January 4, 2011, 4:08 pm Free Phone Calls By David Pogue NY Times
http://pogue.blogs.nytimes.com/2011/01/04/free-phone-calls/?ref=business Look, you might have a problem with advertising. But face it: Ads pay for your free TV, free radio and free Web sites. So I’ve always found it weird that ads can’t pay for free phone calls. Yes, I know about the ad-supported 800-FREE411 for directory assistance. But I’m talking about letting Verizon or somebody else sponsor my call to France or England or China. And I know about free calls using Skype or Google Voice. But I’m talking about calls from any phone — even landlines — to any phone number. Not from your computer. Not to a “handle” like SkiBunny2000. Thanks to a new service called FreePhone2Phone, that transaction is now possible. Listen to a 12-second ad, get 10 minutes of free calling to any of 55 countries. According to the company, 85 percent of all calls are under 10 minutes long, so most calls are covered. If you have a cellphone, this concept can save you big dollars when you’re calling overseas. If you’re among the millions of low-income Americans who have landlines and basic phone plans, you can save 50 cents or $1 every time you call long distance, since you begin every FreePhone2Phone call by dialing a local access number. To try out FreePhone2Phone, I dialed a local number, which I looked up at FreePhone2Phone.com. To reach the New York City access line, you’d dial 1 (646) 500-8620. I listened — actually, half-listened — to a 12-second ad for the University of Phoenix, then pressed 1 to dial my number. I plugged in 011-44-20 7806 1000, the number for the Covent Garden Hotel in London. I just picked a hotel at random because I knew I wouldn’t be waking anybody up. The call was placed instantly, and the sound quality was fantastic. I asked the attendant with the cute British accent for the nearest Tube station. Leicester Square, she told me. I tried a couple of other international calls, my mind buzzing with the new paradigm that had suddenly opened. Frankly, I can’t see why anyone would ever use a calling card again; by the time you’ve fussed with typing in your authorization codes, you’ve spent more time to place a calling-card call than you would listening to a FreePhone2Phone ad. Here’s the fine print: Each call is limited to 10 minutes. A warning tone beeps every 5 seconds for the last half minute, and then you’re cut off. If you try to call the same number again the same day, your call is limited to five minutes, to prevent you from exploiting the system by calling back over and over all day. Calls overseas are mostly limited to landline numbers. Calling to cellphones overseas is limited to a few industrialized countries. I know from having reviewed Skype Out and other international services that calls to overseas cellphones are always astronomically more expensive — too expensive, in this case, for FreePhone2Phone to cover the cost of your call with the ad. There’s no reason you can’t make free phone calls to numbers in the United States, too, but this trick makes more sense if you have a landline. If you have a cellphone, you’re still using up airtime minutes, so you’re not saving any money, although you could use FreePhone2Phone to mask your calling habits on your phone bill, for example. Please don’t barrage me with hate mail, pointing out that yet another sacrosanct, advertising-free medium has now been invaded. FreePhone2Phone is optional, for heaven’s sake. If you’d rather pay $2.50 a minute to call Paris, please do. Me? I’m adding my local FreePhone2Phone access number to my phone’s address book. I’d much rather wait 10 seconds and get my overseas calls for free. -- ======================================== George Antunes, Political Science Dept University of Houston; Houston, TX 77204 Voice: 713-743-3923 Fax: 713-743-3927 Mail: antunes at uh dot edu _______________________________________________ Medianews mailing list [email protected] http://lists.etskywarn.net/mailman/listinfo/medianews
