Subscribe to RSSAnother upstart offering free calls to normal phones
Voip Buster is offering a PC client for PC to phone calls with calls to a significant part of the world being free. They claim calls to landlines in the United States and much of Europe are free. It’s not clear whether this is a limited time trial, or a standard feature of the service.
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exceptional Apr 14, 2005 - 06:04:33Reading the title of your post starting with "Another upstart…" I was just wondering who else to your knowledge is offering free PC to PSTN calls like this.
Thanks,
JC
I guess the main one I mentioned here before is Babble: http://www.toyz.org/mrblog/archives/00000178.html
Of course I’m told there are many such companies, for whatever that’s worth.
temporary free calls as usual…just like babble was.
all designed to hook a user.
the real game is keeping them a user.
i say good luck to them.
Correct. Actually they already stopped offering the US for free and half of the free European destinations have already vanished from the list without notice.
The problem with their business model is that there is virtually no barrier to exit. The minute they stop offering free calls to my preferred destination I will stop using them as there are prefix operators that offer better rates.
There’s no point attracting users if there’s no hook to keep them when the incentive is gone.
Yep, and now they have even suspended the beta entirely and are not allowing downloads at the moment.
The list of free calling destinations is now down to a handful of EU nations.
What were they thinking? Is a few days of hype really worth it, especially as you say, if they have no long-term unique selling proposition?
skype is an extension of this "wrong path" thinking.
voip buster is at one end skype at the other…
buster has NO clue at all as to the direction of this industry and is working with borrowed, bought, rented and stolen ideas/resources—trying to capitalize on an idea they feel is Net Rich Worthy…then reality hits…
skypes reality is coming soon to a blog near you.
skypes riding high and mighty on the P2P train (kazaa fame doesn’t hurt). There are soooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo many things out of their control and in the hands of controlling bodies that if you add them up (in adittion to the problems skype is running into), that they are destined to ultimately vanish.
It’s not a question of if they will last. its a question of how long can niklas make this train go and how much will he milk from a misinformed, misguided underVOIPeducated buyer—hence the fast and furious partnerships with anyone and everyone. That Siemens deal is working wonders
But you know what? Whoever buys them deserves it, because THEY TOO bought the hype and missed the real train ride.
craig