Ad-Supported VoIP Calling Network Draws 10,000 Users per Day

Ad-Supported VoIP Calling Network Draws 10,000 Users per Day

By Michael Dinan

The telecommunications industry took a few more hits this week, as the nation’s third-largest wireless carrier, Sprint Nextel Corp., posted a $1.62 billion loss for the fourth quarter and $2.8 billion loss for all of 2008, and North America’s largest telecom equipment vendor, Nortel Networks Corp., announced that it will sell parts of its application delivery portfolio to Radware Ltd.

As in other industries, much of the activity in telecom – including mergers, acquisitions, layoffs and bankruptcy filings – is tied to cost-cutting in this economic recession.

Clearly, products and services that save money for consumers and businesses have a chance to pick up market share and emerge as winners.

Just as the recession began to take hold in earnest, before the holidays, John Biggs of the New York Times wrote here about CallingAmerica.com, a new ad-supported Web service that lets people make phone calls to any number in the United States from any computer with a Web browser and a broadband connection.

Under the service, unregistered users can make calls of up to two minutes, while registered users (registration is free) get unlimited calls of up to 15 minutes.

It’s been about two months since the service – whose technology is developed by Goober.com, with U.S. offices in Dover, Delaware and a development center is based in Mainz, Germany – came online.

Today, TMCnet spoke to Goober’s quality assurance manager, Zoubeir Ben-Salah, and discovered that already, the service is seeing about 10,000 users per day. We also found out that Goober may be eyeing a service that allows for calls greater than 15 minutes.

Our exchange follows.

TMCnet: It’s been two months since CallingAmerica.com launched. How much activity have you seen? Can you give us specific numbers of users?

Zoubeir Ben-Salah: We are seeing around 10,000 users per day and so far around 20,000 have signed up with our service. But we also had days with as many as 30,000 users.

TMCnet: What kind of interest, if any, are you garnering from new advertisers?

Z B-S: Advertisers are very interested because we can assure that the video-ads are watched in full length. User sits in front of the screen during the phone call so we can fully brand the Web site for the advertiser.

TMCnet: At the moment, it looks like unregistered users can make calls of up to two minutes, while registered users can make unlimited 15-minute calls. What are your future plans for this service? Are there any plans in the works, for example, to charge users a nominal fee for calls of more than 15 minutes?

Z B-S: Callingamerica.com is an ad-sponsored service, and we are not planning to offer a pay service. The 15-minute duration might be lifted in the future, combined with specific promotions.

TMCnet: We reported this week about the United States’ third-largest wireless carrier, Sprint Nextel Corp., posting a $1.62 billion loss for the fourth quarter. As the company’s chief executive officer acknowledged in his remarks, much of Sprint Nextel’s downturn (the company recently laid off 8,000 workers) is driven by the recession. How is the recession affecting consumers’ views of VoIP-based offerings such as yours?

Z B-S: People love our service because it’s easy and free, with no strings attached. In difficult economics such as now any savings is welcome. From what we see here, we have the right offer at the right time.