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Request for a bit more "technical" information

Submitted by bhathwind on May 26, 2007 - 4:21pm.

Hello EQO community,

I'd like to know a bit more about how this service works. There's a client application on the phone which can communicate within the EQO network for free and at your current rates when you make calls outside of the network. So far so good. What I'm not clear on is, when I make a call from the EQO mobile client, whether the call is going across the voice network to a phone number in-country, being bounced via EQO's VOIP network and then connected to the phone on the other end (which could be in a different country) or if the call is going VOIP all the way from my phone to the EQO VOIP network then to the phone on the other end. The information I've read thus far implies that it is the former solution. So the overall cost of the call is the cost of a local call at whatever the caller's in-country call rates are to a land line + the EQO rates on top of that? Can someone confirm that this is the case?

I was further confused by the method described by in the forum topic "Calling with EQO Mobile" wherin a call between two EQO users would involve both of them having to dial a local number in the country they are in - Chris said: "When you make an EQO to EQO call you must place the call and then dial a local number on your phone. The person answering the call must accept and also dial into the EQO access number."

I've not seen a list of local access numbers and thus am unclear about how one would do this.

It would be very helpful if someone could point me to this information on the site. I've read just about everything there is from the user guide to the forum posts and haven't found anything along the lines of a step-by-step guide to making a call that includes this information. If a step by step guide to making a call a) between two online EQO users and b) from an online EQO mobile user to a non-EQO number could be made available, perhaps as a "sticky" post in this forum, that would be wonderful. It would be even better if some "what's going on behind the scenes" information were made available as well. No industrial secrets mind you - but enough to allow me to understand whether I'm making a phone call with VOIP going on in the background (and thus need to think about how much an in-country call to a fixed line would cost) or whether I'm VOIPing all the way (and thus need to think about how much the data charges are going to cost).

Just for the record, I think the idea you've implemented is very good and am looking forward to using the service "in anger" with the overwhelming number of international calls I've been making lately. My bill is likely to be around 450 euro this month - that's about 600 USD and even more CAD. Most of this is due to international calls so I'm likely to wind up being one of your best customers - assuming I can understand what using the service is going to cost.

I'm based in Italy - just in case that helps answer any of the questions above.

Regards,
Brad

‹ Samsung EqocentricitiesPhone calls via Google Talk ›

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International calls - dials an in-country land line

Submitted by bhathwind on May 27, 2007 - 12:57am.

After experimenting a bit, I now see that EQO places the call directly when it is an in-country call but that a call is placed to an in-country land line when an international call is placed and that the communication goes over that connection and then, presumably, an EQO VOIP connection to the final destination.

It will be interesting to see how the EQO - EQO connections work. If the connection is always over a call to a land line phone in-country and this must happen on both ends of the conversation, I'm not sure how cost-effective the system is for this kind of call.

Since I'm calling from an Italian cellular phone, this will save a lot of money when calling from Italy to my international contacts. When I'm out of country, however, it would be useful to be able to tell EQO that I'm in a different country so that it calls a number in that country instead of a phone number in Rome. Say I'm in France for example - a call to a french number from my Italian mobile phone would be somewhat expensive - but much less expensive than calling to Rome in order to place a call to, say, the UK.

It would also be very useful, in this case, to know more or less how much data EQO sends/receives over the GPRS/UMTS/etc. connection. When one is travelling internationally, these services are by the KB and not covered by call/data plans and thus represent an extra cost.

Regards,
Brad

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Rates

Submitted by planger on May 27, 2007 - 9:32am.

Hi Brad
I found the samething as you, but I have an advantage, that I have be in and out with this system for the past year.
Until may 23 You could also use skype as a repiter, as long as you own computer where on, and the program was locked into skype. Then I'm using my skype out account.
I am using this until sometime mid next month, and then hopefully I should get a new beta program for my WM5 phone,and will then be testing this.
You can lock on any wifi connection in the supported countries, and then go out via this (there are many free hotspots), and yes if you are using your normal account, you will be charged rooming cost from you cell provide (expensice).
I have also seen that the new program is plasing calls to a landline, (I guess that it is VOIP), and then it is transferred to a terminal in the other end as well (like skype), but where I can't use skype without a wifi connection, I get god reasonable call via this great idea.
My phone bill is apx. 300-500 euros per month and has been for the past 6 month, before that it was 1500-2000 euro per month.
Poul

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re: request for more technical information

Submitted by peter on May 29, 2007 - 10:57am.

Brad,

It sounds like you pretty much figured out how the app works on your own! I would add that the application hides the complexity of the local access number dialing from the user. If you have any more questions that you are unclear about, feel free to ask.

As for the roaming question...currently, each EQO account can only be associated with 1 mobile number. This allows users to make calls from their home country but, at this time, we do not recommend using EQO Mobile for cost-effective roaming while abroad. We’re constantly working to improve EQO Mobile so watch for updates as we roll out new features.

Peter
EQO Customer Support

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