VOIP Internet Phone Center

Lots of mobile phone retailers have made a lot of money selling free line rental deals to customers. Their trick was to ensure that not all customers actually received a free line rental deal by making cash back redemptions conditional.

Today however, the worm seems to have turned, with a number of companies previously offering these deals either going bust, or stopping their offers.

The problem seems to be that customers are now better informed on how to successfully make a claim for cash back. Also, as more and more customers successfully complete the process, retailers are increasingly up against experienced bargain hunters who know how to play the system. The more of these repeat customers there are out there the harder things will be for mobile phone retailers offering this kind of deal.

All that said, recently there has been a resurgence in this kind of deal, particularly from the big players. Perhaps, with recession in the air they are finding these deals increasingly effective in terms of driving sales, despite the risks that go with them.

Service Name: Skype
Price: Free
System Requirements: 400-MHz CPU, 128MB of RAM, 10MB hard drive space, microphone & sound card, speakers or headphones, Internet connection, Microsoft Windows XP or 2000

Skype is currently the largest VoIP provider and is the fastest growing VoIP company. It is safe to say Skype are here to stay as the leading global Internet telephony company.

Skype was founded August of 2003 by same people who started the well known Kazaa peer-to-peer software used for file sharing over it’s network. Skype claims that it is the premiere true peer-to-peer VoIP telephony system. The same technology used in Kazaa that made it what it is and ever so popular is also powering Skype’s VoIP internet phone calls.

What makes Skype so different is Skype doesn’t make use of a central server for processing user data & connection information. Every Computer that runs the Skype software exists as a node in a vast network of Skype users all sharing the operating system load. There is a shared information database which allows a Skype users to see who is online at any point they wish. The VoIP calls are able to be routed via other Skype users or nodes if direct communication is not possible.

The concept of Skype is to end up with a self-running network of users where everyone on the Skype network is able to communicate for free in a similar way to the instant messenger programs like ICQ or MSN Messenger but in this case using voice rather than text. Skype is opening the path for free global VoIP telephony making use of the power broadband internet has to offer in allowing computer users to engage in unlimited, high quality internet based voice phone calls over a peer-to-peer program. Your calling from and calling to location and distance are now made irrelevant; all you need is an internet connection which is becoming much less of an issue these days with the introduction and fast expansion of Wireless networks in public places. Skype imposes no time constraints of costs for making calls. Just as with the ICQ & MSN messenger type services you can have ‘buddy’ lists and also search the Skype user database for more people to connect and chat with.

If you want to chat for free you can’t go wrong with one of the largest VoIP providers: Skype.