Mobile long distance arbitrage services

While Skype is the undisputed leader in PC-to-PC VoIP services, its service extension onto regular mobile phones thus far has largely been the efforts of its ecosystem partners such as EQO, iSkoot, and SoonR. EQO for Skype focuses on multi-modal communications and extending Skype services onto the mobile phone, allowing users to make and receive voice calls and IM chat messages with their buddies using their Skype online identities. SoonR provides remote access to the users PCs from the mobile phone, and the SoonR Talk feature allows Skype users to initiate Skype voice calls from a mobile phone browser. iSkoot allows users to initiate voice calls from mobile phones to iSkoot's servers which then bridge the calls onto the Skype network. All of these services utilize Skype as the implicit long distance inter-exchange carrier for bridging mobile voice calls as local access calls through the traditional public telephone switch network (PSTN / PLMN).

For cheaper mobile long distance calling, users have been using prepaid calling cards for a long time. In North America, you can purchase these cards online or pick one up from a local 7-eleven convenience store. With a prepaid calling card, the user typically calls a local access or free-area calling number, enters the access code on the prepaid card, and then enters the destination number. This method of mobile long distance calling is not convenient but very inexpensive. More recently, a new category of mobile long distance arbitrage service providers have emerged.

Rebtel allows you to create a local access number for you and another local access number for your friend overseas. Base on its current rates, for US$1 per week, if you dial your local access number, and your friend dials his or her local access number into a meet-me bridge, you both only pay for local access mobile service charges without any mobile long distance service fees. If you have 10 friends, you have 20 new telephone numbers to play with. But most of us probably have just one or two long distance friends that we call frequently so the number of new phone numbers to save onto your mobile phone address book is quite manageable. The best thing about Rebtel's service is that there is no software to download, the user's home PC does not have to be on, and the service can be used on any mobile phone.

Another service is Jajah. It is free but mostly limited to certain calling areas, and not as attractive to mobile users as compared to landline phone users. With Jajah, the user enters the phone numbers of the two ends of the call, and Jajah connects the caller and callee via a call back service. It is simple to use but the key drawback is that the user has to initiate the calls from a browser.

For anonymous calling, there are services such as Netzero's privatephone which allows disposable identities and phone numbers. It is free for US users but the main problem with this service is that it is a direct to voice mail service. As Niklas Zennstrom of Skype says "people like to talk...".