International calls available for free, without any computers
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Another broadband telephone company is going all free calls to build up its sense of community within its customers. Fusion Telecommunications is introducing eFonica, a service that let subscribers call each other for free.
They can do it “using their existing landline or mobile telephone numbers to and from any combination of PC’s, Internet phones and regular telephones (with a simple adapter), connected to a broadband or dial-up Internet connection.”
Fusion shares another similarity with Skype. The former has filed a patent application last month with the United States Patent Office for its Directed Session Initiated Protocol (SIP) Peer-to-Peer (DSP) technology. The patent application describes a system that Fusion plans to utilize to provide its free service between SIP devices. Skype does quite the same with its softphone.
But despite these, eFonica should not become a threat to SkypeOut. At least in North America, where the Skype’s promotion allows any North America resident to call landline and mobile phones for nothing. Free SkypeOut might stop at the end of the year but until then, until eBay-Skype decide to charge it again, the offer remains unbeatable.
Outside, the situation is different. And Fusion president and CEO Matthew Rosen knows it. He insists in a statement that “eFonica is designed to meet the needs of international calling communities around the world”.
And talking about expansion, Fusion has recently landed in the Middle-East. For instance, someone in Canada could download the eFonica softphone and use it to call its mate on his cellphone in Dubai, UAE, provided that the later has subscribed to the eFonica service. Something that entice the community to grow by mouth of word.
Jun 19, 2006 | By Nuno
2 comments
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Is this the direction of Voip business? Everyone is trying to offer free service, but how long can they bear this?
Sean, it’s the Internet, the land where everything should be free or tends to. Basically, it’s just the next step of lowering phone rates. The raw service (making and receiving phone calls) will be free anyway; business models should take this into account and find related service to charge. For instance, yellow pages inclusions.