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The popular Israeli Mobile IM/VoIP service Fring is slowly introducing banner Ads inside their mobile clients. It seems not all the users are affected, but only a selected group. 

I don’t really know if it will work, anyway praises to Fring to be one of the first players to introduce this approach in the mobile VoIP space. However Fring is not alone since Talkster is another player which announced a similar strategy at the beginning of this year, despite the approach is different (ads into the call stream).

I think 2009 will be a “show me the money” year so I bet many players in this space will launch similar or alternative initiatives pretty soon.

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Technorati Tags: Advertising, fring, luca filigheddu, mobile voip, talkster

Image via CrunchBase

I just received a note from Fring informing me that the popular mobile IM/VoIP service has been selected by Mobikom’s brand A1 to be distributed to their customers in Austria.

Here is an excerpt from the official press release:

Under the agreement, mobilkom austria will give its customers access to a dedicated version of the fring mobile client, containing fring’s entire open-platform, feature-rich suite of internet based mobile communications & community services, allowing A1 over IP users to talk, chat and interact with each other & all of their online communities, and access fun mobile web applications, using the internet connection capability of their mobile device.

In Phase 1 of the project, the A1 over IP service will be integrated into fring’s SIP service, offering fring users the opportunity of using A1 over IP accounts and also the ability to configure their A1 over IP accounts to work within fring.

Phase 2 will see a fring application being built into mobilkom austria’s mobile offering and pre installed onto a large number of mobile devices. This will comprise fring’s entire feature set of voice over IP, instant messaging, real-time presence / availability indication, file transfer and access to fring’s new always-on mobile internet applications (fring Add-ons)

This is definitely a major news for the Israeli-based service, which is continuosly bringing innovation to the mobile market and making the mobile IM/VoIP experience much better than what you can get by other competitors.

Skype, Twitter, all major IM networks, SIP calling and much more are the key ingredients for this growing success. Moreover, they recently announced that Fring is finally available on the Apple iPhone’s App Store but if you don’t own an iPhone and you are a Symbian user, you can get the latest version of Fring released yesterday.

Congrats to all Fring’s team for these continuous important announcements, keep up the good work!

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Technorati Tags: App Store, deal, fring, Instant messaging & messengers, iphone, luca filigheddu, mobile voip

I wrote many blog posts about mobile VoIP and I tried most of the mobile VoIP services available for my handsets (Nokia N-series). That being said, I have to say that all of them are definitely bringing innovation to the mobile market, while mobile operators start watching them carefully as a potential threat.

One of the trends I’m observing is how those services are leveraging their existing infrastructure, investments and developments by offering a white label solution to big companies which want to up-sell new innovative services to their huge potential user base. It’s nothing more than what some mobile carriers are already doing worldwide with the so called MVNOs, but with “VoIP” and “new services” in the middle.

Look at Rebtel with EasyMobile (but I know for sure there is more coming out soon) or FreshTel with Tesco. FreshTel, for example, is a new player operating in the Australian market that I knew during the VoIP World 2008 in Dubai since I was sitting at the same rountable with Rhonda O’Donnell, their CEO. They signed a big deal with Tesco, a Wal-Mart competitor, to provide their customers with a mobile VoIP solution. How long will it take for WalMart or similar groups to look for similar solutions to be sold to their huge audience?

I’m pretty sure there is more coming out from players like, for example, the no-boundaries mobile operator Cubic Telecom and I expect to see something similar coming from other players like Truphone or Fring. The point here is to bring user experience at its best. Customers of big shopping groups like Wal-Mart are mostly “normal” people who look for something cheap and easy to use, without having to struggle with software installation or handset’s configuration.

In this perspective a solution by MaxRoam, Rebtel or Sim4Travel (by Truphone) would fit better with that audience and are more likely to succeed than other services which are more complex for an average user. Most people are not early adopters of new technologies so all the mobile VoIP companies that want to jump into that business through those channels must keep this aspect well in mind.

Besides, I stated many times and I firmly believe that the #1 concern for any mobile VoIP player must be the usability and the overall user experience delivered by their services. They can offer the cheapest rate ever, but It becomes useless if a “normal” person needs to attend a software engineering class to install their software or needs to buy a $500 phone to use it (mmm… how many “normal” people have a Wifi access at home?).

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Technorati Tags: Cubic Telecom, freshtel, fring, luca filigheddu, maxroam, mobile voip, rebtel, Tesco, truphone

The mobile VoIP provider EQO is a limited-time offering that is surely a big deal for their users. If you make your first purchase of EQO credits, you’ll get 50% off.

I’m not sure how many users are involved in this offering, but it doesn’t seem to be available to all their users, rather a small percentage of them.

If you get an email with a promotional code from EQO, then you are in. You must use it before June 16th to get the discount.

I tried and reviewed EQO a couple of months ago and I even received a mug from them (thanks!). Anyway, I have to try it out again (since then, a new version is available) because last time it was a bit slow on my N95. I’ll keep you posted.

Technorati Tags: eqo, luca filigheddu, mobile voip

Truphone just released version 4.0 of their popular mobile VoIP client, adding the interesting “Anywhere” feature, which lets users get Truphone on any phone, whether it uses wifi or not.

By calling a local number, like many other competitors (Mobivox, Talkplus, Jajah, just to name some), it lets users save lots of money in a very easy and seamless way.

Great move by Truphone, it was exactly what I predicted in my article on IP Convergence TV. Truphone will immediately experience a take off of their user base and I know for sure that there is much more happening at Truphone’s headquarters that will help their growth even more.

I’m really looking forward to it and… installing Truphone 4.0 on my E61.

Technorati Tags: luca filigheddu, mobile voip, truphone

My first article on Mobile Voice Services is just available at IPConvergence.TV.

For those who don’t know about IPConvergence.TV yet, I highly recommend to check it out. It’s a complete resource of interviews, perspectives and thoughtful opinions about VoIP, Telecoms, FMC, Mobility, IPTV and everything related to IP Communications. It’s an important resource for any player in this market, from service providers to key decision makers.

Who’s behind this? There are many important partners supporting this project and the Portal Editor is Jon Arnold, well known senior analyst in this space, who blogs regularly at  Jon Arnold’s Blog. Jon invited me to submit a contribution to this project when we met during eComm in March and I’ve been glad to do that.

That said, I would like to thank Jon for having given me the opportunity to join this stunning group of thought leaders. Hope my contribution and my perspective will be helpful for the community.

Technorati Tags: ipconvergence.tv, jon arnold, luca filigheddu, mobile voip