RSSGizmo Project Offers Free Calling
By Nate Mook | Published July 20, 2006, 12:33 PM
In an effort to one-up market leader Skype, Gizmo Project has announced a new "All Calls Free" plan that makes calling landline and mobile phones in 60 countries free of charge. The catch: both individuals must be active Gizmo users.
Skype currently offers free calling to traditional phone numbers within the United States only. Gizmo's new offering covers landline and mobile phones in 17 countries and landline-only calls in another 43. No fees will be charged for calls to these numbers, the Gizmo Project says.
The promotion is intended to bring more user user-signups to the Internet telephony service. In order to make and receive calls free, both sides must have downloaded and signed up to Gizmo. The user receiving the call must have entered their phone number into their contact information, which the caller clicks to dial.
"We reserve the right to limit call length if we see people abusing the service, but that seems fair, right? Of course, we also encourage you go purchase some of our services such as additional Gizmo Call Out credits or a virtual Call In number to help us continue offering these innovative (and free) calling plans," the company says.
In order to be eligible for the free calling plan, both users must be active users of Gizmo, meaning they regularly make voice calls using the software. "If your account, or the account of the person you are calling is inactive, the call will just be charged at our normal low calling rates," the company explains.
Gizmo Project is available for Windows, Mac OS X and Linux.
I have Gizmo and Skype. They are great when they work. I do not know if it is that I have A laptop and something is not stable. I have A lot of trouble with both of them with the person on the other line saying they hear an echo and it sounds like I am talking under water in A pipe or tube. I like the option to use the Gizmo to record Confrence Calls. I wish the service was better. I am looking for A voip that works better & one I can count on to call A person so I can hear the person and they can hear me. Like I said when it works I like it A lot. It is usually not that clear for either of us. I am disappointed in both. Thank You For Asking. Best Reguards, Marcy
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|Try JaJah.com. It works beautifully with either your land line phone or cell phone. It works like Skype except that when you initiate a call, they will ring your own phone (the number you registered with them)to start the call. When you pick up your phone it tells you that they will now connect you to your party. The other party's phone will ring just like you dial it yourself and you two can now talk to your hearts content. The sound quality is excellent. Its free between registered phones both land line or mobile.
We also have been using Vonage for more than 2 years as our only phone. We have no problems at all.
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|I've made free calls with Gizmo from China to the U.S.A. to a friend whom is another sipphone user and it works very well! It was just as good around the world as it is from 2 miles away!
Mark
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|Check this out
www.globe7.com
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|What about this globe7 thing? You can't make free calls with it and the download is like 20mb? They have 'advertise with us' all over their webiste and I don't see a screen shot anywhere! Geeee...I wonder if their are banner ads in this thing? hahaha
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|Just tried it. Voice quality isn't as great as Skype's but hey, this is much better than Skype! Free calls to so many countries, I'm not complaining.
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|Give Vonage a try, and you'll never use s*** like Skype or Gizmo.
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|I pretty much agree. Vonage is now, skype is the future.
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|Made some comments earlier regarding the Gizmo Project news release and what Skype has done in return.
http://thelaggard.com/stocks/?p=27
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|After a bait and switch like this i will never use there service.
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|Totally. I am not one to rant on and on, but after I read this I literally said out loud "Are they serious?!?!"... lol
~dnc
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|"We reserve the right to limit call length if we see people abusing the service, but that seems fair, right?"
Oh my my my... where to start? If you are giving a free service, it's a free service. If there are going to be limitations, then state them up front! As for "abusing the service", um, how?! If the stated service is free and I am satisfying your obligations (both users must be active Gizmo users, blah, blah, blah), then how the heck do I abuse the service? By keeping a line open for 4 hours? Well, if I have satisfied the requirements and the company stated it's free based upon those conditions, then it's not abuse! If the company wants to limit the duration of calls as part of their free service, fine. Then state that up front. Not this “we will limit the call length if we see people abusing the service”. I can just imagine the poor chap talking to his mother overseas for 5 minutes wondering if he is going to be cut off any second because of their sliding scale of “abuse”.
"Of course, we also encourage you go purchase some of our services such as additional Gizmo Call Out credits or a virtual Call In number to help us continue offering these innovative (and free) calling plans"
As stated before, if it's free, then it's free. If it's limited, then state so, and ask me to buy additional products to enhance the limited offering.
I'm really getting sick and tired of these companies and their double-speak. Either say what you mean or don’t say it at all. Plain and simple.
It’s things like this that really turn me off from companies. At least Skype has made their outbound calling free and unlimited. It says so right on their webpage. Granted, it’s US-based only, but hey, at least they state it up-front!
~dnc
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|Amazing. They give something away completely for free and people still complain that there are limitations.
You can't have the *whole* world on a platter. They're just giving you part of it. =p
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|I'm not a fan of "free".... as "free" simply means that the costs are hidden somewhere else.
I'm particularly not a fan of "free with an asterisk" since that's invariably a bait and switch technique.
So in fact they are not giving away something "completely free".
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|Sounds like you have the "free" concept down pretty well. I don't think there's anywone who *doesn't* look for the catch when they see "free." The question is: "Is the catch worth it?"
To most people, it usually is.
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|wince...
I have no problem with free in and of itself. Hell, I love free. What I don't love is corporate double-speak. Either a product is free or it's not free. That was the main point of my thread. Hell, at least Skype made their calling truly free, in the US only, but they don't make a blatent disclaimer like ""We reserve the right to limit call length if we see people abusing the service, but that seems fair, right?".
That was the only point I was trying to make.
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|All, I'm the president of SIPphone (the company that makes Gizmo Project). Thanks for your interest in our free calling program. To be clear, the program is free. You can call any of the countries we mention for free (no cost to you, no hidden cost somewhere else).
As for the terms and conditions of the service, we have to protect ourselves against fraudsters. This is a _huge_ problem in the telecom world. We try to be up front that if the program is abused, we won't let you abuse us.
How would you feel if you offered something for free and some group of fraudsters stole all your money, thus ruining for everyone else?
So far there has been substantial interest in the program and lots of free usage. I hope you all give the program a chance because it's a great program and there's no intent to force you to buy something, force you to use Gizmo 24 hours a day or 'bait and switch' anything.
There's no bait and switch. Bait and switch is when you promise one thing and deliver another. All the information you could want is on www.gizmoproject.com/free and you can find more information in our forums (forum.gizmoproject.com).
Jason
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|I'd hate it ... but then again, I wouldn't offer something for free --- I have to be able to make a living --- so who are you expecting to buy you out?
--->How would you feel if you offered something for free and some group of fraudsters stole all your money, thus ruining for everyone else?
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|Who's to say we need to get bought out? Google offers search for free, Yahoo offers webmail for free, YouTube even offers video hosting for free (although they haven't really figured out their b-model yet), so this is no different. At one point, bandwidth was incredibly expensive and the market for advertising was incredibly poor. Now, 10-11 years after the internet started to become popular, advertising is extemely strong and bandwidth is extremely cheap. Same services, different business environment.
Calling is going to zero and if we can help the world get there and build our business at the same time, then we're happy to do it. We're not planning on offering everything for free, but basic calling should be free.
Best,
Jason
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|it's a sad-sad thing that Ukraine is not in the list... whilst Russia is... very-very sad..
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|I'm sure you'll get over it.
...somehow.
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