FringOut phones home Fring is trialling its own version of SkypeOut, the innovatively named FringOut, allowing Fring users to call fixed lines even if they still can't speak to Skype users. Fring users can now call up people who aren't using Fring, without paying a monthly fee or connection charge, as long as they're using a Symbian handset and …
I thought most people just used Fring as a way of making SIP calls on their handset.
It's nice that they've added some SIP credit to fund the development, but... this is essentially a SIP frontend. A very, very good SIP frontend.
For example, I have a SPA3102 VOIP gateway at home which routes incoming calls from the BT landline to regular BT handsets, but routes outbound calls from those same handsets to VOIP.
Fring allows me to make calls from my bog standard Nokia mobile phone using the same VOIP account.
Given the huge amount of inclusive call-time most mobile contracts allow, I use Fring almost exclusively to make international calls only. For example, calling back to the UK whilst abroad in a hotel which has WiFi.
Fring was product that allowed you to use someone else's product in a place it was not already available and was permitted by the original product as they were not in that market.
Now original product is in that market Fring has no place......
Maybe this is a lesson in selling YOUR OWN PRODUCT rather than building a spurious business based on someone else's product. Or alternatively don't fool yourself there is longevity in it.
I was tempted by Fring when I first bought my Android handset, but was just confused by what it was and what it could, and could not, do. They need to sum up their service in one pithy sentence or they're going to lose alot of potential customers.
Shame Google Voice isn't available in the UK. I use it to call my family in the UK from the States using credit bought on the website. Yes, there's a bit of a delay on the line, but the voice quality is fine and I can use my mobile to call internationally from anywhere here for next to nothing..
"When that got more difficult, the business moved into an advertising model with banner ads embedded in the application, and that's still how the company hopes to make mone"
Wasn't this the exact same model "dialpad" used in the 1990s? Just pull up a webpage with a java applet, and you could place free long distance calls. It even worked well over a 38kbps dialup modem.
Very cool service when it was around, but unsurprisingly it collapsed. Not sure how another business can pull off this business model though?
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