When it rains, it pours. As we’ve seen with Dell Voice, the VoIP market is getting increasingly heated in Canada. Vonage is launching its Vonage Mobile service in app form for iPhone and Android, after providing free calls between Facebook users last year.
Vonage uses high-definition codecs between app users, and calls are free for anyone using the app or a Vonage number. In addition, to promote the service, the company is making calls free to anyone in Canada, the U.S. and Puerto Rico for a limited time. After that, rates will be “on average 70 percent less than major mobile carriers and 30 percent less than Skype.”
The app, which is available on both Android and iPhone, looks good and works quite well. At this time only a small number of my contacts are available for free app to app calls, which are purportedly “exceptional[ly] high-definition.” Outgoing calls use your existing phone number as call display, so unlike Dell Voice, which gives you an entirely new number, outgoing Vonage calls shouldn’t be cause to have your recipients hit the Ignore button.
International rates are pretty low: we’re looking at less than 2.2c/min for China, and U.K., while India is 2.4c/min. Conveniently, credit can be bought using in-app purchasing in both the Android and iPhone app.
Vonage also gives you the ability to send text messages to Vonage users from within the app. Now that there is a mobile version of the popular home phone service, hopefully more people will sign up.
Check out Vonage Mobile for Android and iOS and let us know what you think.
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