TringMe introduces VoIP accessibility from low-end mass market mobile devices

VoIP has been a boon for long distance internet telephony for quite a while now even-though it’s mainly accessible from PCs. A key problem which hasn’t been well-attended so far is a way for a common man who doesn’t have a PC to use VoIP (popularly known as “internet telephony”) to make really cheap worldwide calls. Mobile-VoIP can be an answer to this problem since mobile penetration rate is increasing by many folds every year. In India alone, there are over 200 million mobile users compared to 5 million broadband users. However existing Mobile-VoIP solutions (including one previously introduced by TringMe) really cater to Smartphones and rely on GPRS or 2.5/3G (data network) connections, a combination that isn’t in the reach of a common man.  Statistics show that :

  1. In developing countries like India, more than 80% mobile users do not have data connection on their mobile. And for the remaining ones who have it, data connection is poor to have any effective real time communication like VoIP. We strongly believe that to make Mobile-VoIP a common-place technology, it needs to cater to the lowest-end mobile devices, devices which can just make voice-calls and do SMS. (source: TRAI)
  2. Smartphones only constituted 10% of the total mobiles sold last year (source: Symbian market share data).

So almost 90% of mobile users (which translates to millions of users) – a fairly big share of market – are devoid of using Mobile-VoIP via their existing mobile devices. To address this market, TringMe, after successfully demonstrating Mobile VoIP from a Smartphone, is now launching a new patent pending service which allows a low-end mobile phone to make VoIP based calls without installing anything. All one needs to do is send an SMS to TringMe and it will connect you to any phone number worldwide. It’s very convenient – no PC’s, no smartphone, no 3G/data connectivity and no configuration - just send a SMS containing the phone number and you are connected. Couple this convenience with TringMe’s extremely competitive low-price worldwide calling rates for a win-win combination. Infact, with this the call can terminate not only on phone but on any of the devices that TringMe terminates on. For e.g if a user has configured his TringMe profile to terminate inbound calls on IM (e.g. Gtalk), then sending an SMS with user’s tringme address will establish the call from the caller to user GTalk client.

With this feature, scheduling calls is as easy is sending an SMS with relevant details in the body. TringMe’s infrastructure takes care of establishing the call at the scheduled time.

We are very excited to demonstrate this technology thereby creating a market opportunity to deliver TringMe’s key offerings on a common man’s low-end mobile device as well.

TringMe continues to be in the forefront of the web-based telephony space with its well-rounded portfolio. It currently provides click-to-call widgets, fully web-based SIP phone, enterprise and consumer centric web-based toll-free service, Mobile-VoIP, ability to make and receive web based calls on phones, IMs and Web. TringMe’s platform – TringSwitch – is an enterprise grade scalable platform developed from scratch to provide optimum performance for web-based telephony. We are also planning to collaborate with global players including providers, retailers etc to take this service to next level. Write to us if you like to join hands.

VoIP calls from low-end mobile devices
It’s very easy to use this service. The alpha pilot is currently only available in India. You can send an SMS to 91- 9980153695 to try out this service. Please follow the instructions below:

Register
1 - Register with TringMe if you haven’t already – http://tringme.com

2- Register the mobile with TringMe from which one wants to make the low cost worldwide call. User can register their mobile with their TringMe account by sending an SMS as follows:

tringme reg <tringme username> <tringme password>

For example, “tringme reg myname@myemail.com abcdef”

A confirmation message will be received about success of the registration.

Making Calls 
Once registered, user can make worldwide calls, not only to the phones but to Gtalk, SIP URI etc by merely sending an SMS as follows:

tringme <phonenumber>

for example, to call a US number 1-(858)-555-1212, one only need to send a SMS “tringme 18585551212”

Users can also call millions of worldwide SIP users just by using SIP URI as follows:

tringme <SIP URI>

To make a call to a registered TringMe user, send an SMS as follows:

tringme <user’s email address>

This will establish a call from the originator’s mobile device to the calle’s currently configured termination device. For example, if user has chose to receive call on Gtalk, sending above SMS will connect your phone to his or her Gtalk.

Scheduling a Call
You can even schedule a call for later time, say for a business meeting or conference. TringMe understand time in plain english and you can specify absolute date and time or in relative terms. You can schedule it in one of several ways:

tringme 18585551212 next week  11:30AM
tringme 18585551212 March 17, 2008 11:30AM
tringme 18585551212 tomorrow 11:30AM

The time specified will be as per the timezone setting which you have configured in your TringMe profile.

To unscheduled a call, just send “tringme unsched <call id>” in the SMS body.

Other
One can unregister the mobile currently registered with TringMe by sending message “tringme unreg“.
To check the account balance, send message “tringme bal”.  Also, “tringme help” message will get you help on existing commands.

As mentioned above, the alpha pilot is currently only available in India. We are presently working on adding more messaging gateways and enabling this service in other countries as well. During beta, you may rarely experience minor delay in SMS processing during peak hours and we will appreciate your patience.

We really look forward to hearing your comments and feedback.

Are you paying double for your phone calls?

Some of you might have used a web based click-to-call service - essentially a callback service which calls you back and then connects you to calle?

Have you noticed that you are really being charged for two calls to use such a services. Let me walk you through a call’s sequence for such a service

On top of the two calls charge, if the origination or termination points are mobile devices, you and the other party pay for cellular airtime as well (if applicable).

With TringMe, there will only one leg of call in a call connection - the leg between TringMe and the calle - if the calle uses a phone. If calle is using Gtalk or similar service, then the call is completely free of charge. In any case, caller connects to the service using IP connectivity. TringMe doesn’t force you to use a PC only but you can use it from your mobile device using Mobile VOIP.

With our recently launched TringPhone, one can make web-based worldwide calls using any VoIP provider. This service is built on TringMe platform and utilizes the same benefits.

With atmost a single call charge, the convenience of using TringMe from mobile device with the freedom of using it from where you want makes it a strong offering.