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I just want to point out this interesting report about low cost mobile VoIP telephony, “Mobile VoIP & Calling Applications - Business & Market Strategies“.

Will the new players eat the established providers’ lunch? Will they get a bite? Will they get anything at all? The race is on!

The study profiles 30 new mobile players in detail and gives summary tables, illustrations and comparisons. You get a clear picture of who is in this business, where they come from, where are they operating, who is backing them, and exactly what is on offer.

It looks interesting and a must-read for anyone working in this space. You can find some VoIP providers covered many times on this blog, such as Fring, Gizmo5, Truphone, Phonegnome and many others (here is the complete list). Strategies, people, business models and price comparisons are covered too.

Check it out.

Technorati Tags: luca filigheddu, Mobile, report, Voice 2.0, VoIP

After about ten months from the launch of the first version, the 3G mobile operator Three announced the availability of the new Skypephone S2 which brings some new interesting features to the previous version.

Among the others, the ability to quickly access to Facebook or Windows Live Messenger as well as an improved camera (3.2 Mpx), a much better screen and a more usable interface. It can also be used as an HDSPA modem when connected to your PC through the USB port.

The new Skypephone is available in UK already (for about $160) and will be available in Italy too starting from the end of August. Teenagers will be very happy about that since they found an almost free way to send messages to each other without having to send expensive SMSs.

Technorati Tags: luca filigheddu, Mobile, skype, skypephone s2, three, Voice 2.0, VoIP

Abbeyphone, my company’s division for consumer VoIP, just came out with the new summer rates, really very cheap.

Abbeyphone is a not much advertised service, but I have to say that it works very well, from any SIP device or from the web, through call back (if needed) and it’s up and running since 2003 thanks to very faithful and loyal customers.

Here is a snapshot of the rates compared with Skype’s ones, you can have a look here for more.

If you haven’t tried Abbeyphone yet and you are looking for a cheap way to make calls worldwide from your PC or your SIP device, check it out now, it’s surely worth a try.

Technorati Tags: abbeyphone, cheap calls, luca filigheddu, Voice 2.0, VoIP

Jeff Pulver informs on his blog that Free World Dialup, the pioneer VoIP service he launched 12 years ago, will not be free any longer. Members now have to pay a $30/year subscription fee in order to continue to use FWD’s services.

I definitely praise this move, and every VoIP user should. It’s an important sign that VoIP is well and growing and that there are services that deserve the support of their faithful users in order to improve their offering and keep giving them high value added services.

I’d also like to point out that I predicted this back at the beginning of this year. If VoIP is providing you with value, as you are used to pay for your cable TV, for you Satellite TV, for your Mobile subscriptions, you have to pay for VoIP too, there is nothing wrong here. FWD is the first VoIP provider which made the big move to switch from free to a very cheap subscription fee, less than 8 cents a day, I bet most of their users will support them.

Nearly 1M registered users a and close to 40.000 daily online users. I call it success, don’t you? Maybe not promoted neither advertised like other services, but definitely a reference in this market.

By the way, I became a paying member back in July 2007, what are you waiting for?

Technorati Tags: Business, free world dialup, jeff pulver, luca filigheddu, membership, subscription, Voice 2.0, VoIP

I predicted many times that a new trend with VoIP services would have been the ability to solve specific problems for the final users. This can lead to both services that are free for users or that users are willing to pay for. In any case, there are many ways to monetize them, directly or indirectly and the value for customers could be very high.

Jajah knows this very well and yesterday announced two brand new services, Jajah Babel and Jajah Concierge.

The former is an English to Mandarin translator (more languages will be available soon), just in time for the Olympic games. You just need to dial a number and speak out the word you want to translate. Straightforward. This service is available in U.S., China, UK and Australia.

The latter, offered in partnership with Mobivox, is a personal assistant. You simply dial a local number and ask your personal concierge to do something for you, like initiating phone calls, sending a text message or establishing conference calls, all with voice commands and hands free.

Good job guys!

Technorati Tags: jajah, jajah babel, jajah concierge, luca filigheddu, mobivox, Voice 2.0, VoIP

As already announced in this blog, I will moderate a panel on “Advantages of Open Source VoIP” during the upcoming Internet Telephony Conference and Expo taking place in Los Angeles from Sept 16th to Sept 18th.

As per my request, I’m happy that Jonathan Christensen, Skype’s General Manager for Audio and Video, is joining the panel too. Jonathan was an active panelist during the past eComm 2008 in Mountain View as well and I’m happy to meet him again in LA.

The reason why I wanted someone at Skype join the panel is because I’m really excited at the idea to hear their perspective on the value of open source VoIP, especially within an enterprise environment. You know, it’s like “the good and the bad“, open source and open standards against a successful story of proprietary and closed service.

I really look forward to it, it’s gonna be a very exciting panel. See you in LA!

Technorati Tags: internet telephony conference & expo, jonathan christensen, luca filigheddu, skype, Voice 2.0, VoIP

A few months ago the UK-based mobile VoIP operator Truphone bought Sim4Travel, a company which provides an international sim card to cut costs of international roaming.

Today they sent me an email with a promotional offer by which I can get a free SIM card by paying for 10 pounds of talk time credit on it.

I have to say that their offer looks really interesting and their rates very cheap. The good point is that I don’t pay to receive calls in over 50 countries so I can even keep that SIM in my mobile phone even while I am in my country without having to pay when someone calls me.

Together with the SIM you get a +44 number (unlike MaxRoam, no other country codes unfortunately) and most outbound calls cost about 0,25p (pounds).

Unfortunately, for certain use cases, there are solutions much cheaper. For example, going back to my tests while I was in Palo Alto, a solution involving a local T-Mobile SIM and Rebtel or Jajah Direct are still MUCH cheaper.

Technorati Tags: luca filigheddu, maxroam, Mobile, sim4travel, truphone, Voice 2.0, VoIP