Pigeon VOIP offers worldwide VOIP Calls from India at Rs.1

We already covered this new when it was in concept stage but now it seems its live and available for people in India. You can now make calls to over 100 countries from India at Rs.1 per minute.

Thanks to Mohsin for sending over the news. MTNL and Aksh Optifibre has started VOIP service under the new brand name Pigeon VOIP. Although sounds like a funny brand name for VOIP service, with MTNL as backbone can we expect some decent PSTN quality?

Who can use Pigeon VOIP?
Any MTNL Broadband subscriber can apply for Pigeon VoIP service. You can take multiple VoIP on one landline and send it to different locations and use it as a hot line between friends, relatives across the globe. This feature is cool however we need to know which locations we can forward this?

This service is only available in Delhi and Mumbai. However, you can take second Pigeon VOIP and take it anywhere you want as long as you have broadband connection.

Pigeon VOIP works on SIP, so it's a standard VOIP service. However it would be great if we know their SIP address, then we can pretty much hack into their SIP and do lot of stuff like call forwards to multiple locations, call from anywhere in the world to any Pigeon VOIP customer in India for FREE. They give you a 8 digit SIP ID number starting with 2. Lets guess what the SIP address could be? sip.pigeonvoip??


Pigeon VOIP however only allows Pigeon to Pigeon calls upto 400 minutes every month thereafter it is charged at 20paise per minute. This is unbelievable but considering that people would then call each other for free, this is obviously put into place to make money. Technically, this should be free for unlimited calls. The moment I know the SIP address of Pigeon VOIP, I will write a comprehensive tutorial to make MTNL poor :-)

For newbies, Pigeon VOIP works just like your landline. They will provide you with a VOIP adapter which they would hook into your Broaband modem (MTNL gives ADSL i guess). Now from VOIP Adapter, they would hook one line into your regular landline phone jack. Now you can use Pigeon VOIP as your landline phone.

Now the biggest Question, How much would Pigeon VOIP Cost?

1) One time Installation Charges Rs.100/- which is charged with the first MTNL bill.
2) Monthly Rental Rs.150/- charged in MTNL bill (Standard Rip-off)
3) Free ATA (Analog Telephone Adapter) with the connection (some Relief, you probably save around $30 here)
4) 400 minutes Pigeon to Pigeon free calling and 20paise / minute thereafter (DUH)
5) Where can I call with Pigeon VOIP, check country list
6)International dialing pre paid coupons are required which is available in denominations of 100, 500, 1000. Call us to get one now. (Will this be like the infamous dolphin SIM and PostPaid recharge cards which are never available anywhere including MTNL offices? lol)

One of the biggest worry about using MTNL's service is complexity and lack of availablity. If anyone using this service, your feedback is appreciated so our friends from all over the world can look at this as viable option for setting up VOIP back in India and talk to their loved ones.

FizzCall to terminate unlimited call service on October 10

Most of the FizzCall Customer will probably know this by now. However, It's important to analyse What exactly went wrong at FizzCall.

Fizzcall suddenly stopped Registrations and buy credits option on their website. They also sent users an update on FizzCall terminating all unlimited calls service on October 10.

The email says, "You may have noticed that today we suspended purchases and sign-ups on the Fizzcall website. This is due to an announcement sent to us today by our main supplier (BT) stating that as of the 10th of October 2008 they will cease to provide the service that we use. This change affects all of their customers, including us.
"

So What Exactly went wrong at FizzCall?

FizzCall was using BT's Web21SDK (Callflow API) service which allows developers to use BT's infrastructure to make calls. The CallFlow API allows each developer to make certain number of calls totally free and if they want to use more, they can buy talktime from BT at rock bottom prices. Now you probably know why FizzCall was able to provide service at such dirt cheap price.

The Party is now over atleast till the time BT rejuvenates Web21SDK in Ribbit. BT has taken over Ribbit, another similar API based Callflow service which preety much competes with Web21SDK. It seems BT will now work on the integration and take the best of both worlds and build a Ribbit Web21SDK CallFlow API service however its uncertain whether they would actually continue to offer unlimited calls service and the ability to buy minutes at cheap price. They might do or they might not.

This simply means any service running on Web21SDK (Terminated from October 10) can't run any longer. Its not just fizzcall but any other service enjoying the comforts of BT's infra is now pretty much on the road.

You can either ask for refund if you have any money in FizzCall or just use it up. Thomas and Rus I believe can repay your funds. Most obviously they are keeping a close tab on the new offering by BT, so that they can rejuvenate FizzCall.

Mark the date on your calender to use FizzCall. Make the most of it. The best way is probably just use the credit and make some calls to your loved ones.

SIP VOIP on Tmobile Google Phone G1

TMobile launched Google Phone G1 in USA but that raises many questions regarding it's compatibility with VOIP and SIP. Its the first phone designed on Google Andriod platform.

Althought Tmobile G1 created a lot of buzz, it doesn't seem like a great fit for business users or users who really want to make free international calls or use VOIP on their mobile phone. The mobile VOIP isn't really an option on G1 atleast looking at it's initial specs.

Wait, don't writeoff G1 Phone yet, They have Google Talk in G1 which you can use your data plan to make calls. Lovely, so how would you setup SIP VOIP with Google Talk? They are many ways, at this time Tringme and Gtalk2VOIP both supports SIP/VOIP through Google Talk. In short, if you are able to hook up any VOIP provider via Google talk you can use VOIP on T-mobile G1 Phone. There are many other ways of hooking it up to Free Virtual PBXservices like mysipswitch etc.

Let us know if you have any other ideas to enable VOIP on TMobile Google Phone G1.

DialMyCalls offers Group Conference Call

After VOIP, Conference Calling is a huge market. With billions of dollars at stake with Companies all over trying to cut down cost of travelling by using Conference Calling. Companies such as Tanberg and Polycom pretty much owns the Office Conference Call systems market. However we can't write off some of the interesting startup conference calling companies who have been giving innovative solutions to the market.

We largely covered Free Conference Call and Low Cost conference call providers during our last series of post. Today, we look at another innovative service which primarily targets offline conference call facility, more of like a group call however transmitted at specific time as Voice Message.

DialMyCalls is a USA based Group Phone Call service which claims to offer flexibility to deliver messages to people you choose. Imagine you running a community event and want to call every single community member for participation. Now this look simple enough how about you have 1000 members? Darn, does that sound too difficult? Again the cost of calling each member is a overhead. That could cost you some hundreds of dollars anyway.

DialMyCalls is targetted to people who have this problem of calling multiple people and sending them the same exact message. This could also be useful for businesses who would like to inform all their client over one single group conference call.

So How DialMyCalls works?

1) You need to signup for their Service- They got Free and Paid options. Free Service can give you 1 message broadcast each day for 25 people. Not bad.
2)You then need to login to your account
3)Add contacts whom you would like to receive your group call message.
4)Now Record your Voice Message over Phone or upload as mp3/wav or use Text-to-Speech tool.
5)You can schedule the time of broadcast.
6)Once send you can check detailed reports.

Service runs pretty good when we tested with 10 people. This is really good free group call voice messaging service if you have a small community of people who need to informed.

Tuitalk offers free international voip calls

Interestingly more and more companies are again entering the free international voip calls market, when some of the established players are looking to move to cheap international calls market. However the main focus is on the Advertisement based VOIP market.

Tuitalk is another such startup offering totally free international calls in lieu of Advertisement. The advertisements show up on Tuitalk Softphone and your calls are unlimited as long as there is a sponsor paying for it :-). Tuitalk seems like a venture of Turkey telecom or they have strong backing from Turkey telecom, which makes them more legitimate being a national telecom provider.

With Tuitalk, You can make free international calls to over 38 countries. During registration process, tuitalk tries to gather geographic and demographic profile along with your income/industry data which they would most likely to use for targetting ads as this service gets mainstream. At this time, they have some really good advertisers such as BMW backing their free calls service.

Let's see how to use Tuitalk to make free international calls.

1) Register at Tuitalk
2) Activate your account. Please note, they would ask you to enter profile information. Here a simple trick can increase your daily calling limit, Update Enhanced Profile to get more free calling minutes. I got 10 minutes per day. Not sure if this has any relation to geographic location you belong to.
3) Tuitalk is not a web based free calling service so it requires you to download their client. Of course it's not SIP supported coz then you can bypass their Ad server lol.
4) Download Tuitalk Softphone Client (Direct Link): It took me ages, their servers are extremely slow while downloading.DUH!
5) Now Login to Tuitalk and start making calls. The moment you dial the number, an ad will show up which is basically sponsoring your free call.


Please note while dialing up do not enter country code, just select the flag of the country you want to call or else your would confuse tuitalker.

At first look, tuitalk looks like a decent service. It would be interesting to see if they can survive in this highly competitive market. Try out Tuitalk and let us know how is the call quality and overall experience.

PokeTalk offers free international calls

Lately many VOIP Provider prefer offering cheap international calls instead of Free International calls. However this market is still alive and there are VOIP Providers who are ready to explore this as an oppotunity.

PokeTalkis based out of Isreal, however they offer free international calls to a lot of countries. Poketalk is purely advertisement based free international calling service. You will see ads targeted to your country or your interest (you select while signing up). Since Poketalk is still new, you might not find the advertisment to be too relevant, however am sure they would improve.

Poketalk currently offers only 5 minutes of free calls from Landlines and 2 minutes to mobile. 2 minutes is probably too less to even try :-). 5 minutes can be at times pretty good to chat a little bit and hang up. Who would complain about a free international call?

They currently only offer calls FROM following countries:

-USA
-Canada
-Israel
-UK (landlines)
-Germany (landlines)
-Singapore
-Japan

We justed tested Poketalk. They served us a few ads instantly and connected the call. It's purely a Phone to Phone service, so you must enter your number and the enter destination number. Poketalk first calls you and then connect the party. However we noticed that call quality is not all that great. The test call was made from my singapore landline to singapore mobile, the quality was OK. There was a delay in voice. I ain't gonna complain much about a free international call service.

Give them a try and you might see some different results. Lets us know your thoughts on Poketalk.

VOIP Guide Rebtel Voucher Code to Double your Credit

Yes. Yes. Yes. The biggest and the best Rebtel Voucher Code is here and it's exclusively available for VOIP Guide readers. The best part, It works for existing Rebtel Customers. You can Double your Rebtel VOIP Credits with this voucher. So you can literally make calls at half the price.

Most of you by now know Rebtel as one of the most innovative Mobile VOIP provider who offer cheap international calls all over the world. They have been extremely active in tracking worldwide events and offering a bunch of free international calls offers every now and then. They ran an offer for Ramadan as well.

Now if those Free International Calls aren't making you any happier, We got a bigger deal for you. Rebtel has join hands with VOIP Guide to give you the Double your money offer (which is no more available in the market except some very exclusive partners and we are one of them).

This offer is valid for people who never signed up for Rebtel or have a account but never deposited any money. Its for you both.

How to use this Exclusive VOIP Guide Rebtel Voucher Code :

1) If you a new user, go to Signup or Login to your existing Rebtel account.
2) Now for new registrations, you need to enter voipguide in the
voucher code field.
3)Existing users, when buying new credit enter voipguide as voucher code to double your money.

Those guys having trouble with using the coupon code, please refer to screenshot below. You need to add credit card and then apply voucher before actually paying the money.


In short, If you deposit $10 you will get $10 FREE, that means you will have $20 in your account. Double the money and technically speaking your calling rates becomes half. Coz for $10 you are getting double talktime now.

Lets take an example. If you call India, the existing rates are 5.6 cents per minute but now since you are doubling the money, you would technically make calls at 2.8 cents per minute. Rebtel has better Quality and more reliable service than Betamax,if at all you are making that mistake of comparing the two VOIP providers.

You are free to distribute our coupon code (voipguide) in the market. On forums/Blogs/websites anywhere you feel is appropriate and helpful for people so that they can double their talktime credit on Rebtel. Grab this offer Today.

FizzCall offers cheap international phone calls

This is by far the cheapest international call offer in the market. It's for India, South Africa, you name the country and this is the cheapest calling rate offer we have found.

Today we talk about a UK based VOIP Provider called FizzCall. When one of the founds Thomas contacted me last week, I wasn't too confident what FizzCall can offer us. However, after testing their service for last 5 days, I am totally amazed by their call rates and quality of service. Both Top Notch. I seriously hope the quality of the call remains high as this review will make their Call switch heavy at times :-)

Fizz Call is startup by Thomas Sheppard (one of the founders), who left his day job to build this VOIP Service. I have been interacting with Thomas for over a week and he seems to be very focused and serious about FizzCall, which is one of the missing links in our providers such as Betamax.

You said FizzCall is the cheapest? What's so special about FizzCall?

FizzCall offers cheap call to international destinations (cover the globe except a few country dialcodes). Each Call is 30 GB Pens, which is about 55 US Cents. Please note these rates are per call not per minute. That means each call you make, you only pay 55 US Cents and you can talk upto 60 minutes. The call automatically gets disconnected after 60 minutes. Of course you can make a call to the same destination again.

Let's do a simple calculation, you make a call to India. You are charged 55 US Cents, your call will last for 60 minutes. Now how much you exactly paid per minute?

55 Cents/60 minutes = 0.9 cents (Less than 1 cent per call). That's huge and definately the cheapest in the market. However, Please note that once your call is started irrespective of whether you use for 60 minutes or 10 minustes, FizzCall will charge you 55 cents. So this is for power VOIP Callers, who make endless calls to their friends and family. I know there are many of us who do.

Secondly, FizzCall is only Phone to Phone. You need to enter your number and then party's number and click dial. FizzCall will call you back and then connect your party. This is old skool and works best for everyone. Remember Betamax charges you for both the legs of the call but FizzCall doesn't. I said WOW.

Another biggest advantage of using FizzCall is you can start exploring their service as low as 1.50 Pounds. They offer only Google Checkout.

I just want to openly advice Thomas/FizzCall that please keep high quality of service and offer competitive prices and the customers will be yours :-)

Guys, give them a try and let us know your feedback on FizzCall. Thomas would be here to answer your questions and of course to improve on things which can only make them better.

3CX offers Free VOIP SIP softphone

are you fed up of using X-lite? Got no clue How to setup a SIP provider of X-lite? or Just love to explore more SIP Phones which can do a better job? Then 3CX has released a great VOIP SIP Phone for your needs.

3CX is a leading Windows Based PBX developer. The new 3CX VoIP Phone, unlike other free soft phones, has a straight forward, business-style interface and includes important business features such as call transfer.

So What's so great about 3CX VOIP Phone which we don't usually find in other Industry Leading VOIP/SIP softphones such as X-lite.

1) X-lite has one Free and Enterprise version, The free version doesn't allow multiple SIP Provider to be connected at once. These limitations can be overcomed in 3CX VOIP Phone.
2) Not proprietary – can be used with most popular IP PBXs and VoIP providers
3) STUN support for NAT/firewall traversal
4) Supports G.711 (A-Law and u-Law), GSM, iLBC and Speex codecs
5) Totally FREE. No Licenses or Yearly Charges.

For any serious VOIP users, 3CX VOIP Phone isn't another SIP Phone. It's a must-have and looking at 3CX's experience in PBX market, I am confident 3CX VOIP Phone is as good as any other VOIP Phone or even better. One of the key features of 3CX VoIP Phone is its integration with Microsoft Outlook. Users can launch calls directly from their contacts' list within Outlook by just right-clicking on the name of the person they wish to call. If you have used an application called CoreBridge earlier, 3CX will work very similar to that.

You can download 3CX VOIP Phone right a way and test it with your favorite VOIP Provider.

Get a Free Phone Number for incoming calls

I know how difficult it is to get a free phone number anywhere in the world. Don't worry, VOIP Guide has come for a rescue. This is a must read post if you don't want to miss on the offer.

The best Indian VOIP startup, Tringme has again set high standards for their competitors by launching "? Incoming Phone Number service". You can get a Phone number anywhere in the world. This is the best part of the service.

Incoming numbers are extremely important for businesses and even individuals who would like to communicate with clients/friends locally. Imagine you are from Singapore and have clients in USA, would you ask them to call a Singapore number or they would prefer a USA number? You must make the communicate smoother for your client. This incoming number which your client will call can be forwarded to your landline or mobile number, so you receive calls without a hitch.

The service is not FREE but you are reading VOIP Guide-- No.1 Free VOIP Website in the world. You MUST get special deals. Tringme has agreed to give us 50 Free Phone USANumbers. The numbers are available for FREE for 3 months. If you like to get a number in other countries, you may buy one from Tringme. Its just $1 for any number in the world for 3 months, $5 for 6 months and $9 for 1 year, this is excessively cheap. I highly doubt anyone offers incoming numbers at this price.

Tringme has also upgrades their website and made it extremely sleek and easy to use. The TringPhone has moved to the Dashboard from where you will notice your Incoming Number assigned to you.

In order to qualify for a Free Phone Number from Tringme. Please comment on this post with Your User-ID (You can get this once you log into Tringme, Then go to General Settings-Your User-ID). You would double your chances, if you digg this post.

I will declare the winners after consulting with Tringme Team. If you are not already registered, then you must first register at Tringme.

Skypecast Conference Call System abandoned

Skype has finally pulled the plug on their popular Audio Conferencing Solution, Skypecast. There are rumours that Skypecasts were pretty much the overhead for Skype and it wasn't creating enough value considering the effort/time/resources it was using up while running.

SkypeCast was however a great way to hold large (100 people) audio conferences over the internet. With Skype being extremely popular, SkypeCasts were popular amongst the set of people, especially website owners or businessmans who often arrange a conference call for their visitors/Clients. Its just so easy to host a voice conference on Skype and invite members or let them join you as public conference call sessions are open to everyone.

However, since SkypeCast is history we need to move on. Are there are great alternatives to SkypeCast? YES.

1) Paltalk: Extremely popular Voice and Video Conference Call Service in USA and Canada. By far the largest user base for any Video Conference Software.

2)OoVoo: Fast becoming popular and a close competitor to Paltalk. OoVoo not only offers HD quality Video calls but also offers free international calls to USA.

3)TokBox: Another browser based Video Conference Calling system.

4)EkkoTV: Definately one of the most Simple, Interactive and cool Video Conferencing Service.

If you know a service which can be a good alternative to SkypeCast, do let us know.