Free Landline/Mobile Calls with VoIP Stunt
scotty on 13/03/2006 at 11:57 pm, filed under UncategorizedI heard about VoipStunt in the latest APC Magazine (April 2006). One of Betamax‘s (German’s telecommunication company) Voice over IP (VoIP) front-ends, together with others like VoIP Buster, Internet Calls and SIP Discount, offers free* calls to many international landline and mobile phone destinations.
Yes — it is really free, with a little catch.
Here are some of example of per-minute call-rates — I especially picked the ones that might interest those from FOCUSer.
| Country | Landline | Mobile |
|---|---|---|
| Australia | Free | 0.15 |
| China | Free | Free |
| Indonesia | 0.072 | 0.132 |
| Hong Kong | Free | Free |
| Malaysia | Free | 0.048 |
| Singapore | Free | Free |
| South Korea | Free | 0.048 |
| Taiwan | Free | 0.084 |
| United Kingdom | Free | 0.216 |
| United States | Free | Free |
Yes — it allows you to call many countries for free — not just their VoIP but their PSTN and mobile phone numbers! It provides you a soft phone (which looks very much like Skype‘s) that you can use to register an account and make calls, and there seems to be a SIP proxy configuration for it so you can make free calls from your SIP compatible VoIP phone or ATA.
What then, is the catch?
First of all, I searched all over the Internet and it appears to be a legitimate business — it is not a scam, and there is a big telecommunication company backing it. However, it is not completely free, despite some complaint about their “credit expiry”. To quote from their website:
To counter misuse of our network we have limited these free calls to a maximum of 1 minute for our trial users. If you want to enjoy UNLIMITED FREE CALLS to these destinations, you have to become a fully registered user by topping up your account. This credit deposit will stay untouched as long as you are calling the free destinations and remains valid for 120 days after your last purchase.
That is fair enough. Basically if you do not have any credit, you can only make free calls for up to one minute. To bypass this limit you will need to purchase credit, and the minimum purchase is 10 (AUD$16.30). This credit will allow you to make unlimited free calls, and will be used when non-free calls need to be made. However, currently there is an expiry on this credit — it will only last 120 days from purchase. That’s almost 4 months, and pretty good consider how many free local calls you can make.
I am not sure how this kind of business plan is going to survive. But do take advantage when the deal lasts.