I have just discovered a company that will let you make free calls to a number of countries around the world using your regular land line phone. The company name is Jajah. It is a start-up founded by two Austrians Roman Scharf and Daniel Mattes and headquartered in Mountain View, CA and Luxembourg.
So how do I call for free and what is the catch? From their web site:
The JAJAH Free Global Calling Plan applies to land line and mobile calls to and within the United States; Canada; China; Hong Kong; Singapore and Taiwan and it applies to landline calls to and within Australia; UK; Germany; France; Italy and most other European nations
There is no catch as far as the pricing goes. All calls between these countries are really free (note, the second group of countries excludes calls to cell phone numbers). The only thing is that both the calling and the receiving part have to be Jajah registered users (the registration is free and only took me a minute of my time). There is also a pretty lax limit of 1000 free minutes per month that you shouldn't exceed to stay within their definition of "fair use".
So how does it work? It really is very easy and you can try it for yourself right now -- no registration needed -- the company is giving away a free 5 minutes call to anyone who wants to try their service. You can use the 5 minutes to call any number around the world. To give it a try go to their home page, type your phone number, type your friend's number and click the big green CALL button. First your phone will ring. Pick it up and wait till it connects you with your friend. That is it.
If you happen to have friends or relatives in Canada, China, Hong Kong, Singapore, Taiwan, Australia, UK, Germany, France, or Italy -- this is a really easy way to save on those international calls. If you don't see your country in the list then take a look at their rates page. You might like what you find there as the rates seem to be pretty competitive.
Now, before I call I really want to know if this is a free call. Guess what, they got it covered! Here is how you check:
You can see if your friend is reachable for FREE after you type in his phone number and hover the mouse to the call button - if it's free you will see: "This call is FREE"
If you don't see "This call is FREE" -- make sure you are calling one of the countries above. If this is the case then send your friend an email and have them sign up to the service. When they sign up they will register their work, home and cell number to their account. These are the numbers you should be calling to qualify for the free service.
Now, free is great but how do the companies like this stay afloat? Here is what CNN Money has to say about it:
Economically, there are two tricks to making this work. First, the Mountain View, Calif., firm does charge for some calls -- to European mobile phones, for example -- and for services such as conference calls. On average, Scharf says, Jajah is making $10 monthly from each paying customer. These fees subsidize the free calls.
In a nutshell the paid customers subsidize your free calls. Well, this pretty much looks like any Web2.0 venture these days, doesn't it?
Update 11/15: I just called Scott @ OzBargainBlog in Australia to test the service. I should say the voice quality wasn't perfect but it wasn't too bad either. The usual delay and some static -- average for an international call.
Update 11/19: What does FREE.YOUR.VOICE mean and who is this Jajah man? This web site may give you some idea.
