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www.voip-news.comBy Robert Poe
Using a mobile VoIP service to avoid paying exorbitant international cellular-calling rates can get complicated. It may require calling special numbers, waiting for callbacks, entering call-from and call-to numbers on Web sites, or using special software that you've downloaded to your handset. It would be a lot easier if you could just make calls from your handset like you normally would but have the calls travel overseas at VoIP rates. With Packet8's mobile VoIP service, you can do just that.
The service, called MobileTalk, requires users to download client software to their handsets. The software runs on Palm, RIM, Symbian and Windows Mobile devices, with iPhone and Java versions to come. To use MobileTalk, go to its official Web site and click the "Sign Up Now" button. Next, enter your cellular carrier, phone brand and model, cellular number, and handset-identification number. The following page will ask for credit-card information. After you submit that, Packet8 will use the sign-up information to create individualized client software that works only with your phone and number.
You can obtain the software in one of two ways. Downloading it to your PC then transferring it to your handset by a cable or Bluetooth requires no cellular-data plan. Receiving a link via a text message and downloading it over the air, however, is more convenient. You launch and run the software just like any other application on your handset. However, once you start the application, it runs permanently in the background, though it makes no changes to your handset's built-in user interface, phone book or other features.
The only thing that the software does, in fact, is recognize when you're dialing an international number and intercept the call before it starts. It then directs the handset to call the number of a local Packet8 gateway rather than the overseas phone. The call travels from the gateway over the Packet8 VoIP network to the overseas destination, bypassing your cellular carrier's international circuits altogether. That cuts the cost of calls from dollars per minute to cents per minute. You pay your cellular carrier for local airtime minutes.
MobileTalk's payment system is also simple. You don't need to have a subscription to Packet8's well-regarded hosted VoIP service. There are no per-month fees, no prepayment requirements and no topping off of credits. Instead, you pay for calls with the credit card that you entered when you registered; charges occur only after you make calls. Also, MobileTalk has no minimum or maximum usage levels.
International rates are similar to those of other mobile VoIP providers. The costs per minute, in U.S. cents, for calls from the U.S. to landline and mobile numbers, respectively, in a representative selection of countries are: Argentina 2.0/19.0; Australia 3.0/18.0; Brazil 8.0/18.0; China 1.0/1.0; Germany 3.0/17.0; Hong Kong 3.0/2.0; India 5.9/5.9; Japan 4.0/16.0; Philippines 13.0/13.0; Russia 2.0/7.0; and the U.K. 3.0/15.0.
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