Call from your landline for free

 

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Posted on 6 Nov 2008 at 16:49

A new service that will let you make local and international phone calls fore free from your landline has been launched. PokeTalk lets you make calls of up to 10 minutes long to a variety of destinations across the globe.

Users can log on to the PokeTalk website, enter their own phone number and the phone number of a friend abroad; and the free service will connect the two. The company makes its money by hosting advertisements on its website, but there is no cost to the consumer. Each call can last for a maximum of 10 minutes, but as soon as your time runs out, you can make another call straight away.

"We've had many media in the past offering services for free," explained Shai Ganish, head of marketing at PokeTalk. "We've had television, radio, websites, and even magazines and newspapers accessible for free, due to advertising. So we looked at some innovative ways to make advertising work as well for free voice calls."

"This is the advertising subsidised model that you're used to with television, but brought into phone calls."

The service differs from popular offerings such as Skype and Jajah in that there's no need for a headset, microphone or speakers. While the audio quality of the service is actually quite clear, we experienced a slight delay, even when testing from one UK landline to another.

The service allows UK users to call other landlines in 55 countries across the world, but calling to and from UK mobiles is not currently supported.

However, CEO Tamir Galili assured Computer Shopper that plans are afoot to extend the capabilities of the service and that he is "working with service providers all over the world to extend the number of countries the service can be implemented in".

The company is also offering a PokeTalk application for Facebook profiles, and revealed that a service for mobile internet users is also in the pipeline, which is due to be launched next year.

Author: Dawinderpal Sahota