Cheap call back for smartphones promises to slash calls
Australian start-up BigTinCan has launched a smartphone call back service that offers 30c international calls…
Business people usually have better things to do with their time than follow the serpentine goings-on in telco-land. But they may be interested in two new services that promise to slash the high international mobile calling rates that continue to have a big impact on business’ bottom line.
Given this stubborn pricing, iStart was pleased to read a recent ZDNet story citing newbie local telco BigTinCan and Google Voice as promising to make some in-roads here.
Australian start-up firm BigTinCan has written a number of smartphone applications that, using the call-back method, allow users to make international calls at discount rates. The caller simply dials the number wanted and the application performs its magic by first sending the call to BigTinCan’s servers, which then dial the number and route the call via a country where call costs are much less – often the US – and connect the user with the callee.
This is the usual complicated callback method, but BigTinCan promises to make these contortions largely invisible to the user.
“It works by simultaneously calling you and the recipient. The clever bit is in the way it does that to make the experience easy and seamless – just like using your normal phone,” it says on its website.
Unlike, VoIP, the service does use the public telephone network. The cost? 30c a minute to over 200 countries worldwide. It also carries SMS messages, for 10c a minute.
The calling-card market has successfully operated in a similar way for a several years now, what’s different about BigTinCan is that it has moved the discount model onto the smartphone. And, in recessionary times, when companies are being forced to look very closely at costs, business may be more open to such services than it was previously.
Just because such services have been aimed more at the consumer market in the past doesn’t mean they can’t make the leap across to business. Google Docs has proved this and, as if to underscore the possibility that a cheap consumer voice service could also move into the business world, Google has launched Google Voice. Right now, it’s early days and the service is only at the beta stage, and it will obviously be seen in the US first, but Google is a very globally minded company…
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