Free VoIP…There is No such thing as a Free Lunch

VoIP for the mainstream market is still very much in its infancy. Because of this there is so much misunderstanding the power of and benefits of VoIP as compared to a legacy copper wire traditional telco solution.

If something is truly superior and offers true and measurable value, to you, the user, would you hesitate to pay for it? I think not. If you are a smart business person you would see the value and would be happy to pay for such value , which is why VoIP is not and can not ever be Free.

Believe it or not there are still some real cost associated with providing a verbose business VoIP solution. This cost provides value that should be expected to be paid for if someone willingly wants to access and willingly use this value.

Now this is not to say that VoIP can not really save you some serious bucks as compared to the traditional telco solution. But if you are a business and looking for a total Voice communication solution you have to really look at the benefits, flexibility and overall features that a VoIP solution can really offer you and not be mislead to think that VoIP is going to completely take care of your business communications needs for little or No cost compared to a traditional Copper wire telco solution. To believe so is naive

A full converged VoIP business communications system will NEVER be FREE.

Allot of business owners pick up on the "VoIP Buzz" and have dollar signs in their eyes to how much money they think VoIP is going to save them because they heard on from a friend of friend who read on an internet discussion board that you can make unlimited VoIP calls for free. Even if this were true, actual deployment of such service in a business setting is not only logistically impossible but it is not practical to try either.

VoIP is a value within itself and it should be treated as such. The solutions VoIP can offer are the true value as opposed to paying for a copper wire infrastructure and bunch of taxes in a traditional telco solution.

But still People want to know…IS there such thing as FREE VoIP?

Free VoIP service - Is this possible?

Free VoIP service, Is not really Free, however if you make calls to other VoIP users within the same VoIP provider network - the VoIP calls are for free. This applies to almost all VoIP services worldwide, with one or two exceptions. Please do not forget - you are still paying for your internet connection - be it cable, dial up or broadband.

The worldwide Voice over IP industry is extremely competitive with new Broadband Phone and PC to Phone VoIP services launching weekly -all hoping to catch a piece of the exponentially growing VoIP cake. Unfortunately many VoIP services disappear (see our VoIP Graveyard) as quickly as they are launched and only those with unique offerings and heavy marketing resources will survive.

One unique way of luring consumers to sign up for VoIP services is by offering free VoIP calls to certain destinations. Over the past few months one particular German company initiated and has mastered the art of offering "free VoIP calls" with tremendous success. Other "Free VoIP providers" will follow soon, be it for promotional purposes or as a permanent feature.

We have identified 13 VoIP providers offering free VoIP services to a few selected countries and have displayed them in a matrix for an easy overview below.

www.voipbuster.com now based in Germany (previously Switzerland) and their partners/affiliates www.voipcheap.co.uk based in the UK, www.netappel.fr based in France, www.voipstunt.com , www.sparvoip.de , Internetcalls.com , www.sipdiscount.com and voipdiscount.com based in Germany.

All require registration and VoIPBuster, NetAppel, Sparvoip and VoIPStunt, Internetcalls, VoipDiscount require a minimum deposit of 10 Euro and VoIPCheap a minimum deposit of 5 Euro.

www.voipagain.com offer free calls to 30 destinations with 150 minutes free per week. Similar to VoipBuster and peer companies.

www.free.fr, a French ISP and VoIP provider offers free VoIP landline calls to 14 international destinations (Only for broadband subsribers)

NEW:  www.raketu.com, SIP based PC to Phone service offering free calls to 42 destinations

Summary of VoIP Providers offering free VoIP calls

The Betamax group (Voipbuster, Voipcheap.co.uk, Sparvoip, Voipstunt, Netappel and Sipdiscount, Internetcalls, VoipDiscount, poivY and now Voipcheap.com have a habit of chopping and changing their list of free VoIP destinations and one should check almost weekly to see if new destinations have been added or removed from the "free VoIP" list.

Please note: On 10 May 2006 the Betamax group changed their policy yet again and now only allow a maximum of 300 minutes per week of "free calls" measured over the last 7 days.

NEW - Check the following link for a summary and detailed overview of all SIP settings, available codecs, free VoIP-IN numbers, validity of credits etc of all Betamax VoIP Services.

NEW - In the last week of August 2006 the Betamax group changed their credit expiry policy (probably due to legal requirements in Germany). They now offer so called "Freedays". Any credit in your account will now no longer expire. After the 120 (90) "Freeday" period the calls will be charged at the rate published in their rates schedule. Should you however add funds to your account before your credit expires then your total credit will remain valid and your "Freeday" period will be extended by a further 120 (90) days.

NEW - Early November 2006 a new "Free VoIP service" was launched by Betamax (www.lowratevoip.com), with "Free VoIP Calls" to 50 destinations (Note: Only 30 "Freedays" and only 200 free minutes per week now)

NEW - 16 March 2007 - Here is our updated list on 60 free VoIP services, free softphones and free DID's

Note: Betamax have a further websites in their group, which we have ot listed here due to lack of space: www.justvoip.com, www.lowratevoip.com and www.freecall.com. If you do test these "free VoIP" services please leave feedback in our VoIP provider directory for others to review.

For another great overview of all Betamax providers and call rates (updated daily), please check the following sites:

backsla.sh

Lontronics

Another free feature with some Voice over IP providers

A growing number of SIP based services have specific peering arrangements which allow you to call users of other SIP providers by dialing a prefix code - unfortunately this is not yet universal. Generally though, you can call a user of any SIP provider by dialing a 'SIP URL' (ie., @othersipprovider.com). This notation is easy to enter when using a softphone as it can be typed in using a keyboard. When using a physical IP phone, it is not easy (and on many devices, not possible) to enter the above strings, meaning only numbers can be dialed.

SIP Broker is a free VoIP service that enables you and your friends to get numbers to represent your SIP URLs. This service is free and is a great way to enable people who are not on the same VoIP service to still communicate for free. Recently (Feb 2006) SIP Broker and e164.org joined forces to launch Voxalot - a free VoIP telephone service that enables callers to dial ENUM and SIP Broker numbers more easily.

Otherwise, depending on where you live in the world, it is possible to drop your international phone bill by up to 98% if you choose the right VoIP provider - no longer free VoIP calls, but almost free in comparison to your previous phone costs.

As you may see, the differences in the international call rates are quite substantial and differences up to 1000% are not uncommon if you look at the cheapest option or the most expensive VoIP service provider. The competition on the world VoIP market is very fierce and prices are dropping on a regular basis.

For Logical and practical business use for VoIP there is NO SUCH THING as Free. Again VoIP is a value within itself offering many benefits to the business owner over traditional copper telco solutions and this is the value that is well worth it's weight Gold