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Fring Offers Free Mobile-to-SIP Client Calling

Posted on: Friday, 25 May 2007, 06:00 CDT

Israeli start-up Fringland is offering a mobile phone client that enables free VoIP calls, not only to other users of its technology, but also to fixed-line VoIP clients for internet telephony, such as MSN, Googletalk and Skype.

Like Skype, the creators of the Fring client hope to go from anonymity to world renown on the back of viral marketing, with one user recommending it to another. Also, like the internet telephony heavyweight, they are targeting the consumer market, where the appeal of the free can outweigh the absence of quality guarantees.

They are not, however, emulating Skype's offering of PSTN break-in or break-out, though Roy Timor-Roussos, the company's VP of product marketing, said such a service could be offered by a SIP provider that chose to partner with Fringland.

The ISV's strategy, then, is to populate the mobile phone world with its clients through word of mouth, or to be more exact, via the ether, as it has a facility whereby users can invite friends to download the client, which is freely available. Interested parties can also go the company's website to download the client, though the idea was not to oblige anyone to have a PC in order to get started, said Timor-Roussous.

As for how it intends to make money with Fring, the exec said Fringland is committed to keeping the basic VoIP calling free, its idea being "firstly to take a revenue share of any additional traffic we drive for a SIP provider partner; secondly, if we bring a partner new subscribers, take a fee, and thirdly, to offer value added services such as file share or content delivery such as music, voicemail, conference calling, address books and blogs."

Down the road there may be opportunities for some targeted advertising too, though Timor-Roussos said Fring is going slowly on this so as not to alienate potential users.

Our View

While this clearly a consumer-oriented offering, Fring may be of interest to business users in that, provided the person they are calling has a Fring client too or is on an internet telephony client on their PC, they should be able to avoid international roaming rates, provided they have the ability to get onto the internet from their handsets (i.e. they will need to have EDGE or 3G on the phone, GPRS probably being too slow a connection).

Source: Datamonitor

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