8X8 gets serious about Mobile VoIP

Most aggressive of last week's CES mobile VoIP announcements was the offer by U.S. provider 8X8 Inc. of a free trial of its new mobile talk application for U.S. consumers.

The Packet8 mobile application automates the calling process and offers 3-5 cent a minute type calling rates to most international landlines and around 16 cents a minute to mobiles. Consumers simply text "MobileTalkCES" to 1-408-386-4137 to get the free trial service. There is also a website sign up, but that involves getting various codes out of your mobile and is clunky and not friendly to use.

Once the application is downloaded the caller simply dials any international number and the service takes over the call using 8X8's network. Call quality from my small survey is as good as switched calls and makes calling cards and web based services look very yesterday.

The Packet8 trial offers two dollars of free calls--which is equal to about an hour of landline call time to most places--so it will be intriguing to see just how many subscribers the big, publicly listed U.S. VoIP provider can convert. 8x8 is the second largest pure play VoIP provider in the U.S.

For More:
- Packet8 offers free trial of mobile VoIP service Release

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