be found at the Voxeo support forum. I wonder what VOIPSA's Dan York would say. In January he started a discussion with his blog post "Skype says "No" to VoIP interoperability - *because customers aren't asking for it!* - Well, I am!". He is, by the way, working for Voxeo and this partly solution for his problem comes from his own company. So I guess he was always aware of this trick.

I am happy now that people can call me with Skype and I don't have to keep me computer running or buy a special Skype phone for this purpose. That's the reason why I nearly never used Skype. I don't like applications which keep me tied to my computer in order to receive messages or phone calls, like Skype or the MagicJack normally do. Let's see which other solutions I can develop with Voxeo. Their visual tool makes the design of VoiceXML fairly easy.

Truphone's new pricing not as I thought

I have to admit that I was wrong in my last blog post about "Truphone's new pricing". I had bet that Truphone would offer free calls for another two months, as they always did when their free offer supposedly ended. But now they came up with a new pricing, called Tru Zone, that in the words of Stuart Henshall's blog "fails to motivate". Here is an example:

You can call any of the 40 countries in the Tru Zone for a tiny 6c to landlines and 30c to mobiles. Some countries such as the USA, Canada and China are double special. Calls to both landlines and mobiles are a flat 6c! Calls to much of the rest of the world are flat and simple too – just 10c to landlines and 30c to mobiles.

That makes Truphone now one of the most expensive VoIP services I know. But at least I was partly right with my bet: "as a big thank you for being one of our early supporters, you can continue to enjoy your existing Launch Offer pricing (that means free calls to 40 countries) until June 1st", says the email I got last week from Truphone.

So early adopters can still enjoy free calls. I guess that Truphone was afraid of a big wave of signoffs and criticism in VoIP blogs. New customers have to be attracted by Tru Zone's easy pricing and new features which you can't find at cheaper VoIP services. If you meet James Body or other members of Truphone's staff sneak a peek on their handsets! They always have much more advanced Truphone versions installed than normal users. The last lab version I saw in Barcelona was quite promising and solved a problem I was always nagging about.

Truphone's new pricing

Will the free lunch finally be over? That's what most Truphone users are wondering. The company has extended it's introductory offer several times. Some people are enjoying free Truphone calls to the landlines of 40 countries for an entire year already. Today is one of these days that the party is supposedly over. The Truphone press website still says:

Thursday, December 20, 2007
Truphone freezes call charges until the end of February 2008

Truphone today announced that all Truphone call charges have been frozen at their current rates until February 29th 2008. For the next two months, Truphone calls will be free to landlines in 40 countries, and to mobiles in the USA, Canada and elsewhere. Using Truphone to call EU mobiles costs just 15 pence per minute or less.

In Truphone's Mobile VoIP Forum users get nervous and say things like: "It is a bit lame though now being the 29th and no prices given on the website. How are people supposed to take a company like this seriously." They are right. February 29th is nearly over now, but still there is no new pricing. Truphone team member JackieG says in the same thread:

Yep, Feb 29th has long been marked in our calendars. We've been putting the finishing touches to a spruced-up website and a new price offer.

Check out truphone.com tomorrow afternoon (Sat 1st March) to get full details. We will also be sending good news to existing customers by email and SMS...

So this time it's just a relaunch of the website? That makes me guess that the new price offer will be the same like before: Free calls for another two months. Later we will see much more technical advancements from Truphone, as Research Director James Body showed me in Barcelona.

Worldwide free calls through a security breach

I got a tip about four free phone gateways in a European country. They let you call almost every fixed or mobile phone number in the world at no charge. "The gateways haven't a pin authentication, so the minimum security rules aren't respected", says the tipster. "If you test it will you see also caller ID is forwarded. A real good service." Oh yes, I understand the guy's enthusiasm. People love free phone calls.

So these four numbers could be the ultimate callthrough solution, the new Yak4ever. If it only wasn't illegal. That's why I don't publish them. The tipster even sent detailed instructions on how to use these numbers. You just need free calls to that country, which you get for instance from Truphone or several Betamax companies. After the tone you type in the callee's number with international prefix, followed by the hash key (#), to be connected.

A poor company must have forgotten to take the most basic security measures. This security breach is said to be open for more than one year already, since December 2006. Which makes me wonder whether it's a bug or a feature. If a study from Stealth Communications is right then phreakers steal a staggering two hundred million minutes per month valuing around $26 million. No wonder if some companies make it so easy.


UPDATE:

Just minutes after posting this blog entry I had a reader from Sindh, Karachi, Pakistan. I looked him up in my log files after getting his message: "Sir I am the regular reader of your forum, I want to make a free call to my relatives outside the country, Actually I am from a very poor family, Sir can you give me that 4 gateways number where i can call free to my relatives. plz".

Unfortunately that is not possible, although I still feel the giving spirit of Christmas. What's illegal is illegal. There is a not so thin red line between free phone calls from companies with loads of venture capital and plain theft.

Wifimobile again outsmarted by Truphone's free offer

Wifimobile quits their flatrate model and goes prepay like Truphone. The move is said to be inspired by a blog post from iotum's Alec Saunders from Canada who managed to spend just $4.16 on mobile calls and roaming at the IP industry event Fall 2007 VON in Boston. Calls were handled by either TruPhone (if in a Wifi zone) or Mobivox (if not).

Wifimobile users can now set up accounts to make very cheap calls over Wi-Fi as per Truphone, and GSM Call through access as per Mobivox. The rates are competitive, such as under $0.10 per minute to India. You can find them here. The move was necessary because Wifimobile's previous flatrate model could not offer calls to many countries like India and the Middle East as it looked like this:

Only £15.99 €11.99 £7.99 Per Month

The oneFone service from WiFiMobile allows you to make unlimited* free calls to landlines in over 40 countries as well as mobile phones in certain countries including the USA. For a list of countries that you can call for free click here.

All calls to landline and mobile numbers to countries not listed here are automatically routed through your normal GSM provider. This allows us to guarantee that customers are never charged more than the set monthly line rental.

*The unlimited free calls are subject to a fair usage policy.

In the last months Wifimobile had to walk in the shadow of Truphone, because they offered calls to the same countries for free in a limited offer that always got extended. Calls to destinations outside these 40 countries could at least be completed as paid calls with Truphone, while Wifimobile just couldn't offer them.

As Truphone's free calls should have finished at the end of the year, Wifimobile hoped to compete on the same level with them and beat them with more VoIP features. An added enhancement is that people can register not only their cell phone but also the home or office landline for the use with Wifimobile's callthrough numbers. That brings more calls onto Wifimobile's VoIP network and makes their service usable outside of Wifi areas.

Truphone lacks such a nice callthrough feature and I am missing it, as I told in my blog post "Packet8 MobileTalk could be done much better". Wifimobile also offers real time call records, which can be viewed in a secure customer portal, and they are also currently working on an inbound solution.

But will this be enough to step out of Truphone's shadow?

It must have been a strong blow that Truphone has just announced the extension of their free calling to landlines (and some cellphones) in 40 countries until the end of February 2008, only one week after Wifimobile changed their business model. Free phone calls are still the strongest argument for the VoIP customer. Read both companies' press releases! I am quite convinced that Truphone will never charge for these calls. We can already prepare for the next extensions in March, July and December. That's how it worked in 2007.




WiFiMobile goes global with prepay VoIP and dial through service

Los Angeles California December 13th 2007 - Leading mobile VoIP provider WiFiMobile today announced that their VoIP service has changed to prepay with very competitive costs.

The company had previously charged a monthly subscription which allowed free calls to landlines in certain countries, however calls to all other worldwide destinations were barred. The introduction of a top up system now presents a global platform.

WiFiMobile’s new tariff rate has been completely revised and users can now take advantage of calls such as to India at under 10 US cents per minute. Calls to other online WiFiMobile customers are free regardless of location.

Their unique local access numbers remain in place where cheap calls can be made when no Wi-Fi access point is in range. These numbers are available in twelve countries at present with more to follow shortly. Customers can also register other numbers such as their home landline to utilise these access numbers. This combines Internet and dial through calling into just one account.

The service is available at the company’s website where their VoIP client oneFone can be downloaded instantly to any compatible Nokia E or N Series smartphone. A free $1 credit is applied to all new accounts to test the technology. Customers are also able to securely access the log in portal to view account balance, top up history and real time CDRs.

The company’s VoIP client oneFone fully supports Presence enabling users to see who is online at any time with other business features such as Call Conferencing, Call Transfer and VCC (Voice Call Continuity) coming soon.

WiFiMobile CEO says "This stretches out our potential market to places that we couldn’t touch previously. Countries such as India have over 200 million mobile users and have a huge overseas based population. Our rates are very competitive and we have the most robust VoIP client".

For further information please visit www.wifimobile.com or email pr@wifimobile.com.

WiFiMobile

Head Office:
3250 Wilshire Boulevard
9th Floor
Los Angeles
California
CA 90010

Tel: +1 310 459 3000 Ext 2

Email: pr@wifimobile.com

ABOUT WIFIMOBILE

WiFiMobile were founded in 2002 and have offices in the US and UK. In 2004 the company achieved status of a Forum Nokia S60 3rd Edition Featured Developer, one of only 23 recognized worldwide.

VoIP client oneFone is a self developed and wholly owned application and provides cheap or free long distance calls as well as converting select Nokia devices into extensions of corporate IP IBX systems. The company is poised to achieve phenomenal growth in the next year in this rapidly evolving market.




Thursday, December 20, 2007
Truphone freezes call charges until the end of February 2008

Truphone today announced that all Truphone call charges have been frozen at their current rates until February 29th 2008. For the next two months, Truphone calls will be free to landlines in 40 countries, and to mobiles in the USA, Canada and elsewhere. Using Truphone to call EU mobiles costs just 15 pence per minute or less.

Truphone call charges summary

• Free calls to landlines in 40 countries
• Free calls to cellphones USA, Canada, China, Hong Kong and Singapore
• Pay 15 pence or less to EU mobiles - and no connection charge
• Free mobile calls to other online Truphone customers
• No roaming fees: Truphone calls costs the same wherever you are
• No download cost, no monthly charge and no inbound fees
• These rates are guaranteed until February 29th 2008. Rates quoted are exclusive of VAT
• Anyone with a suitable handset can get Truphone by sending an SMS with the word 'Tru' to +44 7624 000000

Free calls VoIP widgets make me get funny phone calls

Since my last post "Call me for free with Tringme!" I get funny calls from Senegal and other far away countries. They go through Tringme, but also my click to call widgets from Voxalot and Sitòfono. Somebody must have spread the word that I give support on certain VoIP services and devices. No wonder that people call me, since it's for free.

I am OK with such calls, but please understand that I can only answer during working hours in my time zone. The rest of the calls goes to the voice mail box. The yesterday's caller didn't even understand that he was talking to an answering machine. He thought that I was on the phone with him but refusing to answer, so he got a little upset. Also I had serious problems to understand his Englisch and the e-mail address he left.

I think for such purposes it's still the best option to contact me over the contact form on my website. The last caller who came through caught me on my cell phone in a department store when I couldn't help him at all.

Call me for free with Tringme!

Much has been said about startups like Ribbit, Tringme or Flashphone which use the Flash browser plugin for click to call widgets. Aswath Rao even declares 2008 the Year of Flash based VoIP Clients. I can only say that you don't have to wait till next year to call me for free using Flash. I love my Tringme call widget:

These calls are entirely free to you, because the caller speaks into the Flash widget on my website using a headset or the laptop's built in phone and speaker. On Linux the sound is a little bit weird. The automatic voice, which says "please wait while we connect your call" before every connection, sounds like a 45 rpm record played on 33. The phone call itself sounds like Mickey Mouse, but still the the words are understandable. On Windows everything works just perfect.

Also to me these calls are entirely free. Other than my widgets from Sitòfono and Voxalot where I have to pay to call the person who wants to contact me.

I achieve this by using FWD as SIP provider to power the Tringme widget. The Tringme account website says "Connect my phone and voicemail widget to Phone number or extension". Unfortunately it accepts only numbers and no SIP addresses in this input mask, but as a workaround I have simply put my FWD number there. In the "TringPhone SIP Settings" part of the account configuration I left my FWD login data. Which means that every Tringme call is in fact a free FWD on net call. You can probably do the same with Gizmo Project's SIP account data and phone numbers, as well as with many other VoIP providers.

Also there is another widget for people who don't want to talk to me, but just leave a voicemail.

Only seconds later I get a call and a voice says "You have a Tringme" before it plays the message. The Tringme widgets are much better than Gizmocall which also allows free calls from a website.

You could call me for free by simply typing http://www.gizmocall.com/mgoebel in your browser's address bar. This website also uses Flash, but additionally you have to install a plugin for Windows or Mac. For ten months yet Gizmo owes us a Linux plugin. Although the company's CEO, Michael Robertson, even has his own Linux distribution, Linspire.

But why bother? The Flash browser plugin gets more and more versatile and works on all platforms. It's a new way to disrupt the telco industry, circumventing the PSTN and offering a new option for free phone calls that so many people appreciate.

So, if you want, please give me a Tringme call!

And, before you ask: No, I couldn't get Truphone's Facebook application running, which should basically do the same like Tringme, only that it uses Java. After one week of tinkering I gave up. But congratulations for winning the "Red Herring 100 Global" Award.

What does the the new free phone calls startup Dringg do?

Does anybody know the new VoIP startup Dringg? They make me very courious with their announcements. The Facebook site of Jeff Heubo, CEO and Co-Founder, says;

Keep your cell/landline device(s) & phone number(s).
Our ambition is to build a "Free Call Network" so that anyone could use his or her cell/landline phone to reach worldwide cells & landlines at zero cost.
No download - No Pin - No Wifi or 3G - No Java.

"Dringg is a fast, free and easy way to call family & friends' cells / landlines from yours, no matter where they're physically located", says the company's website. But so far that's the only useful information. Sounds quite interesting, but I have no idea what's behind it. The company seems to be located now in San Francisco, CA. But the founders are from France.

Dring project was fully initiated by Jeff Heubo & Stephane Orey, both friends and co-workers in La Defense, the biggest European Business Center.

Jeff and Stephane studied Business & Telecom Engineering. After a few years un Spain & the US, idea came to build a free alternative to paid calls so that people could just Dringg themselves from their existing landlines and cells.

Obviously they are paving the way for a launch and seed pieces of information to create interest. Jeff Heubo invited me to be one of the first Alpha testers and says that it deals with free calls. But he doesn't tell more and hopes I understand that. A hint could be his Twitter page which says at the top:

“Never be first to market, make something good Greater”
Steve Chazin

So what kind of business is Dringg improving? Jajah? Pudding Media? Yak4ever? Maybe Jeff Pulver shouldn't have headed to Israel to hunt for talents, but better contacted these two French guys.

Jajah's 2007 IPO cancelled

VoIP callback service provider Jajah has cancelled their IPO for 2007, an idea they first communicated to my fellow Berlin journalist Thomas Ramge in his interview for the German economy feature magazine Brand Eins. When they met in December 2006, Jajah's co-founder Roman Scharf told Ramge that the company would go public at the end of 2007. The year is nearly over and Scharf now had to correct the story a tiny bit in an interview he had on wednesday with Reuters on wednesday, November 7 2007, postponing the IPO for nearly a year.

NEW YORK, Nov 7 (Reuters) - Internet-based phone company Jajah Inc aims to go public in the second or third quarter next year to expand its low-cost calling service globally, co-founder Roman Scharf said in an interview on Wednesday.

Too bad that the Reuters reporter Ritsuko Ando is no frequent reader of Brand Eins or GigaOM and missed a much more juicy story, which Om Malik puts in the right words for us:

Jajah’s Hypothetical IPO Delayed Another Year

Jajah, the VoIP callback service provider that shifted from paid to “free” and was dreaming of an initial public offering in 2007, has pushed back its IPO plans until the second or third quarter of 2008, co-founder Roman Scharf told Reuters. The timing seems about right — the way everyone is going nuts here in the Valley, profitless IPOs could make a solid return by the middle of next year.

Scharf says that they would need $100 million to $200 million to bring Jajah within a year to a level of 50 to 80 million customers. That would be the purpose of a possible IPO. "We want to do this next year. We believe the second or third quarter next year might have the right environment for us to go public."

These numbers are very humble, compared to the evaluation of 2.9 billion dollars which RRS Capital Strategies Services from Vienna credited them as "fair value" in May 2007 after the investments by Deutsche Telekom and Intel. They deducted this virtual price from Jajah's user data and the conditions under which Skype had been sold to Ebay in 2005. As we know Skype's value has fallen by $1.43 billion and this is also affects the valuation of other internet phone companies.

Until now only stock holders of Jajah's investor Qino Flagship could have fun with the company. Qino Flagship is publicly listed and the only stock trading possibility to participate in Jajah's success. Since June Qino's value has fallen from €15 to €10.

But still the carpetbaggers are sucking up every Jajah news, no matter how goofy it is. In the web forum of the Austrian magazine Börse Express they try to construe even the slightest Jajah move. Obviously they are happy about the new business model: in-call advertising as an opt-in solution. Users listen to an audio ad before every phone call and receive Jajah minutes in exchange. 50 per cent of the advertising revenue gets the user and the rest shares Jajah with the phone company, explained the other Jajah founder, Daniel Mattes, in an interview with the German newspaper Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung.

"JAJAH's patent pending in-call advertising platform turns the inventory of the world's telephone calls into an advertising market place", said Mattes in the German press release. "Google paved the way around a decade ago with Google AdWords. Their approach was revolutionary, as they respected the users' common sense and reactions. We are now trying to do the same for the massive amount of phone call inventory. Think AdWords for the phone", he says in English.

Comparing oneself to Google is always a great way to get publicity. Does anybody remember when it was cool to sell a company as "future Microsoft"? Although Jajah has filed a patent application they are not the first with such an idea. The Rebtel clone Talkster also plays 10 second ads before every call. And Californian Pudding Media even wants to eavesdrop conversations to deliver targeted advertising during their free phone calls.

Free calls MVNO Blyk goes live with goofy questionnaires

Since I cannot attend personally the launch of the free mobile phone calls MVNO Blyk that is being held in these very minutes in London, I can only present the press release. I also got a Powerpoint presentation as PDF that explains more comprehensively how the advertising sponsored MVNO works.

Before becoming a customer you have to fill in a long questionnaire about your consumption preferences. Later you get advertising in every SMS you receive from a friend. Apparently before every phone call you have to answer questions like "Which of these celebs are you the most like: Eva Longoria, Penélope Cruz, Claudia Schiffer, Naomi Campbell, ... ?" and Blyk recommends you the adequate L'Oreal lipstick.

That makes me wonder what happens to customers who don't look similar to super models. Are they not allowed to talk?


Reference: Press Announcement
Release Date: 24 September, 2007

Blyk goes live
The world’s first advertising funded mobile network for 16-24 year olds launches in the UK

London, 24 September, 2007 - Blyk, the new mobile network for 16 to 24 year olds today announced the launch of its UK service. The announcement was made by the company founders Pekka Ala-Pietilä and Antti Öhrling at a press launch event in London this morning. Blyk is an invitation-only mobile virtual network operator (MVNO) that links young people with brands they like and gives them free texts and minutes every month.

For brands, Blyk is an innovative, new media channel, providing direct access to the 16-24 year old market; enabling them to create awareness, build relationships and drive sales to this hard to reach audience. Since its conception early last year, Blyk has been undertaking extensive research in the UK with user group studies and live user trials. These have helped to make the offering extremely compelling for young people and advertisers alike.

Pekka Ala-Pietilä said: “We have spent the last year developing a unique, robust advertising content engine and whilst the technology we are using is incredibly advanced, the main premise of Blyk is driven by 3 basic principles – ease of use, interaction and relevance of the communications.”

Blyk understands the importance of relevancy in communication and has built its system to enable this. By means of profile questions at sign-up and ongoing SMS polling during membership Blyk Media enables brands to target messages like no other medium. Response rates have also been exceptionally high, with some testers reportedly missing the service at the end of the trial.

Further to this Öhrling said: “We found that what is 90% familiar and 10% new leads to the best user experience. So, the Blyk communications formats are based on the most dominant and most familiar pattern among 16-24s: Getting a message and responding to it. Both picture and text.”

Brands will be able to engage Blyk members in question/response type interactions. For members these interactions are free. For advertisers all responses and interactions by members are tracked, giving great accountability to the campaign.

“We found throughout our research that this simple, familiar type of interaction leads to tremendous response rates. “ says Öhrling. Speaking at the network’s launch in London today, Pekka Ala-Pietilä said:

“Our free offer is 217 texts and 43 minutes every month and this could mean no more phone bills for up to 4.5 million young people in the UK - with no contract. We have the brands that want to speak to them too, with more than 40 already signed up for the launch. This group represents almost every industry sector there is.”

“It’s going to spread because, at the heart of it, it’s got a creative idea. A mobile phone network that’s funded by advertising; that’s something you want to tell people about. Fundamentally it’s the interaction that young people do most on their mobile phone: receiving and responding to a message.” says Antti Öhrling.

About Blyk

Blyk is the new mobile network for 16 – 24s that’s funded by advertising. Blyk links young people with brands they like and gives them free texts and minutes every month. Blyk was co-founded in 2006 by Pekka Ala- Pietilä and Antti Öhrling and has offices in Helsinki, Finland and London, UK. Blyk is now operating in the UK, with other European markets to follow.
For more information, visit about.blyk.com.

ENDS


Notes to Editors:

Invitations to join Blyk will be sent out over the next few weeks via channels targeted to reach 16-24 year olds.

For further information, please contact:
UK Trade media:
Karen Keany
The Practice, telephone +44 (0) 20 7812 0662/mobile +44 (0) 7989 429 367
Karen@thepractice.org.uk

UK Consumer media:
Rax Lakhani
Splendid Communications, telephone +44 (0) 20 7324 7200
rax@splendidcomms.com

International media:
Irene Nyberg-Jarventaus
Blyk, +44 (0) 7747 844 854
irene@blyk.com

Blyk limited
Registered office:
4 th Floor
80 Leadenhal Street
London EC3A 3HA
Registration number: 05778607

Free mobile calls with Blyk from next monday

I just got a phone call from the UK. Blyk, the ad-supported MVNO, will launch next monday, 24th September 2007. They wanted me to interview the co-founders, Pekka Ala-Pietilä, former president of Nokia, and Antti Öhrling at their press conference in London.

The new virtual operator is targeting 16 to 24 year olds. Blyk rents airtime from Orange and uses technology from Nokia Siemens Networks to deliver free calls, sponsored by advertisers like Buena Vista, Coca-Cola, I-play Mobile Gaming, L’Oreal Paris, StepStone and Yell.com, says TechCrunch UK.

Unfortunately I cannot go personally, but I told Ewan MacLeod, blogger at SMS Text News, to ask a question in my name. I would like to know if they are in contact with Stelios Haji-Ioannou, founder of the airline easyJet and other successful low cost product ventures. He told me three months ago that his brand easyMobile would come back with free mobile calls sponsored by advertising.

100th blog post: Who am I, anyway?

Since the rest of my website is in German and only this technology blog is written in English many readers may wonder: Who is the author? So I will use my 100th blog post to again introduce myself.

I am Markus Göbel, technology and economy journalist from Berlin, Germany. I work as freelancer for newspapers and magazines like Financial Times Deutschland, WirtschaftsWoche, DIE ZEIT and others. These are all big names in Germany, but probably unknown to international readers. I hold a degree in Journalism from the University of Munich and attended one of Germany's most prestigious Journalism Schools, Deutsche Journalistenschule.

I started this blog seven months ago because I realized that I have opinions and interests that are not well reflected in the other media. Especially the VoIP area, which became a main focus of this blog, is dominated by blogs of entrepreneurs who have an interest in maximizing their profits. Luca, Andy, David, Alec, Pat and others run great websites, but there you will hardly find tipps on how to hack their companies' services for free phone calls. They use their blog as a business tool.

But to me "free" calls as in "free beer" are still the killer application of VoIP. That's a conviction I share with people like Vinay from India whose blog became one of my main sources of inspiration. His VOIP Guide gets over 7000+ visitors each day mainly from USA, UK, India and Singapore because the customers want free phone calls.

Also I try to introduce a more European view because I realized that our technology is often more advanced than in the US. Just last week I had an interview with a mobile VoIP startup that left the US and concentrates entirely on Europe because “the market is more advanced and the handsets are unlocked”. My favourite VoIP device is AVM's Fritz!Box from Berlin which blows away any other ATA with its rich features.

I am always interested in new topics for this blog and the articles I write for German media. That's why I enjoy to be in direct discussion with the decision makers via interviews, blog comments and Facebook groups. You can always send me press releases or devices for testing. I can also write as guest blogger in your company's blog, telling what's hot and what's not from my point of view.

PhoneGnome does the same like Ooma: free P2P phone calls to PSTN. Toll Fraud?

Do you remember PhoneGnome's "Build Your Own Ooma" challenge which they started at July 19th, 2007?

We invite any company that sees promise in Ooma’s recently announced “peer to peer” VoIP model to consider rolling such a service out on the PhoneGnome platform and see how it flies.

It seems that they have succeeded, as you can tell from the latest post in the PhoneGnome blog. The company does not declare a winner of the challenge, so they probably developed the new "Directed Calling / Remote POTS Access" feature of PhoneGnome by themselves. It resembles quite exactly what Ooma already does:

This feature enables remote access to your POTS phone service (the telephone service connected to the PhoneGnome box LINE port). A user with the PhoneGnome box can grant access to other PhoneGnome accounts. Such an authorized user can then use their PhoneGnome account to direct a call to a specific POTS telephone service.

With the new Directed Calling / Remote POTS Access feature, friends and family members in one area can place calls to local numbers in another area. One PhoneGnome box can serve any number of accounts whether those accounts have the PhoneGnome box or not.

That's also the Ooma model: Phone calls are delivered over the internet and terminated for free to the PSTN over an Ooma or PhoneGnome box, since people in the US usually have free local calls. But other than Ooma the PhoneGnome feature can also work internationally. If I had a PhoneGnome at home I could directly allow other users to make free calls to Germany by sharing my phone line. Ooma restricts its free calls only to the USA.

Another big difference is that with PhoneGnome you know at least who is sharing your phone line, while Ooma just accomplishes other people's phone calls over your fixed phone line whithout even telling you. You can find the implications of this in my former blog post "Why Ooma is a security risk". In contrast the "Directed Calling / Remote POTS Access" feature of PhoneGnome adds a sumbenu called "PhoneGnome Users Permitted to Use your Phone Line". That gives a sense of security if people grant that permission only to friends and family members. But I guess that we will soon hear about PhoneGnome users who grant free calls to anyone unknown who gives them free calls in his area in exchange. One PhoneGnome box can serve any number of accounts and so it's theoretically possible to build a network for worldwide free phone calls. Yet there are PhoneGnome users in over 100 countries.

So it seems that the PhoneGnome is now slightly ahead in the funny feature fight with Ooma.

But what about the Toll Fraud?

Only one month ago PhoneGnome's CEO David Beckemeyer reasoned in his blog and in a conversation with The VoIP weblog that the way Ooma operates could be construed as Toll Fraud, or at the very least, against the terms of service of your phone company. He quoted an AT&T web page that says:

You would never allow a stranger to walk into your place of business and walk off with your company’s products or services. And yet, an individual who perpetrates toll fraud on an unsuspecting business is doing just that.

Simply put, remote toll fraud is the fraudulent, illegal use of a company’s telecommunications system by a third party from a remote location.

Very diplomatically he concluded in his blog post that it was "probably just a coincidence that we receive this notice at the same time that Ooma is launching a service that permits strangers remote access to one's telecommunications system (specifically our AT&T landline)".

Now the PhoneGnome does the same.

GTalk2VoIP starts callback

Yesterday my virtual buddy service@gtalk2voip.com started to chat me automatically when I had my GMail open. He told me about a great new service that's possible now with GTalk2VoIP: Callback.

All users of Jabber based IM chat, Google Talk, MSN/Live Messenger or Yahoo! Messenger can use GTalk2VoIP service to initiate VoIP calls using CALLBACK technique. This means, our system can make VoIP call to your phone (mobile or landline), then make a call to your destination and merge two calls (legs). Callback is initiated by a single IM message sent to service@gtalk2voip.com.

Just talk to the robot! Use your instant messenger to say "CALLBACK +1-111-2223344 +1-555-6667788" to the service@gtalk2voip.com buddy. This will initiate a call to your phone number +1-111-2223344, then to your destination +1-555-6667788. It even works on your mobile phone if you use Fring or the mobile version of Gizmo Project.

The calls cost the normal GTalk2VoIP rates or the rates of your own SIP provider which you can also use at GTalk2VoIP. Each call leg is billed separately, so if both legs are phone numbers the final cost will "double". But normally it should be no problem to use your Fring to start a free call between your friends landline and the fixed line telephone next to you.

This seems much faster and easier than Jajah to me.

PhoneGnome's answer to Ooma's comparison

After the Funny fight between Ooma and PhoneGnome on FierceVoIP don't forget to read today the answer from PhoneGnome's CEO David Beckemeyer!

Last week an interview with Andrew Frame, founder and CEO of Ooma, caused furor among the PhoneGnome users when he answered the question "How is ooma different from PhoneGnome, aside from the physical aspect?". David Beckemeyer immediately demanded his right to answer and comes up with this comparison:

The key distinguishing aspects of the two products, as we see it, are:

Ooma:
- Prepay for hardware plus a bundle of services/features up front
- Service options defined by ooma
- Proprietary, closed, architecture
- Available to users in the United States
- International calls at ooma rates

PhoneGnome:
- A la carte model, with lower up-front costs
- Customers pay less up front and pay for the services/features they want
- Open, expandable and interconnects with other VoIP services/systems
- Embraces open-standards, interoperability, and industry standards
- Available to users anywhere in the world
- Free software extends PhoneGnome-enabled service to a PC or mobile phone
- PhoneGnome box works with VoIP, cable and landline phone service
- Compatible with a variety of international and domestic plans

Also we learn from the article what a tiny company stands behind the PhoneGnome. "We are a typical early stage startup, running very lean and mean. We don't have any Hollywood actors and we don't have a big pile of VC cash to burn", says Beckemeyer with a side blow to Ooma's Ashton Kutcher. They have only ten people working full time and "many terrific folks who work with us, outsourced and under other arrangements to allow us to operate without large capital requirements as we strive to expand and grow organically".

Too sad that Beckemeyer didn't tell the actual status of PhoneGnome's “Build Your Own Ooma” challenge where they try to roll out a similar peer-to-peer service on the PhoneGnome platform.

Or maybe Apple is the real telco disruptor?

Do you remember my post "Google is the real telco disruptor" from july?

Well, it seems that the story could become even more interesting with another player entering the 700 MHz wireless spectrum auction that many didn't have on their list: Apple might also bid for that "bech front property" spectrum, suggests a BusinessWeek article called "Apple Eyes the Wireless Auction".

Taking into account this possible development many pieces of the puzzle would fall into their place. Why is the iPod touch such a cool device, an iPhone without phone? Why did Apple cut the price for the iPhone so soon and drastically?

In Germany the association eco, alliance of 330 big internet companies, hailed already last week the new device by saying "Wifi iPod makes mobile internet a mass market" in a press release. They are fed up with the slow acceptation of mobile internet service on Germany because the incumbent mobile operators keep 3G data prices high and accept only walled gardens on their devices.

"T Zones, Web-n-walk und Vodafone Live all try to keep away the user from the free and open internet", says eco director Harald A. Summa. "Exactly this policy of closed networks has so far prevented the breaktrough of the mobile internet to a mass market. The success of iTunes and Youtube shows that the users know much better than the operators what they really want." The new iPod touch offers direct Wifi access to iTunes and Youtube, circumventing the closed networks of the mobile operators.

So, let's just imagine that the iPhone never planned to sell millions. Maybe it's real purpose is just to create buzz for the new iPods? The iPod touch has every feature that you like from the iPhone. It only misses the annoying part of the phone: A 60 dollar per month cell phone contract. New iPods could work without that contract, using the 700 MHz spectrum, suggests the article in BusinessWeek:

Signals at the 700Mhz spectrum, for example, could provide far faster Internet access than today's cellular or even Wi-Fi networks, and the signals can easily pass through buildings and work glitch-free, even in lousy weather.

Still, even the possibility of an Apple bid is intriguing. For starters, it would mean Apple would no longer need to rely on a phone company to deliver songs, TV shows, and other digital fare purchased at its iTunes Music Store. As it is, the major complaint of iPhone shoppers isn't with the phone, but with the pokey Net access from Apple's exclusive U.S. partner, AT&T (T).

If it owned its own spectrum, Apple could provide the network service itself, possibly for far less than the $1,440 iPhone owners must now fork out over the course of the cheapest two-year contract. For example, Apple could hold down costs by letting users choose a Net telephony program such as Skype rather than develop its own voice software, say analysts.

Apple might even be able to give away network service for free, and make its money off services such as iTunes and possibly by selling subscribers advertising space.

Indeed, cutting out the carrier would probably be in sync with Steve Jobs' view of the world. Before striking the iPhone deal with AT&T, he publicly dissed phone companies as little more than "orifices"—good only for providing dumb pipes to deliver more innovative companies' more innovative services.

"Apple is the most anti-carrier company there is," says the former Apple executive. "They're probably already frustrated with AT&T. If they put a few billion behind this, they could build a kick-ass network." Indeed, on Sept. 5, Apple announced a new iTunes Wi-Fi Music Store so consumers can buy songs at wireless hotspots, something they can't do on AT&T's network. And Jobs made a point of noting Wi-Fi is faster not only than the so-called 2.5G EDGE network, but also than 3G cellular networks.

A very convincing argumentation that matches perfectly with what eco said. That's also the reason why I had to copy such a long passage of the original article. (Sorry for that!) Hopefully it's not only intentionally leaked hot air to lift Apple's stock price.

Funny fight between Ooma and PhoneGnome on FierceVoIP

FierceVoIP has an interview with Andrew Frame, founder and CEO of Ooma. We can learn something, but it's mostly PR blabla for Ooma. Much more interesting are, again, the comments to this article.

Maybe Andrew shouldn't have answered the question "How is ooma different from PhoneGnome, aside from the physical aspect?". It causes an outrage of devoted PhoneGnome users, calling his answer "completely misleading" and presuming that he didn't understand how PhoneGnome works.

In steps Dennis Peng, director product management at Ooma, making an even more comprehensive comparation of the two devices. He asserts that PhoneGnome doesn't have two phone lines, like Ooma does, but just "one and a half". What does that mean? Maybe a half phone line is shorter than a full line? Peng gets it worse from the next commentator who says "Dennis, with all due respect to your position at Ooma, you need to do a little more homework", before he strips down his argumentation.

Too sad that most comments are anonymous, because they give pretty much insight and are funny to read. I hope that Mr. Blog himself, PhoneGnome's CEO David Beckemeyer, will find this article soon and also leave a comment.

I was personally shocked to read that poor Americans pay $65-70 monthly just to get two phone lines from AT&T and PhoneGnome. With the necessary broadband connection it sums up to $100 every month.

I just pay $40 monthly for broadband and VoIP, of course having two phones lines. Two people can call my Sipgate number at the same time. If the first phone is already in use the other rings. Also twofold dial out is possible. Betamax' SparVoIP allows this without hassle, using my Sipgate number as caller ID and letting me call my favourite countries for free for just $3 per month. On top of that I can use 10 different VoIP providers on my Fritz!Box, having lots of inbound numbers from different countries and arbitrating for the best price on outgoing calls. At Voxalot I can install 30 more providers.

I can switch easily if one provider goes belly up or messes with their rates, without getting a new box or changing anything hardware-wise. Ooma guarantees only three years of free service and nobody knows what happens to the box if they go bankrupt.


UPDATE:

David Beckemeyer, designer and proprietor of PhoneGnome, aka "Mr. Blog," aka former chief technology officer and co-founder of EarthLink, has officially requested the opportunity to respond to Andrew Frame's comparison of Ooma and PhoneGnome.

You can read more about that in today's FierceVoIP article "ooma versus PhoneGnome". But his response will not be featured untile the Monday, Sept. 10 edition of FierceVoIP.

Too sad we have to wait so long.