In an obvious bid to out-do Skype, VoIP company Fring has just launched its new ‘FringOut’ service. This feature enables people using the Fring application to place international calls to landlines or cell phones at very low rates – as low as 1c per minute.
Both FringOut and SkypeOut are integrated into the Skype and Fring applications, and users of both systems purchase credits to pay for their calls. However, FringOut’s start out rate of 1c per minute is considerably lower than the 2.3c per minute start out rate shown on SkypeOut’s pricing page.
A ‘rate calculator’ on the Fring website indicates the various rates charged for each of the over 200 countries where this option is available. Voice calling to Canada is charged 0.4c per minute, to the U.K 0.6c per minute and to India 1.1c per minute, but calls to many destinations cost more than 1c per minute, and rates are usually higher for calls to cell phones than those to landlines.
At present, FringOut only works with Nokia devices running on a Symbian S60 operating system. Fring released a statement indicating the feature will “soon be available on iPhone and Android devices.”
Skype may have to consider lowering its SkypeOut rates to compete with the newly launched FringOut option. For the moment however, and in spite of the “thriving community of tens of millions of fringsters” proudly referred to by Fring CEO Avi Shechter, Fring continues to be a minor competitor to Skype, which has 124 million registered users.
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