Airtel Call Re-Introduces IndiaOne 1cent Offer

Resuscitating its IndiaOne 1cent calls offer to India, Airtell Call is
set to strain up competition with companies like Truroots and Reliance
Global Call that offer similar service to India. It appears the Airtel
CallHome IndiaOne is even better now. With an increased validity and
an amazing 600 mins in just $ 9.99, the One Cent offer is a great way
to talk to your loved ones in India from US.
With $ 9.99 pack of IndiaOne, you get a rental of $ 3.99, on the
balance $ 6 the user gets the rate of 1 cent /min on Local Access.
This is applicable on calls terminating on any phone in India. i.e.
users can enjoy an amazing 600 mins in just $ 9.99 on local access.
With the extended validity, the talk time can be enjoyed for 45 days!
Along with its extensive network and connectivity, Asia’s leading
integrated telecom service provider now gives users the best value for
money in the market.
We however wonder if Airtell Call claims worth trying since there are
similar services available at a cheaper price. Take for instance the
service offer by Actionvoip, if you use the amount charged by Airtel
Call you would pay 1.1 or 1.2 cents for call India landline and mobile
respectively. That means, you can make upto 833 minutes of calls to
India considering 1.2 cents per minute as average calling rate. The
Actionvoip charge gives you 233 more minutes.
However, Airtel Call service seems to be more reliable than that of
Betmax’s Actionvoip plus the fact that Airtel Call home comes with a
host of exciting new features for the US consumers including auto
recharge, free SMS from the web and audio conferencing facilities.

Small and medium size businesses are beginning to realize the benefits
of VoIP services to the development of their companies, some have
already adopted the use of this service on a full scale level. This
has also motivated VoIP providers to design purposeful built
applications targeted for the use by these companies.
One of such providers is RingCentral who recently announced the launch
of Office VOIP Phone service for business consumers. The RingCentral
Office, as it is called, is the industry’s first complete, cloud
computing based business phone system with one low, flat, fixed
monthly fee, no contracts and zero setup costs. RingCentral Office
combines a hosted multi-extension business phone system with advanced
voice and fax functionality, always-on service, unlimited calling and
full-featured phones that arrive pre-configured and ready for use.
“The fact that RingCentral offers a unique self-service capability
with an all inclusive pricing model and no contracts is, frankly,
quite revolutionary in the business phone systems market,” said David
Lemelin, senior analyst at market research firm In-Stat.
The RingCentral Office features their top two plans and a third level
plan with up to 8 incoming lines, and they have created a complete
business office phone system with everything a small to mid sized
business needs. Their office plan integrates all the features of
RingCentral online, and combines these with a IP phones and an
unlimited calling RingCentral plan. The system starts at $49.99 for
one line, with 4 lines available for $99.99, and 8 lines for $179.99.
If you are looking for a full fledged business VoIP solution for your
small business, this might be the answer.
Unlike traditional phone systems, RingCentral Office eliminates the
need for complex hardware, lengthy installation and technical
expertise. With a predictable monthly fee, no contracts or setup
costs, you get business communication that is easy, affordable and
accessible from wherever you need to be.
However, be aware that with the RingCentral Office plans, it does not
appear that they offer any type of  free trial.  RingCentral provides
cloud computing based phone systems for small business. With top
industry honors, including PC Magazine’s Editor’s Choice Award and
Small Business Computing’s Excellence in Technology, RingCentral
offers full-access to core small business phone services and helps
improve productivity for tens of thousands of customers worldwide.

GukPhone is a new VoIP Service provider that is debuting its service
by using the newest technology to bring high-quality voice
communications to people all over the world without any needs of
software installation. GUK Communications has built this service for
all people who only want to open the web browser for a phone call. No
sensitive data is stored on the PC so that it can be used on every
personal computer (including Internet Cafes). The user only needs to
visit the GukPhone website, log in to his account and dial.
Basically, GukPhone has made the SIP soft phone available in flash
format, thus eliminating the requirement to install it separately.
GukPhone allows you to try their services by giving you 60 minutes of
free international calls. But in that free list India is not Included.
The company has included several countries into their offer and you
need to check their website for the list of these countries.
In order to take advantage of this offer, you need to enter the
international dial form of the type Country Code + Area Code + Local
Number without any 0 or +, for instance a phone number in Argentina
Buenos Aires can look like this: 541145689876, a number inside the US
13124443456, you can call the GukPhone Echo Test by dialing
442012345678 (44 = Country Code 20 = Area Code 12345678 = Local
Number).
They also offer a world package that allows you to make unlimited free
calls to 40 countries for a flat 10 euros (approx $14.5) per month. If
you have a feedback, please leave a comment.

Recently, We reported here about several VoIP providers that offer
free and cheap VoIP calls to India at competitive rates and good voice
quality. Since then a lot has happened and we dim it fit to review the
service of those currently offering truly cheap services.
First on the list is the popular LocalPhone, crowned as the winner of
Cheap International Call Provider 2008 offers cheap calls to India. It
offers cheap calls to India with no contracts, no monthly fees, no
hidden charges and you can sign up for free and call India for less.
LocalPhone is one of the trusted and most widely used VoIP provider.
Nymgo’s offers of various plan to Indian has been discontinued, and
although a new VOIP Provider, it has gained huge customer base in a
very short time especially their India Unlimited Package. It is
popular among Indians who live overseas.
Another widely popular service is Actionvoip/smartvoip/nonoh/other
Betamax services. These Betamax services offer competitive calling
rates to India and some other Middle East countries with a massive cut
that triggers many users to benefit from cheap calls offers. Although,
the company offers the best calling rates in the industry, some have
complained that it lacks support.
Airtel Call home, part of Bharati Telecom one of the world’s largest
telecom carriers which launched India One Product under which offer
you need to pay $9.99, which has a rental of $ 3.99, for the balance $
6 you get the rate of 1 cent / min rate on local access. Alongside
with Truroots and Reliance India call, they offer their services to
some selected international destinations most especially USA, Canada,
UK, Singapore and Australia. Their calling rates to India is
affordable but not the among the best.
Our last review here is IndiaLd/Indiaminutes who has lately not found
good favor with some users. Their cheap calls is equally competitive
and it worth trying. We are aware of a host of other offering cheap
services and we would like our readers to update us about these other
companies and tell us what they think of them.

VoIP applications have found popularity among small and medium size
businesses, many have employed the services to help them reduce cost.
Service providers have equally responded to this demand by offering
them with custom made services to help them do business without
incurring too much cost on communication.
A new service is being introduced and this would, in the like manner,
help cut cost to the tune of 30% off each call ranging from basic
questions asking about your store/office location address, directions
to your store or your current promotions by simply setting up a phone
answering service which handles this type of calls with preconfigured
messages.
This service called Fongenie helps you to just do that. It puts a
sharp focus on developing a creative, user-friendly service that will
help small businesses and retailers increase revenue, reduce costs and
grow the business while boosting profits. The Fongenie works as a
virtual receptionist, but with an IQ to greet your customers, promote
your goods and services on your behalf and automate many tasks prior
to a human intervention.
FonGenie provides sales support and customer/sales analytic in a
single comprehensive web-based platform. No customer hardware is
required. It provides superior customer experience over the entire
sales cycle. With FonGenie all incoming calls are managed with a
professional customizable greeting and an easy-to-configure menu of
options that handles the businesses’ most frequently asked questions
quickly and easily. These efficiencies allow the business owner to
focus on more critical business tasks.
The service is currently offering free trial licenses as part of a
formal product launch program. However, the company stated that it
will soon be offering it on a monthly subscription basis of about $30
for a certain number of incoming calls. Unlimited plans will cost
about $150-250 each month depending on the size of the business.

Users of Google Voice might not realize that there are more to this
means of communication than meet the eyes and with the Google 406
phone numbers they are being offered with more possibilities of
getting in touch with their loved ones.
Recall that the idea behind Google Voice is a single phone number for
all of your needs, you then determine how and where to handle the
calls. SMS messages use the phone number as the address and it
allocates to you a 406# number for your SMS contact. When someone
sends an SMS to your Google Voice number, it assigns a 406 alias
number so when you reply to the SMS it will show up with you Google
Voice number. Each 406 number is unique to each person, and if you
were to call the 406 number it will connect you to that person, so you
don’t have to call your own number and dial their number. It makes
things much easier, and your Google Voice number shows up on the other
persons caller ID, not the 406 number.
In order for you to use this Google Voice 406# number, you need to log
into Google Voice and configure it to forward text messages to your
cell phone. When someone sends a text message to your Google Voice
number, you’ll receive the text on your phone–but not from the
recipient’s phone number.
It is hope that Google Voice would improve on this, making it very
easy to access and set-up and also add more interesting functions such
as the options to add the 406# to contacts. We enjoin our readers who
are using Google Voice to tell us their experiences on this 406#.

VoIP users are being offered the chance to make use of new features of
VoIP services with Access Numbers dialing, Calling Card features and
so on through Localphone. Localphone is a UK based VoIP service
provider and they provide VoIP service with local virtual numbers,
which means each of your contacts will have a local virtual number.
You only need to dial a local number and the call will be forwarded to
the destination number.
You need to upgrade to VoIP features if you have been using Localphone
before you can enjoy this service.You can upgrade to VoIP features by
first loggin into your account, when you’re logged into the Localphone
locate a link near the bottom of your dashboard page on the left hand
side, or you can see the VOIP option in the menu. The company also
gives you an option to choose a free UK number that people will be
able to call your PC phone on.
In order ot set up a Localphone VOIP account, you have the options of
doing so with SIP Phone, VOIP adapter, SIP softphone or you can also
use localphone softphone available on their website. Localphone gives
you SIP details, just follow the instructions to setup your account.
With your Localphone number when somebody calls you, you’ll receive
the call on your mobile, and you’ll only be charged our standard rate
to the UK. To the caller it will just appear to be a normal local
landline number.
Another interesting feature is the fact that you can get an incoming
number in any other country than UK. All you need to do is to locate
the incoming numbers tab and choose an incoming number in a country of
your choice. Remember, there is a cost for each number but it can paid
from your localphone credit. You can use Localphone from a
hardware/software SIP VoIP phone or from your land line/mobile phones
via local access numbers, which is very convenient.

Google Voice has done it again and this time around it offers VoIP
users the opportunity to make free calls to Canada. We are all aware
that Canada was not included in the Google Voice plan but now the
offer has been revived. Starting this week, users can also make free
calls to Canada, a feature that was available in GrandCentral before
Google bought the service and turned it into Google Voice.
In its Official Blog, Google Voice stated that their users can now
officially make free calls to Canada and without paying a penny from
your Google Voice credit. The only catch is that you can only make
those free calls if you’re in the US, because Google Voice isn’t
available in other countries yet.
In order to make a free phone call, you can login to your web-based
inbox and hit the Call button, use a mobile application, or call your
own Google Voice number from a registered phone and hit #2 to place a
call. Let us hope that Google Voice take this opportunity and open-up
its service to Canadian users. Please note that Google Voice is only
available in the US, and you’ll need a working US phone to setup a
Google Voice account.

Vonage has announced the introduction of unlimited flat calling rate
around the world and it is known as Vonage World Plan. The Vonage
World Plan provides unlimited calling around the world to more than 60
countries, including India, Mexico and China for the current flat
monthly rate of $24.99. This appears to be a cool offer, however we
would want you to read on before you jump on the offer.
Vonage is currently the largest of the independent companies that
supply their subscribers with adapters that let them plug their home
phones into their broadband connections. In its heyday it added
hundreds of thousands of customers per quarter, thanks in part to its
offer of unlimited domestic calling for a flat monthly rate.
The new Vonage World plan also replaces various step-up plans that
included expanded international calling, like an “Enhanced World” plan
that gave unlimited calls to 58 countries for $40 per month. The plan
comes with all the basic VOIP home phone service features such as
Phone number porting, Voicemail, Caller ID, Call Waiting,Anonymous
Call Block and many more.
If you are interested in signing-up for Vonage World Plan, you would
need some basic requirements and these are a high-speed Internet
connection (cable or DSL) and a U.S. or Puerto Rico shipping address
(no P.O Box). The company also offers a 30 day money back guarantee.
They are giving out more than 5,000 minutes per line per month for
unlimited residential calling and more than 10,000 minutes per line
per month for unlimited small business calling is not to be considered
normal use. That means the moment you run over 5000 minutes (Vonage
World Plan is residential plan), Vonage will cut you off. At this
rate, for example, if you call India you pay $25 a month and you will
get 5000 minutes per month of calling. $25/5000 minutes means 0.5
cents per minutes which is quite alright. The international calling
plans of most competitors are limited to certain locations within a
country. However, the countries included in Vonage World are covered
completely.

Making long distance calls has been made easier using access number
based VoIP services, with iToggler it even becomes much easier. The
iToggler is a sophisticated hardware device which can route your long
distance and international calls through an Internet platform, even if
you don’t have Internet.
The iToggler now makes it possible to make telephone calls, all
without an Internet connection, and saves users up to ninety percent
on their phone bill. The tiny device simply attaches to any landline
phone to automatically route calls through different vendors and
allows customers to use the same phone equipment and dial the same way
as before. All incoming calls and outgoing local calls are routed
through local service providers, while the long distance calls are
routed through different vendors.
Additionally, the iToggler technology allows its users to retain their
local phone service provider for services such as security system
monitoring and 911 emergency calling. With iToggler you get the best
of both the worlds – keep your reliable local phone service provider
and still realize the savings offered through VoIP technology. Take
for instance, you have Comcast home phone service as your landline and
you call China or India almost everyday. You obviously wouldn’t use
comcast digital phone service to make those international calls cause
its very costly so you either use betamax service or any local calling
card. Most calling cards or even VOIP Providers offer access numbers
in various countries and cities. Everyday you need to dial these
access numbers and then enter your PIN and wait for several annoying
prompts on their IVR systems.
It is simple to set up the system, for instance if you wish to enter
the access number 234-567-8888 with language voice prompt option (2
for Spanish), and PIN =98765432 follow these steps; pick up the phone,
login by entering ***9999 ~du sound) then enter: *01*1*2345678888**
“~du” sound then hang up. To enter language option and PIN, pick up
the phone, Login: enter ***9999 (~du sound) then and enter
*02*1*2*98765432#** (“ ~du” sound, then hang up.) If the destination
number must end with a # (no optional entry), enter # after PIN Number
and before ** (“ ~du” sound, then hang up.)
iToggler offers a wide variety of contract-free monthly plans intended
to meet the needs of every customer. For example, the residential
calling plan offers unlimited long distance calling within US and
Canada for under $10 per month. Special calling plans for South Asia
and South America slash the prices of what most international
providers offer, and people can stay in touch with family and friends
for as low as 2.5 cents per minute to certain destinations.