Free Calls & Texts Forever!

Each day we're seeing more companies offering services that can replace your traditional phone operator in favour of the Internet alternative VoIP (Voice over IP). VoIP is a family of technologies and transmission techniques for the delivery of voice communications, such as phone calls. Smart phones are the perfect platform for VoIP and we are seeing many applications taking advantage by integrating VoIP into your mobile phone. Unfortunately many of these apps are unstable, require buying minutes or even have an impractical handle replacing your contact number.

But now a company called Viber Media Inc. has brought us Viber an application compatible with iPhone and Android with a Blackberry version in the works. So what's different about Viber? Well for a start it actually works and it does so with little fuss, it allows you to use your phone to make calls and send messages for free.

Viber is an application for iPhone® and Android™ phones that lets you make free phone calls and send text messages to anyone who also has the application installed. 

You can call or text any Viber user, anywhere in the world, for free. Viber integrates seamlessly with your existing address book, has great sound quality and once activated, does not require a PIN, user name or any additional "in application" purchase. All Viber features are 100% FREE! 

Upon installation your contacts are scanned and anyone in your phone book who already uses Viber will appear instantly in the Viber contacts tab. You can now call or text these contacts for free - its as simple as that! Viber cannot currently call numbers that are not using the Viber service, so unfortunately there will be no calling Grandma on her landline.



The only catch with Viber and many other similar VoIP applications is that in order for them to work they need to be installed on both your handset and your contacts handset. This is where one particular Internet based call provider has a natural advantage. Google have their very own Internet call service 'Google Voice'. Google Voice is currently limited to to the lucky folks in the U.S. but has been integrated inside the Android operating system across all newer Android phones over the globe. Google Voice is a dormant giant which one day could make operator call packages obsolete. At the flick of a switch Google could well become the worlds biggest call provider.

Google Voice, Viber and many other similar applications are testimony to the changing landscape of telephony and the way we communicate using voice calls. Understandably this makes the big mobile phone companies nervous and many of them have even blocked the ports used by these apps to prevent use over their networks.

In an ever increasing world of Internet based VoIP calling, the networks will need to adapt their business model to stay relevant. As history and other industries have proven change should be embraced and those networks unable or just reluctant to change wont survive.

What do you think? Are you moving to free Internet calls or are you happy with your operators charges? Let me know your opinions below...