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Fring brings cheap international VoIP to mobiles

by Pete Mason on 20 September 2010, 14:25

Tags: Fring, Skype

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Fring may not be much of a household name yet, but the mobile-communications client is certainly making a reputation for itself.  Following a public falling-out with Skype earlier in the year, the company has now launched fringOut to allow cheap international VoIP calls to phones.

The suspiciously familiar-sounding service enables "almost-free" international calling from a mobile to a phone anywhere else in the world.  This translates into rates of under one US cent per minute to many countries, including the UK and Canada.  Of course, you'll still need a data plan to make the calls.

As a part of the announcement, Fring CEO Avi Shechter explained that, "hundreds of millions of people have tried low-cost internet calling on their PC or through restricted mobile offerings. With the launch of fringOut, fringsters can benefit from internet calling with the convenience of mobile without cumbersome wires and cables".

Obviously the client also supports text, voice and video conversations with other Fring users, as well as integration with Windows Live, Google Talk, Yahoo, AIM and other services - though clearly not Skype.

Even though the app is available for other mobile operating-systems, fringOut is currently only enabled for S60/Symbian-based handsets.  However, iOS and Android support are currently in the works and should be available soon.

Despite its issues with Skype, Fring appears undeterred and seems intent on establishing itself as a major player in the mobile-VoIP market.



HEXUS Forums :: 1 Comment

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nothing cheap about it, it's far too expensive!

instead of using fringOut (or SkypeOut for that matter), I use fring with a decent SIP provider called Localphone to make cheap calls. they're a British company, the call quality is great, the support is great, they're really cheap with no connection charges.

a nice trick is to use it from your mobile to call 08xx numbers for their normal rate instead of getting stupid charges from your operator. if you're on PC you can use X-Lite and on Mac you have Telephone, both of which are free. personally, I use a router with a built in VoIP FXS port so there is no need for a PC.

the only way i'd go back to using skype is if they brought video calling and lowered their crazy rates.