Web Technology Cuts Mobile Calling Fees - Taking on Skype
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TAKING ON SKYPE
One advantage that these new companies have in competing with
established VoIP services such as eBay's Skype and Vonage is that
old-style Internet calling required users to be sitting in front of a
computer or hooked up to a laptop to make calls.
Mobile handsets with Wi-Fi chips free them from their PCs.
Ivan Domaniewicz, a commercial airline pilot with homes in Miami and
Barcelona, recently switched to DeFi Mobile from eBay's Skype VoIP
service. His $40-per-month DeFi plan gives him unlimited Internet
calls, voice mail and phone numbers in Argentina and Spain that ring
through to his Nokia handset.
"It's really helped me keep in touch with my family and friends in
Argentina and Spain," said Domaniewicz, who shuttles between the United
States, Japan, Europe and the South Pacific.
"What's nice is that I don't have to take my computer out and start
Skype-ing to talk to them. I just turn on my phone," he said.
Jeb Brilliant, an event planner from Long Beach, California, cut his
monthly AT&T plan down to 700 minutes from a more expensive
unlimited access plan after he got comfortable using mobile VoIP.
He uses Truphone, which charges 6 cents per minute to call landlines
in most countries and 30 cents a minute to call mobile numbers. It also
sells bundles of minutes that are discounted over its a la carte rates.
Brilliant has tried other mobile VoIP services as well and says that
the technology can sometimes prove more reliable than cell phone
service. When a family friend recently went into labor, he found
himself making phone calls via the hospital's WiFi network.
"You can get it (VoIP) in places where there is no cell phone reception," he said.
(Editing by Brian Moss)
Mobile & Wireless 
