Talkster’s Free World Dialing Comes to Skype™
TORONTO—June 23, 2008—Voice 2.0 company, Talkster (www.Talkster.com), will bring its Free World Dialing ad-supported calling service to Skype Unlimited and Skype subscription service customers starting today, providing free international and long distance calls from Skype to any phone, mobile or landline, in more than 30 countries.
This new addition to Talkster’s Free World Dialing service will allow Skype users to call regular phones from their PC for free, eliminating the added fees Skype charges for international calls to cellular phones and landlines.
Even with a Skype Unlimited North America subscription, which provides unlimited local calling within the US and Canada, callers pay up to 36 cents per minute to call international mobile phones and landlines. For example, a Skype call from the U.S. to a mobile phone in Switzerland would costs around 37 cents per minute with Skype, while a call to a mobile phone in Italy would cost 31 cents per minute, and a call to a mobile phone in the UK would cost 25 cents per minute. Skype’s Unlimited Mexico subscription costs a user $5.95 a month for unlimited calls to landlines in three areas of Mexico, with added charges of 2 cents per minute to call landlines and 20 cents per minute to call cell phones throughout the rest of Mexico. Using Talkster’s Free World Dialing with Skype means all of these calls would be free.
“For Skype users, calling mobile phones in other countries is the highest cost phone call they can make,” said James Wanless, Talkster founder and COO. “The addition of Talkster’s Free World Dialing for Skype frees these callers to talk with friends and family around the world on mobile phones and landlines without having to purchase costly credits, and furthers Talkster’s mission of providing ad-supported free telephony worldwide.”
New users can set-up Talkster phone numbers for their friends and family around the globe by visiting www.Talkster.com and entering their name and phone number and the name and phone number of the person they want to call. Talkster will issue new local Talkster numbers for both parties to dial when they want to talk to one another for free. Existing Talkster Free World Dialing users can use the Talkster numbers they already have for their friends and family to place free calls from Skype.
To get started from Skype, users simply change their Skype Caller ID to the number they used when they set-up their Talkster numbers. So for example, if you use your cell phone to place calls with Talkster then you would change your Skype Caller ID to your cell phone number.
Once the Skype Caller ID number has been changed, users follow the standard steps for placing a call with Talkster.
1) Dial the number Talkster has assigned you for the friend you want to call.
2) Talkster rings your friend and tells them to hang up and call you back using their free local Talkster number for you.
3) Stay on the line and wait for your friend to dial in.
4) Listen to a 10-second audio ad preceding your call, then talk for free for as long as you like.
Editor’s Note:
How to use Change your Skype Caller ID:
1) Log into Skype and go to the account settings page.
2) Select “View Settings” next to the Caller ID information.
3) Enter the number you would like to use for your Caller ID (the number you set up your free Talkster numbers with).
4) You will receive a confirmation SMS or message from Skype that your Caller ID has been changed.
5) Start making free calls from your PC to mobiles and landlines around the globe with Talkster.
Isn’t this just telling people how to make a call from Skype so it works with the Talkster service? I don’t see any novel Skype integration here.
A more interesting question, Pat, is whether you think Talkster’s ad supported model would extend to global romaing services?
How boring!
I thought they would start a new service. But they just did … nothing. Besides of issuing an explanation of how to manipulate Skype’s caller ID.
Every user could have done that by himself after some web research.
i agree that this is a very misleading promotion. it would be interesting if talkster allowed the use of skypenames in place of phone numbers. instead they are just explain how talkster and skype can be used together.
Thanks for the post Pat!
We appreciate the coverage even if this isn’t earth shattering news to the industry. What matters most is that those Skype callers who are feeling a financial pinch from paying high rates for international calls WILL think this news is important, and again we appreciate you helping us to communicate to them.
Talkster is working on a simplified calling method for our Free Dialing Service that eliminates the “hang-up and call back” step, but in the meantime, the feedback we have received from actual users is more of a “thank you so much” rather then, “this is too difficult for me to go through to get a free international call.” When we are ready to roll the new service out, Pat, you will be among the first that we share it with of course.
Just to quickly address some of the other points:
1. Our intention with this news was to enable outbound calls from Skype to a number of existing destinations with “caller pays” mobile fees (i.e Europe) without the need to pay anyone the high rates for these destinations (the news release lists examples).
2. While mobile interconnect rates remain high in places like Europe there is no cheaper way, calling from your home country using regular phones and phone networks, to make calls than a Skype/Talkster combination (very few people have the phones or data plans to make wi-fi/3G/GPRS VoIP calls).
3. Talkster is not intended to be a roaming service. Once the EU regulations changed where a call home was the same cost as a local call in the country you were roaming, this door closed. For roaming, services like Maxroam address this and enable a solution that gives lower rates and avoids purchasing local SIMs.
4. Ad supported communications is a growing market. Not limited to just voice communications, but communications as a whole, this [ad support] in combination to “adding value to the communications process” is the goal of Talkster.
Thanks again Pat,
James
It doesn’t work to a country such as Syria or…only for Western contry or Westernised countries….
I am interested for free landline calls to Syria (from Belgium) any suggestions …?