Best Cheap International Call Provider of 2008

This post is a part of the VOIP Provider of the Year 2008 Awards. Today, we vote for the best cheap international call provider of 2008. There was a huge influx of Cheap international call providers in 2008. However there are always some good and some bad VOIP Providers. We have carefully chosen the finalist for the cheap international call providers in 2008. 1) LocalPhone: Personally my favorite VOIP Provider at the moment. Awesome quality of service with Access Numbers based dialing and you can assign upto 5 numbers directly for your contacts and dial those numbers for direct access. They could improve their access number features to identify registered number and skip the menus for calling out. Hope they do this soon. 2) Nymgo: A fairly new VOIP Provider from UK received rave reviews on VOIP Guide. 3) Tringme: Indian face of VOIP, Tringme is extremely popular amongst indians. I always wish they could improve their call quality which is definately improved over a period of time but still more to go :-) 4) Betamax: the big daddy of Cheap International Call services and run bunch of VOIP services under it's belt. 5) MediaRing: Perhaps the Only VOIP Provider listed on the Stock Market and a profitable VOIP firm serving billions of the minutes of international call traffic. At times, they have done better volumes than Singtel, a giant in Telecom. This huge VOIP Provider is worth checking out. 6) Rebtel: The King of Mobile VOIP market and still doing well in this niche. Rebtel is extremely popular in USA and UK markets. 7) Pingo: A Calling card providers but now offering Softphone based call out. Pingo always received negative and positive reviews about their service. 8) Pennytel: King in Untimed Call services, Their untimed unlimited call offers did extremely well. Extremely popular in Australia and NZ. Vote for your Favorite Cheap International call Provider 2008:

 

Best Residential VOIP Phone Service Provider in 2008

Today we choose the Best Residential VOIP Phone Service Provider in USA in 2008. Residential Service Providers have seen good and bad times in 2008. With fall of sunrocket, is your VOIP Provider safe and sound? We analyse over 20 VOIP Providers in USA before choosing the finalist, which we believe currently has significant user base and have received more feedback than other Residential VOIP Providers. 1) Lingo: Lingo probably has the best VOIP Phone Service Deal on the internet. For $21.95 per month, they offer unlimited calls to over 21 countries in Europe, Asia,Latin America and Of course USA/Canada. You can get 1 month free service with their latest Coupon. 2) PhonePower: PhonePower is one of the newest VOIP Phone Provider in USA. No one thought they could get customers in this already saturated market, however to everyone's surprise, they managed to make their mark. Today they are counted one of the leading USA Phone Companies. Their plans starts from $9 per month and they have some exciting promotion going on where they offer 1 year of FREE Service when you signup for 1 year. For 1 year, you get second year FREE. 3) Packet8: One of the oldest VOIP Phone Providers in the USA and have done extremely well during the Sunrocket falldown. They managed to get maximum sunrocket users to their platform. Tough competitor to Lingo with a a similar unlimited calls to over 40 countries in USA, Canada,Asia and Europe for $24.95 4) Vonage: One of the ailing companies who continue to do business which is surprising to many. Vonage is the next Sunrocket as many analyst believe their balance sheets dont look too good and they have bunch of lawsuits to be settled. Proven VOIP Provider who once totally dominated the market however lost its charm after a lot of mismanagement and unreliable VOIP Service. Choose your Favorite Residential VOIP Phone Service Provider in 2008:

 

CallingAmerica.com Unlimited Free Calls to USA

There are lotsa VOIP Providers offering free international calls to USA and we got one more joining the league. This one is however offering unlimited free calls to usa from anywhere in the world. The Ad-based model for VOIP free calls seems to be most popular choice amongst VOIP Providers. Calling America is one of them who is offering unlimited free calls to any number in the United States in liue of advertisements from any computer with a Web browser and a broadband connection. In short its a close competitor to EarthCaller. The only difference being Earthcaller only works in IE7 now. Do we have a limit on numbers of calls? Most unlimited calling companies often have FUP(Fair usage policies) to trick you in and then sneak the FUP in to make sure they won't go bust just if you go high on them :-) CallingAmerica.com allows you to talk upto 15 minutes for each call as a register user and make unlimited calls. That means each call will last for 15 minutes and it would be disconnected. You would be able to dial again the same number. For no-registered users, this limit is 2 minutes. Probably worth signing up, However always note that most free VOIP companies make money from selling your personal contact information to other companies and make a few bucks. Its a industry wide practice. I still get calls from a company trying to sell me nutrition products DUH. This is purely a PC to Phone service and it requires you to have a microphone. Lets look at how to use calling America to make free international calls to USA: 1) Go to CallingAmerica.com 2) The service requires you to view a short ad before you place the call. The audio is played through the browser, and the site uses your computer's microphone to transmit what you say. 3) Now You would notice signup option. Just register and then login. You would notice Phone Number box. Input a 10 Digit USA Phone number without country code(e.g 2222223333) 4) It will prompt you for a word verification (Register users can skip this). 5) You would notice a call connection timer. .Then Click Press to Call. 6)If you are calling the very first time, it would prompt for a Flash Notification to allow Callingamerica to access your microphone. Select Yes. 7)Now it would start dialing out to the destination number. Once connected, you can talk for 15 minutes and can repeat this again. Please note this fre VOIP service was launched today, so they are fairly new. Let's know your comments and feedback as always.

 

Best Free International Call Provider of 2008

This post is a part of VOIP Provider of the year 2008 Award Series. You can vote for your most favorite free international call Provider in 2008. Vote and Choose the best Free international call provider in 2008. After a lot of analysis, I have finally chose the following VOIP Provider for free international call provider in 2008 category. 1) EarthCaller: One of the best free international calls service to USA. Works from anywhere in the world as long as you have IE7. 2) Mediaringtalk: Offers free international calls to over 8 countries since last 1 year, consistantly extending free calls offer. Good voice quality however sometimes calls are dropped. 3) Poketalk: Another free international calls provider but received many negative reviews on VOIP Guide, still made it to the finals. 4) Betamax: This includes all betamax VOIP Services such as nonoh, voipraider, voipcheap etc. 5)RingPlus: Our great find has gone beyond expectations and provided a good platform to make worldwide free international calls through their gateway. 7)Tuitalk: Another free international call service. 8)DukaDial: Part of the Jaduka Labs service. Offers Phone to Phone free calls in USA. You are free to chose another provider of your choice under Others if one of the above provider is not your favorite. Please let me know if you believe a VOIP Provider deserves to be on the list but missed out. If you are a VOIP Provider and would like to be included for the poll, Please send me email with explanation on why you think you should be included in the free international call provider of the year award. Start Voting! Choose your favorite free international call Provider of the year 2008.

 

VOIP Provider of the Year 2008 Awards

Its time of the year again, only a few days to go for 2008. Lets all vote for our favorite VOIP Provider in 2008. The results from this polls will not only help us find a VOIP Provider in 2009 but will help VOIP Providers to improve their services. This post will be discussing the whole VOIP Provider 2008 awards rules and explain the concept. There will be multiple categories for choosing VOIP Provider. Comparing Vonage with Betamax wouldn't make sense. I have finalised the following categories. Please note this are not the polls. There will be individual post for each of the categories where you would have to vote for your favorite VOIP Provider. 1) Free International Call Provider: Only VOIP Providers will be chosen who are providing purely free international calls without any catch. Of course, Betmax is included as being the largest in this category. 2) Residential Phone Service Provider (US Only): Only VOIP Providers from USA will be considered for this category. Comcast and Verizon will be included since they have fair market share in this market. 3) Cheap International Call Provider: Any VOIP Provider giving cheap international calls. It was the toughest category to choose the finalist, but I finally nailed down a few. 4) Business Phone Provider: All VOIP Providers catering to the Business Phone market. Almost everyone has a business VOIP option, however only a few has made an impact in this market. 5) SIP Provider: Some people use SIP Provider exclusively for SIP to SIP calls, which is your favorite? If you think there could be more categories, do let me know, I would give it a thought. Again, this is not a poll, there will be seperate post for each of those categories and I will link them from here. Today, you can start voting on the Free International Call Provider. Choose your favorite. If you are a VOIP Provider and not one of those listed as Finalise for VOIP Provider Award 2008, please request to be included. Send me email at ut(dot)godmode@gmail.com Let's work together and choose the best VOIP Providers in 2008.

 

MediaringTalk offers cheapest calls to India at 1.9 cents

Cheap international call markets is already breaking the Free international call market by reducing long distance calling rates every month. Mediaringtalk joins the party by giving the best calling rate to India ever possible. Thanks Hasan for notifying us on the rate change.MediaRingtalk is a VOIP services by Mediaring, a Singapore based VOIP Provider serving billions of minutes worldwide each year. I visited their Data center and facility at singapore a few months back and it awesome to say the least. With such dedicated infrastructure backing up their already reliable connectivity with some of the best E1 providers in telecom industry, It can't get any better. For privacy and business reasons, I won't disclose their telecom provider name on the blog. However its one of the primary reasons why Mediaringtalk can today offer the best calling rate for India. Yes, Mediaringtalk now offers 1.9 cents per minute to india. Its all across India (Mobile + Landline) both. FreeCall used to offer 1.5 cents earlier which they increased to 1.9 cents and with all the betamax mishap i prefer to stay with betamax services whenever I can. You can buy credit as low as $10. Please note your mediaringtalk credit expires in 180 days so you better use it. Mediaringtalk also offers free international calls to many destinations such China, Taiwan,UK (landline only), Singapore, Hong Kong, USA, Canada & Australia. Mediaringtalk has over 1 million users worldwide and they do serve ocassional ads in their softphone for the free international calls that they offer. Please note that mediaringtalk is only supported via their softphone and they do not support external SIP. We tried it last time however its unreliable. Overall Mediaringtalk's 1.9 cents to India is a great deal we must say!

 

Skype VOIP releases Version 4 Beta 3

Skype the most popular VOIP Service in the world releases another beta of their popular Skype VOIP SoftPhone. We look at the latest features in the new skype release. The most striking addition is they brought back the Call Quality feedback area, Outlook Contacts and full History. They've added full History features, as promised when it launched Beta 2. You can browse and search past conversations by event type (instant messages, incoming calls, outgoing calls, and so on), that means you can trace back the forgotten words easily. There's also a new download manager for file transfers. You might noticed this already but i would like to mention, Skype really owns every messenger out there in the market for file transfer, its lightning fast. Trust me and try it once. With the Outlook integration, adding skype contact is even more easier. Some of the improvement in skype VOIP Softphone V4 beta 3 - Chat with up to 100 people in group chats - Improved Video Conferencing -numerous improvements to call and video quality with a new Bandwidth Manager - a new look that's more reflective Skype brand One of the best part of Skype is of course their Skype Country Plans which are extremely tempting to signup. I already have a skype US&Canada plan and it works awesome. They give 10000 minutes each month for only 4.5 Euros. They also have unlimited world plan worth checking out. If you really use Skype on a day to day basis, you might just like to check the new version or else just stick with the current one.

 

VOIPZoom SIP settings revealed

Lots of people were eagerly waiting for VOIPZoom SIP Settings. For only monthly fee of € 2.50/month(Euro)/3.19 USD, you can make free international calls to over 41 destinations around the world. The only shortfall VOIP zoom service had was non comptability of the SIP based connectivity. However, we finally found it. Its not officially out on their website yet but regular visitor Kulwinder Singh did DNS lookup on VOIPZoom and accidently found SIP settings on VOIPZoom. Thanks to Kulwinder for sharing this news with us. We them did some more test to confirm that SIP is indeed available on VOIPZoom. We strongly suggest if you are using VOIPZoom service and have a VOIP Adapter/SIP Phone then try thes SIP settings. ----Kulwinder's Analysis--------- ; <<>> DiG 9.3.4-P1 <<>> sip.voipzoom.com ;; global options: printcmd ;; Got answer: ;; ->>HEADER<<- opcode: QUERY, status: NOERROR, id: 10210 ;; flags: qr rd ra; QUERY: 1, ANSWER: 2, AUTHORITY: 3, ADDITIONAL: 0 ;; QUESTION SECTION: ;sip.voipzoom.com. IN A ;; ANSWER SECTION: sip.voipzoom.com. 504 IN A 194.120.0.198 sip.voipzoom.com. 504 IN A 194.221.62.198 ;; AUTHORITY SECTION: voipzoom.com. 171413 IN NS ns3.betamax.com. voipzoom.com. 171413 IN NS ns1.betamax.com. voipzoom.com. 171413 IN NS ns2.betamax.com. ------- ----------My Analysis----------------- Pinging sip.voipzoom.com [194.221.62.198] with 32 bytes of data: Reply from 194.221.62.198: bytes=32 time=364ms TTL=231 Reply from 194.221.62.198: bytes=32 time=366ms TTL=231 Reply from 194.221.62.198: bytes=32 time=367ms TTL=231 Reply from 194.221.62.198: bytes=32 time=365ms TTL=231 Ping statistics for 194.221.62.198: Packets: Sent = 4, Received = 4, Lost = 0 (0% loss), Approximate round trip times in milli-seconds: Minimum = 364ms, Maximum = 367ms, Average = 365ms ------------------- Now try using the following VOIP Zoom SIP Settings: SIP port : 5060 Registrar : sip.voipzoom.com Proxy server : sip.voipzoom.com Outbound proxy server : leave empty Account name : your VoipZoom username Password : your VoipZoom password Let us know if these VOIP Zoom SIP settings working for you.

 

VOIPHit Betamax SIP based VOIP Service

Betamax is a powerhouse when it comes to VOIP Services. They setup new VOIP Services almost every 3 months. Start with extremely low VOIP Calling rates and get you on the board easily. However one of the most important feature is still missing on many of the existing Betamax VOIP Services such as recently launched VOIPZoom, that's SIP. I hope many of you are already awaere of what's SIP. If not read our Idiot's Guide to SIP. SIP is now a standard in VOIP telephony but not many VOIP providers reveal SIP details. However, it seems betamax has launched a VOIP Service called VOIPHit which is purely a SIP based VOIP service. They also have VOIPHit softphone which you can download, or just use it via X-lite or setup on our VOIP adapter or SIP Phone. VOIPHit does not offer any free calling destination. Its only a cheap international call service. VOIPHit SIP Settings: SIP port : 5060 Registrar : sip.voiphit.com Proxy server : sip.voiphit.com Outbound proxy server : leave empty Account name : your VoipHit username Password : your VoipHit password Display name/number : your sipusername or sipnumber Stunserver (option) : stun.voiphit.com Codecs : G.711 (64 kbps) G.726 (32 kbps) G.729 (8 kbps) G.723 (5.3 & 6.3 kbps) GSMFR (13.2 kbps)

 

PhonePower VOIP Phone Service Review and Coupon

There are always new home phone services coming up in the US Market, obviously not as fast as typical VOIP Web based services. With Vonage, Comcast, Lingo dominating the market, the newer companies often offer something unique as value add. PhonePower is doing just the same. This offer applies to all existing PhonePower Customers and of course new customers. PhonePower is a newest VOIP home phone service company in the USA and you can start enjoying their services for as low as $8.33/ per month which will give you unlimited free calls to USA and Canada. PhonePower has 2 plans mainly for residential and small business users. It can get confusing to understand the plans with so many features bundled with it. I highly recommend signing up for 2 year prepay plan for 2 reasons, you get a second line for free which you can use anywhere you like. Secondly, you pay $200 for 2 years, that means your effective rate for 1 month becomes $200/24 months = $8.33 per month. This is probably the best cheapest VOIP Phone service in the USA which makes it a good option for people looking to save money within USA and Canada during this tough times. Recession is catching up on all of us, do you still want to pay $20 per month to services like Vonage? Think again. During December, PhonePower is also going to offer free international calls to all phonepower users to many destinations (See below). United Kingdom,Spain,Ireland,Israel,Germany,Singapore,France,Denmark,Greece,Italy,China. One of the most striking feature of PhonePower is they don't have any monthly contract like all the rest of the VOIP Providers. That means you can cancel their service if you don't like to use it anymore. If you do this within the first 30 days, its FREE so no cancellation fees. However anything after 30 days, will be charged a cancellation fee. However they won't recover the contract fees from you since there is no contract. If you are a existing customer, please let us know your review about PhonePower. Please no reviews from Phonepower competitors :-) I know every VOIP Provider lurking on this blog :-)

 

VMTag offers Free Phone Call to Voicemail System

VOIP Providers and Services are trying to combine the benefits of value added service with mainstream telephony such as VOIP to make your life easier. We discussed about Fonolo, a call center menu bypass system.Today we talk about another interesting service called VMTag, A Phone Call to Voicemail system. VMTag basically allows anyone anywhere in the world to receive free voicemails in their mailbox whenever someone calls up a phone number. A random number is generator each time you register your email as VMTag Voicemail service user. How does VMTag Works? 1) You enter the email address to which Voicemail should be delivered. 2) Once you enter the email address and submit VMTag will assign a Mailbox number to the email id and gives you a phone number to call. 3) When you dial that phone number and enter mailbox number, you can drop a voicemail for that Id. This voicemail will then be forwarded to the email address. How can you use VMTag Phone to Voicemail system? You can send messages to your friends, create reminders for yourself, send voicemails as email if you don't have blackberry. VMTag is one of those services which will stregthen the VOIP & Telephony market. These new ideas will slowly become mainstream as VOIP Providers integrate these functions under one single ultimate uber VOIP Service. I am still waiting to see such VOIP Provider. However future for VOIP looks promising.

 

Fonolo allows to Bypass Call Center Phone Menus

With really interesting concepts coming into Telecommunication and VOIP, many VOIP Providers are trying their hand with out of the box ideas. Fonolo is one smashing new service which does this in great style. Did you ever call your cable provider like comcast, Verizon and just waited, waited and waited forever. With more stupid call center executives making you mad, the wait seems forever. I myself have noticed many call centers makes your life so difficult that they put horrendous amount of phone menus to choose from, which are just going around in circles so that you never be able to find the real human call center employee. Of course the end result is you get bored and hang up. Now let fonolo make your life easier. Fonolo is like a call center service spyder. It spider all leading call center services and their menus and lets you hijack them and set your own preferences. Let's understand what Fonolo can do for you. 1) You can first signup for Fonolo. currently fonolo is in beta allows only USA and Canada numbers. 2) Now you need to setup the call routing mechanism for each company's call center. Just do this for the most used. 3) Pick the company you need (say comcast). Fonolo will give you the option to now change Comcast Call center phone menu. 4)Scan through their phone menu visually, then just click the spot you need to call. 5)Fonolo will automatically dial, navigate their menu and then dial your phone. When you answer, you will be connected to the right spot in the menu. 6) What this means let fonolo take the pain to reach the customer service executive rather than you jumping around those stupid call center menus. I believe this is a great servie. Thinking of simplicity and providing this to the today's consumers was a must. With more and more call centers acting utterly stupid with their phone menus, I believe Fonolo will be massive. Go try them out. Its totally free. I hope they can extend this service worldwide very soon. Let's hope for the best. I have setup my account and now going to try calling my Yahoo Search Marketing Account Manager bypassing all those menus :-)

 

Get Ooma VOIP Phone at $199

With Holiday shopping going wild in USA, there are some great deals to be found for VOIP Phone systems such as Ooma or MagicJack. Ooma is stand alone VOIP Phone system which works on the fly. No monthly contracts, no signup amounts. Just buy the Ooma VOIP Phone box and you are done. Ooma offers totally unlimited calls to USA Phones (PSTN lines included). At first, you would compare this to a Linksys PAP2 VOIP Adapter, however its different. Linksys PAP2 is a VOIP adapter which you can connect to a PSTN phone and configure the VOIP Adapter to run SIP based VOIP Service. Ooma on the other hands comes pre-configured and connects to a Ooma network. Ooma has a extremely different concept and uses a possible loophole in the american telecommunication systems, which lets you make free local calls within a certain distance. What Ooma does is, they pass Ooma call over Ooma network across USA. For the time being consider this as in-network calling, like one SIP address making a call to another SIP address and then convert that to a PSTN line very near to the termination call location. This way the call becomes a free long distance USA call. ooma gives you all the calling features including caller-ID, call-waiting, and voicemail.The ooma Lounge is your online destination for the ooma service. You can listen to messages, control your account preferences, prepay for international minutes, and even set up voicemail notifications, 24 hours a day. ooma of course has in-network calling, you can call any other Ooma anywhere in the world. Currently Ooma is only sold in USA however once they start selling outside USA, imagine the cost benefit. Ooma also allows you to connect your regular landline along with Ooma Phone line. That means you can still access 911 calls and have the flexibility of ooma phone at your hand. Ooma comes with Ooma Scout,a nice little add-on Product which gives you the ability to have use of a second phone line, all integrated into the same phone number you use with the hub. Original Price for Ooma is $399. However Amazon is selling Ooma VOIP Package for only $199. This is really a great deal. We strongly suggest you buy a Ooma VOIP Phone Package.

 

VOIPo Residential Phone Service Review

VOIPo is one of the newest Residential Phone Service in USA, Is it worth your money? We did a quick review of VOIPo Home Phone Service. Take a look. Today, we received an email from VOIPo that the Pre-Launch Special for the residential phone service has started and we have been chosen as one of the first VIP Memebers to sign-up. We decided to check this out. Its far too ambitious to launch a residential phone service when VOIP Providers like Lingo, Phonepower are already biting on the share of Vonage, Comcast etc. In USA, there are 2 types of VOIP Providers, One is a Cable Provider who offers VOIP Phone service as bundled package. Other types are pure VOIP Phone Service providers such as Lingo or Phonepower. VOIPo falls unders the pure VOIP residential Phone service category. They claim that they are offering unlimited free calls to USA and Canada from USA. According to their email, The Pre-Launch Special that you can take advantage of to get free activation and save $129.95 on our annual Residential Freedom plan which offers virtually unlimited calling to the US and Canada using your regular telephones. - $99 for First Year of Service (Savings of $100) - Free Activation (Savings of $29.95) - Free Phone Adapter Lease - Free Priority Mail Shipping - Full 30 Day Money Back Guarantee - No Cancellation Fees After your first year, service will renew at the standard price of $199 per year. All accounts are subject to a $3 per month regulatory recovery fee which is billed upfront based on your prepayment term. That means effectively they charge you $3 fee per month on top of the existing plan. Seriously speaking, this really doesn't make a good plan. Why? Some simple reasons. 1) $199 per year isn't really cheap. 2) Limited to USA and Canada. Phonepower offers the same plan $199 for 2 years. Lingo gives unlimited calls to 22+ countries for almost the same price. 3) Their monthly plans are $21.95 per month. Lingo offers same price with over 22+ countries unlimited calls. The pricing of VOIPo is way off. 4)A new VOIP Provider means more risk. Considering all the above points, we suggest wait and watch on VOIPo. If you are looking for a good stable VOIP Providers in today's market, we highly recommend Lingo and Phonepower. Both award winning VOIP Providers offers top notch support and QoS.

 

FW: Voxofon on the G1's Android OS

Voxofon claims to be the first to offer VoIP on Google's new mobile operating system, Android. The app seems to integrate into the dialer, displaying an extra screen after you've chosen your contact: - Call via Local Number - Callback My Mobile - Callback Other Phone - Direct Call The callback services are handy to avoid using your cellular minutes, but don't most G1 owners have unlimited talktime already? Anyway, it's super cheap, from 1.3 cents per minute for international calls and you're not tethered to a PC. If you use Voxofon, be sure to leave a comment and let us know how their service ranks. Here's a quick demo of Voxofon's Android VoIP app:

 

Freebuzzer callback service from Voipax

Today, I received a lengthy advertorial in my inbox about a VoIP service called Freebuzzer, offered by Voipax GmbH.  I'll save you the fluff and quote just the relevant bit: All you need to make free calls on your PC is your computer and your internet connection. Then start enjoying free international phone calls immediately by going to www.freebuzzer.com and entering both phone numbers. Freebuzzer will then call both parties and connect them totally free of charge. Freebuzzer offers free phone calls to more than 40 countries in the world. The amount of calls is limited, but it's still a good way to make a quick call to your friends and family all over the world. They aren't clear about the limitations, so try at your own risk.  This will also use up incoming minutes, so it's not totally free if you get charged for those.  Anyway, if you do check it out, be sure to leave a comment and let everyone know how satisfied you were with their service!   UPDATE:  Seems calls are limited to 2 minutes each.  Does anyone know if that's accurate?  If so, that pretty much kills any appeal this service may have had.