Michigan VOIP E911 calls to cost more

Michigan residents for long have enjoyed low cost E911 services but since many consumers are moving to VOIP solution providers, which cost less to dial E911 service, the state is loosing money to fund E911 services.

Finally as many thought it would some day, Michigan Senate last week approved a bill that allows state to charge cell phone and Voice over Internet Protocol, or VoIP users fees that land-line users pay now for emergency 911 service. This mean no more advantage for michigan VOIP users. Does that really matter to michigan voip users?

Currently, a michigan landline phone user pas $4 a month surcharge only for land lines. Cell phone users pay a far smaller 29 cent a month surcharge to the state and michigan VOIP users even less. The honeymoon is finally over for michigan voip users.

I covered this post to point to the fact that VOIP companies are now being treated as a part of the main telecommunication business and the distinction will not be seen in future. However this will help streamline the telecom market, the advantage of VOIP companies might erode in the coming years.

E911 is still a milestone for many VOIP companies. Hopefully they get there before it's too late.

Jobs at VOIP Guide

VOIP Guide was launched on 12th December 2006 to help people around the world to make Free International Calls. In my opinion, VOIP Guide has achieved much more than I planned. During the last 6 months, people always looked at VOIP Guide as the ONLY source of finding Free International Call information and they got what they were looking for.

We had great friends from around the VOIP blogosphere, friends from VOIP industry who has helped VOIP guide grow to the next level. Today its rated as one of the Top VOIP blog in the world, especially looking at the subscriber numbers. The subscribers number grew at massive rate, perhpas one of the fastest. I would like to thank everyone who subscribed to VOIP Guide , If you are not one of those 4000 subscribers then you are missing something. I strongly advice you subscribe. It takes around 2-3 years to build a subscriber base of 4000 subscribers but VOIP Guide achieved it less than 6 months, that's enuff to say it's was successful.

Today I am going to share my vision for VOIP Guide in the coming years and where I want to take it in the next 6 months.

1) VOIP Guide will be one of the Top 5 VOIP Blogs in Traffic numbers (Currently doing great with over 3500-4000 visitors daily)

2) Subscribers to cross 10000 magic number (difficult but not impossible)

3) New Discussion Forum dedicated to VOIP & Free Calls. This forum should be Top 10 VOIP forum in next 6 months.

You might have already noticed that the agenda/vision for next 6 months is tough and very agreesive but I believe it's possible when I have some great PEOPLE with me (not giving any specific names so that i don't left out anyone. Helps is appreciated from everyone. Guys you up for a challenge?

So to achieve the above, VOIP Guide needs talent. VOIP Guide is looking to fill following positions ASAP. Some of the positions are PAID. Will disclose SALARY only after finalising a suitable candidate to ensure only honest helpful people apply.

1) PHP Programmer: Someone who know PHP very well. A knowledge of setting up a PHPBB board will be given preference. This is a Paid Job.

2) Forum Moderator: I have already finalised a few such as Khalid, DJ etc but some other people can apply. This is a voluntary job but might be a paid job once forum grows.

3) Logo & Site Design: Someone who can make a good logo for VOIP Guide and a XHTML template for Blogger. This is again a paid job.

4) Promoters: This is for everyone who love VOIP Guide, Please share your love with others. Let your friends, family know about VOIP Guide. You can post on other forums, put VOIP Guide homepage link in your signature. I will also give Headline animator for VOIP Guide Feed, please add it to your Website/Blog.

I am looking forward to your application. Strictly Email Only. Jobs application on comments section won't be entertained.

Please include the following:

• Your full name
• Age
• Country
• Knowledge about VOIP (not needed for designers and promoters)

Last but not the least, VOIP Guide is looking for Sponsors.

Please send all your applications/sponsor listings to ut.godmode@gmail.com

What makes Jajah a Hot VOIP Service?

Jajah continues to impress VOIP industry experts and overall VOIP market either with their latest VOIP add-ons or new service offerings. Now they have taken the Venture capitalist market as their new playground and literally dominating the VOIP funding scene with back to back fundings from large VC companies.

When Intel announced that they are investing $20 million,, Jajah was formly named as next "Skype". Well although Jajah has made VOIP market difficult to crack to most of it's competitors, they are not sitting idle. One of the good thing about Jajah is "innovation" and publicity. The kind of publicity Jajah has received will definately make a good case study for harvard student for the next Fall semester. They have been immensely successful, one reason is simplicity and ease of use. People don't like sitting next to their PC and making VOIP calls. They still prefer to use traditional handsets to make calls whether or not they are FREE and of course it's more conformtable to say the least.

Post-Intel news, now Deutsche Telekom which will be joining the $20 funding round led by Intel. This will be bigger than people think, Imagine two of the industry leaders backing you up in the market when you are just about 1 year old. Huh? Whats the catch? Well nothing really, Jajah truly deserved it and they are getting all the attention when their competitors are busy making clones :-)

VOIP Guide is very pro for Free VOIP Calls and strongly believe that there will be a day when 90% of VOIP calls will be totally FREE and i suspect only ASIA will be left out, especially

So What Jajah is eyeing next?

VOIP Guide again like to predict that Jajah will now target the "Asian Tigers" seriosly. Especially the south east asian market with Indian sub-continent is the key to growth. No one can forget the immense potential asia holds in the coming years and undoubtedly asia will the fastest growing VOIP market. Although, free voip calls across asia is a distant dream. Thanks to

Free international calls.

Jangl offers Free Call

Since Jaduka VOIP and Jaxtr VOIP are facing issues, I thought its about time VOIP Guide start looking out for other options. Fortunately, I found a good way to make free calls to 32 countries (Canada, the UK, most of the EU and Latin America) using Jangl. Let me clarify this before people ask me if Jangl allows free calls to India. The answer is NO.

Jangl is a pefect clone of Jaxtr I posted about Jaxtr, a few days back and how they are offering Free calls with their VOIP Widget you can take anywhere you like. Jangl works absolutely the same way, however there is a little twist to the way they offer free calls. For Jaxtr, you need only one party to register their number and you can only call till you have enough Jaxtr credits. Jangl on the other hand allows you to make unlimited calls to anyone anywhere in the world., but it requires you to dial a local number for repeat calls, very similar to Jaxtr. So for a local call you can make international calls.

How it works?
You simply enter a valid email address on the Jangl , and they will give you a Jangl phone number to leave a message for that person. The email will be received by the person who will be given your number to call back. He will have to dial a local number which will be routed to your international number.

You may also put Jangl widgets on your website or blog, so that your visitors can call you. I am staying away from it, coz this blog gets thousands of visits everyday and it will be hard for me to keep in touch with everyone.

Jangle also offers some great features such as Voicemail and call screening. Its very important to know who's calling you when you are getting anonymous calls on your number. Basically the caller has to give a greeting message before receiver accepts his call. Thats totally upto you if you want to receive the call or you can simply cancel it. This gives tremendous flexibility and saves you from prank calls.

Jangl announced that they are now powering Facebook users. Thats a great news for Jangl coz facebook community is huge and that's some easy marketing. Lets wish them success and hope they continue to offer this cool free calls service for years to come.

Wireless VOIP wVOIP by Velophone

UK has seen some tremendous growth in VOIP industry especially Mobile VOIP space. The growth was lead by some great voip providers namely Fring, Truphone accelerating the scene. Lately, there is another alternative VOIP solution coming up, known as Wireless VOIP (wVOIP). wVOIP is very close to mobile VOIP however work on Wi-Fi connectivity.

New wVOIP service provider, Velophone announced a wVOIP service named as VeloMobile that will allow callers to use their existing SIM card and then automatically switch to making calls over VoIP when in range of Wi-Fi hotspot.

The limitation however is that you need to use a Wi-Fi compatible handset provided by Velophone. I wonder how many people will actually opt-in for the service. However Velophone is trying to integrate itself with Nokia handsets. It's essential that its compatible with multiple handsets and more widely used/knows handsets. Else Velophone will have tough time penetrating this market.

The best part of using Mobile VOIP or wVOIP services is that you can route your local calls over wVOIP or mobile voip services and start saving instantly. Whether or not other party has wVOIP or not you can still make cheaper calls than normal mobile phone charges.

The best of VOIP Guide

Lately, I have noticed that many new visitors have not found answers to some of their VOIP questions or a voip solution they are looking for. The question ranges from Free calls to home country to a cheaper voip solution. Some new subscribers haven't got some valuable info on VOIP Guide which was posted a few months back. Today's post will cover the best of VOIP Guide.

1) Free Geographic incoming numbers : Many people have been looking for FREE incoming numbers in their home country mostly USA incoming numbers. there is a lot of information about free incoming number but most of those numbers are premium numbers, the callers will have to pay atleast 3 times normal charge. A geographic number is just like a number given by your telephone company, that's why it's unique service and very important to have one. This is the a unique post which should give you all the information about getting a FREE geographic incoming numbers. You can suggest any new provider to be added to the list.

2) Best VOIP Solution for unlimited Calls : This recent post about Jaduka VOIP has been read by over 3000 people and more than 5000+ times in only 2 weeks. That just shows the popularity of the post. Definately the most read post on VOIP Guide. This Jaduka Hack is the ultimate and exclusive for VOIP Guide.

3) Free International Calls: This FAQ session posted back in March is still one of the easy ways to find if your country is in the FREE international call list of any VOIP provider. Most of the popular countries are discusses in the FAQ session.

4) Jaxtr Free Call- Ultimate Guide: Ever thought that Jaxtr can be a wonder for FREE CALLS. Jaxtr was always a call utility for a webmaster or blogger but no one ever thought that it can be used to make free calls to many countries. VOIP Guide thought out of the box to give you this ultimate solution with a well written tutorial for easy understanding.

5) Gizmo call: VOIP Guide was the first blog to provide a hack to gizmo call's 10 minutes free call offer, with the hack you could make 20 mins calls and later 40 mins hack was released. It was so powerful that gizmocall engineers had to take it seriously and fixed the bug in the system. You can still make 20 mins calls with this working hack.

6) Top 10 VOIP Add-ons: A must read for pro-VOIP user. Some of the software to enhance your VOIP experience.

7) Jajah- A Insider's View: This post was applauded by Jajah Product manager as one of the good post about how Jajah was able to make progress in the competitive VOIP market. VOIP Guide even predicted a takeover bid which was however came true in a smaller form when Intel bought stake in Jajah.

Hope you have fun reading and implementing those ideas/solution as much as I do.

Cheap international phone call by Talkplus

After posting several FREE VOIP calling services, I have received feedback from visitors that they even don't mind paying for a VOIP service which is reliable and good long-term alternative to free VOIP services. Typically, free voip services don't last long, either run into trouble like futurephone or either stop their free calling services.

In today's article, i will be discussing a Cheap international phone call service offered by Talkplus. The service is a close clone of Jajah however their rates seems very competitive. I made a few trial calls and the voice quality was great. Talkplus is currently offering 10 mins FREE Trial calls and if you top-up you accounts with $1, you will get $7 talktime FREE. You save $6. Most of the visitors are interesting in making cheap calling to India and Talkplus supports India, so we don't need any hack to make it work.

Using Talkplus is very simple.

1) Register for Talkplus
2) login to your account
3) Now go to make a call
4) Simple put your number and receiving party number (similar to jajah)
5) Click Call. Talkplus will call you first and then connect your call to the other party.


I strongly suggest if you are going to make regular calls to india, you should at least top up with $1 credit (get $7 talktime) to test the service.


Have fun making cheap international phone call with Talkplus.

All Calls FREE plan by Gizmo Project VOIP

Leader in VOIP Free calls and system behind gizmocall, Gizmo Project is offering "All Calls FREE", a new 40 mins free calls offer for their new users. Gizmo Project was immensely popular when it was launched, almost referred to as the next skype. It somehow left behind when Jajah and some other VOIP companies managed to go ahead. Although, Gizmo project managed to stay in business by offering gizmocall, a simple web based free calling service with 10 FREE mins each day.

According to the new All Calls FREE offer, new users will get 40 minutes of free calling simply by getting ONE friend to sign up for a new Gizmo account. If you don't have Gizmo Project yet, then download it from here

Now signup for a new user, add your number and start sending invites to your friends. Once they join you will get more free talktime. This was you will get more people on the network and make free calls. Just remember to use Gizmo Project (min 1 call) every week to keep it active.

Gizmocall has recently started giving out free incoming numbers, but it seems they stopped the service. No reason is given for the sudden closure. I can't find any reference on gizmocall about free incoming VOIP numbers. Hopefully it will be back soon.

Fring Mobile VOIP enables UK free calls

Fring can be easily named as the Mobile VOIP company of the year. It's simply the most innovative, adaptive Mobile VOIP service available today. Fring is a "Jajah" of Mobile VOIP and they are right track to make it big in this market. Anyone smells a takeover?

Fring has continously offered something new to the customers, especially by collaborating and making themselves available on each and every social platform was always their first priority. When people struggled with VOIP on N95, fring was able to bypass the so called "Lock". That makes Fring special and one of the strong reasons they stand out from the crowd.

After enabling Twittering, Fring is now available on Cloud Wi-Fi in UK and customers will get free mobile phone calls when they sign up to Fring and The Cloud's Wi-Fi network. ring VoIP service, consumers will be able to make free calls using a number of services, including Skype, Google Talk, Windows Live Messenger and Twitter. This is a great service for busy londeners, who want to save that extra penny on something more important :-)

Fring is now leading the Mobile VOIP scene in UK and most of the europe with some stiff competition from Truphone. It would be interesting to see how truphone will market themselves in future especially when they had trouble with their Mobile VOIP services on N95.

Mediaring will enable VOIP on HP computers

Asia's leading and Singapore's no.1 VOIP provider, Mediaring has managed to crack a great deal with HP to develop and deliver enhanced VoIP communications services. According to the deal, HP will pre-install the MediaringTalk VoIP client application on consumer desktops and notebooks.

A few days back, VOIP Guide reviewed Mediaring VOIP client and discussed various features it offers including free calls to china, singapore, HK, USA, Taiwan and Canada till 31st July. Its really is a great service considering not many countries include china as a free calling destinations.

This deal will greately help Mediaring to establish themselves as a "VOIP Solution" provider. In today's times, people ignore services in Asia as one of the strong competitors in the market however mediaring has proven that asian VOIP market will soon overshadow west and sooner or later, it will be Asia who will call the shots.

Being pre-installed on HP computers means atleast 60% of those lazy customers will use pre-installed VOIP clients instead of looking for options. Mediaringtalk anyways have a very light and smart interface. Ocassional SIP errors however needs to be fixed.

Overall Mediaring will benefit more than HP. Congrats to mediaringtalk guys for cracking one of the best VOIP deals in Asia.

Ultimate Yak4ever hack for International Free Calls

Are you still looking for Free International Calls, especially when Jaduka VOIP now has issue with free calls after they updated their system (guess they read my hack). You left with Yak4ever as the only solution? The post was read by over 1500 people worldwide on the very first date it was posted. I am sure yak4ever would have had tough time to manage their servers for signups.

Did you bite your nails when you couldn't get through the Yak4ever signup process? Remember, That long wait after 24 hrs? Well, it was perhaps because, it was one of most successful launch of a "Free International Call" service lately and literally sign ups were wild and my guess it was in the 6 digits atleast. So till everyone gets their access numbers, it seems it will take some time.

VOIP Guide is here for rescue. This ultimate little hack (Exclusively available on VOIP Guide only) will let you bypass the slow registration process at Yak4ever. No more 24 hours wait, No more extensions to be saved, no more limit for 10 extensions and unlimited free calls, what else you can dream of?

Dial the access number you received upon registration

1. When you asked for your Authorization code enter 1550# (1550 pound sign)

2. You will then be asked to enter destination number

3. Enter number in country code+Area Code+Phone number format.

4. Please do not enter 011

5. This gives us unlimited destinations and does not depend on extensions and of course Unlimited Free Calls

Of course, this hack will be limited to countries available for FREE on yak4ever.

I also noticed that Pat Phelan of Yak4ever also posted another handy workaround to make free calls from USA & Canada.

According to Pat, this handy little service called BoK is a simple call-back service, if you send a SMS to BoK (with yak4ever access number), then will call you back as incoming call. Sounds great? If confused, follow the pictorial for help.

BoK is currently in closed beta, however am trying to get some private invites, will update soon.

Now enjoy those Free International calls with Yak4ever.

Fring Mobile VOIP empowers Twitter

In this fast growing mobile VOIP market, every provider is trying to do something different and we are enjoying every bit of it. More and more Mobile VOIP providers started supporting latest handsets ( N95) , iPhone and even PSP. This just tells us that future is all about collaborative VOIP. Why collaboration is so important? coz it's web 2.0 , people like to have their social networking world, friends and family all in one package. Remember my post about VOIP interoperability?

It was about time that Mobile VOIP providers realise the potential of social networking and bank on it's success to push their product. The latest kid of the block was Twitter, a simple messaging system for users to tell the world what they are doing. Anyone thought they would be successful? But they did :-) and now Fring totally supports Twitter (source: Fring Blog)

People must be wondering what's so great about it. Get a API collaborate and you are done. The best part about using Fring for twittering is saving SMS cost. It's free to twitter via Fring. So if you are riding the web 2.0 train, this is a great way to save the ticket cost.

How to use this?

Just open fring on your handset –> go to ‘Settings’ –> ‘Configure services’ –> (scroll down) ‘twitter’ should be there waiting and ready to go.

Fring Blog also has a video tutorial if you are interested.

go fringgin Twittering

Skype gets Wal-mart to promote VOIP services

In a surprising move, Skype VOIP has bagged a great deal with Wal-Mart, america's no 1 supermarket chain to distribute Skype VoIP service online such as VOIP Phones through their 1,800 US stores – starting today.

Wal-Mart is well known for low-prices across america and with skype getting promoted through Wal-mart, skype can definately hope for better days. Especially when they are really having a tough time from their competitors such as Jajah. Intel has taken a stake in Jajah making it one of the strongest VOIP competitor to Skype, however they really deserve it. Jajah knows VOIP better than most other companies in the market today, honestly!

Skype on the other hand bets on loyal customers and word of mouth but it seems they are now desparately trying to get back into the market. In fact, Skype last year aggressively marketed VoIP plans to deployed military families. The starter packs included a microphone-enabled computer headset and a free 30-minute Skype calling card. Don't forget the recent mother's day Free calls offer.

Skype is trying their best to regain the market share they lost, well eventually they had to. Let's hope Skype brings back the glory, it's always beneficial for customers have good choices in the market :-)

Yak4ever return with Free Calling Worldwide

I posted about allfreecalls.net sudden shutdown back in Feb 06. Although, it was temporary it turned out to be for a longer period. We definately missed a great free calls service, although not really a VOIP service but allfreecalls.net was based on the "minute stealer" concept like rest of the Iowa providers. It was all washed out after AT & T decided to run after all Iowa providers. Case is still pending.

However, that didn't stop Fellow VOIP Blogger and Friend Pat Phelan from launching another clone of allfreecalls.net. He changed the name to Yak4ever.com. This is almost similar to allfreecalls.net however it now requires you to register your number and 10 overseas numbers you want to call. They will sent you an email with the access number and extensions. This will be very similar to Jaduka VOIP solution, i posted the other day.

Don't get over excited or nervous if you can't use the service right-away, coz Your account will be ready to use in 24 hours. In a hurry, i sent email to Pat complaining about that as a bug. Funny me :-)

Now you must be wondering if this service is only for USA residence? Technically YES. However, you know VOIPGuide will never let our readers down. VOIP Guide has found a hack with is very similar to the all famous allfreecalls.net hack.

Lets do this step-wise:

1) Get a Free USA number

2) Now register at yak4ever
Use the USA number you just got and of course follow the instruction to enter your friend's number. Don't add + or 00, just type countrycode+areacode+phone number. For e.g: 912225123222

3) Check your inbox, you should get a gateway number to dial and list of extensions for each party number.

4) Start icall and dial the gateway number. At prompt, dial #extension number and your call will be received by your friend. You are connected! Talk forever as long as you want.

----------------------------------------------Update-------------------------------------
I have received an email from Pat Phelan, CEO of yak4ever.com, that they had a issue with their access system and they forgot to tell everyone that after dialing extension, you also need to dial #. Remember this next time.

Pat also dropped a interesting comments to this post. He says,

"I am not sure if the hack will work with our system. you dial your access number. you enter your extension number, take press 1 as an example, you then press the pound key#"

He claims that the system will only work if your provider is transmitting DTMF tones.

He didn't forget to thank me, said "Many thanks for the mention and keep up the good work."

Interestingly there are some website who can fake DTMF tones, i wonder if that leads us to something. Although, till now my number is not yet activated or maybe i am not able to use it coz of those DTMF tones. I will wait till tomorrow and give a update.

Have fun calling the world for FREE!

Voxbone VOIP Contest

Voxbone is a leader in VOIP & toll-free numbers around the world and to further strengthen their product line by building application around their mainstream applications, they released a VoxAPI, a free VOIP API for web & software intergration.

Building a community around the application is the latest trend in Web 2.0 and more & more companies trying to be open source or providing an API. This instantly generates a lot of buzz in market since many developers are ready to build applications around a stable product. Imagine you building call center routing facility around Voxbone through their API, this will not only help Voxbone promote themselves but the application itself would be of great help. The future is all about building applications around your main products.

Using the latest version of VoxAPI, customers can view Voxbone’s coverage, order DID numbers, configure the routing and forwarding of DID numbers, and manage the capacity allocated to DID numbers. As a result, customers are able to completely automate their transactions and lower their operational costs while maintaining high-quality service.

To help spread the word, Rodrigue Ullens of Voxbone has sent me an email about this interesting Voxbone VOIP development contest, which can earn you a handsome $10000 (plus additional benefits) if you walk away with the first prize.

So if you are a VOIP Application company (You need to be a company), you may give it a try. Questions about the contest may be addressed to devcontest@voxbone.com. In addition, complete rules are available at http://www.voxbone.com/APIContest.jsf

Ultimate Conference Call Guide

During the last couple of months, I have been trying to explore how Conference call service could possibly be used with VOIP to save cost of business conference services. Imagine, saving huge amount of money for business spread across the globe. These kind of businesses spend literally millions of dollars to maintain Conference call services, be it plain audio conferencing or video conferencing. I was always curious about how conference call services coupled with VOIP could save millions of dollars.

While surfing for a guide to understand and implement a Conference Call facility with VOIP, I came across this excellent website for conference calling services. This website basically has everything you want to know about conference calls. The comparison of various conference calling options such as audio Conferencing, Video conferencing, simple web conferencing is described neatly. The site has more than 100 articles about implementing conference services. I would be happy however if the website will have some more comparison options to compare between existing conference providers. This will easier for companies looking for options to choose the best provider from the rest.

Companies such as Webex have been leaders in Web conferencing, however they will face some stiff competition from Google who recently bought Marratech for their video conferencing solution

The conference market will be growing faster in the coming years since collaborative communication and management is important in today's time. Google knows business better than anyone else and they just entered the upcoming lucrative market of Conferencing services.

On top of it all, There are many conference services which are totally free for personal use or for small businesses. If you like to know more about audio, video and web conferencing services, allconferenceservices.com is perhaps the best guide out there. I highly recommend everyone to read the guide to understand how conference services really works.

120 minutes Free VOIP Talktime Promotion by Rebtel

I recently posted many VOIP providers and services are offering free calls on or during the Mother's day week. There are just trying to remind you that your mother is precious and you should atleast call her once in a year to express your love :-)

Rebtel has joined the party with other VOIP companies and offering 120 minutes Free calls to USA and Canada from anywhere in the world (atleast that's how i read this offer). I didn't mention anything about restrictions to any specific country.

Will at Rebtel has shared some info over email about this offer and mentioned some interesting facts, I wasn't aware of.

Mothers Day can be traced back to the ancient Egyptians who held a festival each year to honour Isis regarded as the Mother of the pharaohs.

The National Retail Foundation predicts Mother's Day to be a $14 Billion industry. Wonder how much will be spent on those Stupid ISD calls :-(

6 million American's live abroad. I am sure there will be more people interested in using this offer besides americans. Although, VOIP Guide's demographics clearly shows more american readers reading this blog everyday with UK, India and Singapore sharing the rest of the big reader's chunk.

The offer is only valid on May 13 2007 and a free call for up to 120 minutes to anywhere in the US and Canada - this can be used from any mobile, without needing to sign a contract or download any software

In order to use this offer – people will need to click the following link: Rebtel Promotion So its time to call your mum. Have fun and make the most of it! Remember VOIP will soon empower all your festivals with great offer. I am really looking forward to some VOIP Free Call offers in June/July Summer.

Voip Predictive Dialer - Build your Call Center

Today, I will be discussing about Call centers and how small businesses can run a call center with voip predictive dialer. I have always been fascinated by how VOIP can empower some of the industries, especially the upcoming call center and BPO industry which relies heavily on "Making and receiving calls". A fraction of delay or missed call can cost some $$ to the industry. The Industry is no more in the seed stage and it has grown faster than industry analyst expected.

Although call centers are still costly to maintain, operate or even outsource. Big companies can afford to pay the price but the small companies are often stuck with in-house calling facilities. The in-house call facilities are however not up-to the mark. However with Voip Predictive dialer the picture might be different in near future. People can build their own call center with a easy to use Voip predictive dialer.

Now you must be wondering What is a Predictive dialing? Predictive dialing is simply automating the outbound dialing process to effectively manage your calls with little or no manual intervention. Voip predictive dialer basically does the same thing with VOIP technology as backbone.

some of the common Features in Voip predictive dialer:

• Multiple campaigns can be run simultenously.
• Auto-Transfer calls between agents (based on availability)
• Auto-dialing to customers
• Auto-Scanning Voice Mail system and auto-dialing the missed call numbers
• Call Logging, recording and management

On top of this, the predictive system can be easily integrated with your exisiting CRM system making it easier to control and store data related to your customers. There are many providers who also offer predictive dialing bundled with their CRM products . Although if you buy a standard Voip Predictive dialer, it will cost you anything from $300 ++, which isn't really a great cost considering you will be able to manage your customers more effectively and data mining could be more relevant.

Most predictive dialers provide most robust, feature-rich, and innovative predictive dialer on the market today. Built on the latest technologies, this cutting-edge call center solution combines sophisticated VoIP predictive dialing capabilities with a comprehensive lead management system. So, call centers of all sizes can achieve immediate value – operating more efficiently and cost-effectively, while boosting sales, market share, and profits.

Imagine running your business with your own call center like only Cisco or Nortel can think of. You can do it yourself.

In my next series of this article, I will be comparing voip predictive dialer available in the market based on their cost and features.

VOIP Guide Joost IPTV Invite Competition

I have been testing this cool IPTV program called Joost by Skype Founder, Janus Friss. I had been beta testing Joost since last 4-5 months. I was priviledged to be one of the early beta testers to Joost. Joost was only by invitation and it's still by invitation but Joost is now offering about 999 invites to each Joost registered member.



You must be wondering what this got to do with VOIP and VOIP Guide in general. Well IPTV (Internet Protocol Television) will be the future of communication and there is a high possibility that products such as Skype etc will be bundled with IPTV. Recently Raketu, another VOIP company has launched "Launchpad" a IPTV bundle with their standard VOIP softphone. This was just a start to this growing industry.


Let look at What is Joost and how is it different from other IPTV products. Joost was earlier named as "Venice Project" and is a brainchild of Skype Founder, Janus Friis. Joost is a P2p video streaming application which streams media over the internet and its hungry for your bandwidth. If you are watching 1 hr video, it can take GB's of downloads off your monthly package so its not suitable for those who are on a tight ISP package. I am using Starhub Broadband and its unlimited 12 MBps package, so it's all good for me.






Lets look at What Joost look like:





In my personal opinion and last 4 months extensive testing, Joost is not still good to go. Those guys need to fix up ocassional bugs and speed is a great issue in some of the latest versions especially 0.9.2. The biggest issue is even with a broadband connections, joost hangs during the movie or a video, It's not very impressive. The older version was great and i never saw such hicups.

Hopefully they will improve the background buffering in the newer version. So are you impressed by those screenshots? Want Joost on your desktop? Here is the opportunity for you to get a Free Joost invite fromVOIP Guide.



Instead of giving away free Invites, I thought it's a good idea to hold a competition or a contest. It's very simple and yes, there are multiple winner, In fact everyone who completes the task will get a free invite.

So what you need to do to get a invite?

1) Do you have a blog or a website? Then give a link to VOIP Guide or write a post about us on your blog.
2) Design a Logo with a header for VOIP Guide.
3) Write a review about any VOIP Provider you are using. Reviews can be positive or negative.

Only people finishing any of the above task will get a free invite. Once you finished the task, drop a comment with your link or send me an email on ut(dot)godmode(at)gmail.com with the information. You will get invite within 1-2 calender days. 99% of the time it will same day unless i am pre-occupied with work.

Be a part of VOIP Guide Community and Participate in this contest!

Jajah VOIP 2 Hours Free Calls Giveaway

I posted about Rebtel ( Mobile VOIP) company giving away Free Calls on Mother's Day and also offering a free calls to mexico promotion. Now it's Jajah(VOIP) turn to play the promotions game. I knew that it was coming our way. Jajah is now offering 2 Hours of Free Calls to their new customers who register before 10th May 2007.

Hang ON. This offer is however only available in Canada, United Kingdom, Germany, Australia, France, Austria, Israel, Italy, and anywhere in the United States! I am sure you guys would love to call your mum :-)

Jajah is pretty good at offering such special promotions, I extensively used their last full day free calling promotion back in February. If you want to know about how Jajah is so good at promoting their products, I suggest you read my article about Jajah & PR

Please note that this promotion is only for new customers. So if you are already registered and used a specific number, you won't be able to use it again. Got another landling or Mobile Phone, then Register here

Skype is also offering free calls on Mother's Day. I suggest you top-up your Skype account in order to ensure free calls.

or Grab it from your neighbors, Steal it go wild :-)

Free Calls to Mexico by Rebtel

The Fifth day of May, popularly known as Cinco de Mayo in Mexico is a big celebration back there and in USA too.
Rebtel a innovative Mobile VOIP startups is going add a little mexican spice to make it more interesting. Rebtel is running a promotion to make free calls to mexico and from mexico on 5th May. The calls will be however limited to 60 mins, with each call limit is 10 minutes. Considering there are really no VOIP providers offering free calls to Mexico, it's a good deal for mexicans back in USA to give a call back home :-)

To make more calls for free, you simply need to follow the instructions from the Rebtel operator at the start of each call, which are easy to follow in Spanish and English. According to Rebtel, there are no limitations on which mobile operator you call, it will support any operator across Mexico.

It seems more and more VOIP companies are offering free calls on mother's day. Besides the promotion, Rebtel does offer some great Mobile VOIP services and they are worth checking out. It supports 37 countries and offer 10 free international calls a month.

So what are you waiting for, Grab the offer. Visit Rebtel

WifiMobile powers N95 Mobile VOIP

We discussed about trouble with VOIP on N95 mobiles last week. This was perhaps the most discussed topic across VOIP sector. This news went just so far that Truphoneis going to sue Vodafone for blocking their VOIP service from N95. During this drama, however some VOIP providers are seating happily in the corner coz they can stil bypass the N95 blocking, some of them include Fring and WifiMobile.

WiFiMobile announced that they can support VOIP on N95 with their latest software Version 751. This gives more relief to the consumers who were really stunned by the move by some of the big operators such as Orange and Vodafone. WiFiMobile’s OneFone software is fully supported on any Nokia N95, whether it be unlocked or network branded with the help of SIP stack in the application.

WiFiMobile currently supports Nokia E60, E61, E61i, E65, E70, E90, N80, N80ie, N91, N93 and N95 for free calls. It also support Nokia S 60 range. Besides being a Mobile VOIP service, Wifimobile extensively support SIP protocol and thereby expanding it's reach to call other SIP customers. This means more interoperability.

In order to use WifiMobile, you need to be connected to one of the WiFi networks in your area. During the last couple of years, WiFi hotspots are easily available and you can get hooked to one of the service to stay connected on WifiMobile.

Besides the standard Mobile VOIP, WifiMobile also offers a great PBX support. According to their website, You can hook up WifiMobile to your office PBX system. When someone calls your switchboard and dials your extension number, your mobile phone will ring and you are able to answer the call where-ever in the world you are. Likewise, you can directly dial another corporate extension and ring through to the extension without having to dial the main corporate number, or make calls out from the PBX.

Get WifiMobile

Skype offering One day Unlimited Free VOIP Calls

Few days back, I posted about how Skype is loosing out on customers to Jajah, Fring and some other interesting VOIP startups. I guess Skype has reliased that their first mover advantage is no more to be found and if they have to stay profitable in this business they gotta offer something for FREE. Turst me even today "FREE" word sells your companion products pretty well. After skype stopped offering Free calls to USA and Canada from 1St Jan, there are huge number of people especially those who wouldn't like to pay for VOIP services started looking for options. Although, exact number are not published anywhere, I suspect the number could be significant.

Skype out of desparation has now teamed up with Intel (source: TMCnet) to push their product in the market with a Skype Mother's day free Calling. They are offering one day of unlimited FREE CALLS anywhere in the world, but hang on, it's only available for US and Canada. But maybe we can proxy it to see if it works :-)

I wonder how this "Free Calling Promotion" will help skype help gain any market share but they are surely hoping for some. Well for the rest of us, I would only think about making FREE CALLS, for me skype is nothing more than a standard VOIP Phone with a good voice quality. I don't use skype anymore to make free calls, especially when you have so many options to make free calls to USA and Canada.

*Just to let you all know that VOIP Guide is awarded as Feedburner's "Feed Of the Day" . There are literally millions of blog feeds on Feedburner, which is no.1 feed subscription service and being chosen as a "Feed of the day" is a great achievement in itself. I would like to thank everyone who visited this blog and participated in the comments section or linked to this blog which made it one of the fastest growing VOIP blog. It wasn't possible to achieve YOU.