In response to the announcements from Skype and others to make specific calls free,
Jajah comes with an
announcement on its own:
"The deal applies to calls placed within the top two zones of Jajah's tiered rate program. Specifically, consumers may call landline and mobile phones for free to and within the United States, Canada, China, Hong Kong, Singapore, and Taiwan.
The plan also applies to landline calls only within: Argentina, Australia, Austria, Belgium, the Czech Republic, Denmark, Finland, France, Germany, Greece, Hungary, Ireland, Israel, Italy, Japan, South Korea, Luxembourg, Malaysia, Mexico, Netherlands, New Zealand, Norway, Poland, Portugal, Russia, San Marino, Spain, Sweden, Switzerland, Thailand, the United Kingdom, and Venezuela.
"Jajah's Free Global Calling Plan is the further realization of Jajah's vision of breaking down the barriers to global communication," said Roman Scharf, the company's co-founder, in a statement. "People have been predicting free phone calls for years, now Jajah is the first to actually make free phone calls a reality. With Jajah, you place a regular call and talk on your phone the way you always have; we simply ask that you dial the call from our website."
There are three catches: one, both parties must have signed up to the Jajah service, which is free; two, both VOIP accounts that Jajah connects must be actively used, or else the call will be charged a per-minute rate. Finally, the company has implemented a "fair use" policy to encourage customers to limit their talk time."
I like Jajah because it frees me from being near my computer (as Skype does), so I can use my cell phone and the call quality is superb. I'm going to try it later today...
Thanks Frederik!