racoma.com.phJ. Angelo Racoma on technology, economics, writing, problogging, and getting things done

I’ve been using this nifty feature for quite some time now, and I think people will be interested, especially those who want to save up on telephone costs. Do you know you can sign up for a US and/or UK-based number that will route calls to your computer thru VoIP?

It’s as simple as signing up for an account with FWD, downloading a SIP-enabled VoIP client, and signing up for a DID (direct international dialling) account with IPKall or CallUK.

Here’s another way by which Voice-over-Internet Protocol provider Skype is bridging the gap between countries and continents: Live Translation!

My thoughts posted over at ForeverGeek:

Simply put, not everyone else in the world can speak your language, nor is everyone always willing (nor readily able) to suddenly adapt overnight just to accommodate you. And I’d tend to think this is a mutual thing—you probably won’t think it’s convenient to learn Cantonese or Hmong at five minutes’ notice, would you? Nor would it be practical to start learning a foreign language just so you can converse with a friend for 30 minutes.

Skype probably realized that majority of its clients aren’t interested in chatting up the next-door neighbor or friends from the next city through its facilities—in most cases, local phone calls would be cheaper! VoIP users are likely those looking into savings from over-seas or long-distance calls.

It’s quite expensive, though, at $2.99 per minute. Hey, if you need any English-Tagalog translation, you might want to drop me a line. I’d probably be willing to do it for free, time permitting. Or for text translation, you can try Babelfish instead (Google Translate is cool, too, but it has a limited language set).

Not exactly going public, but Vonage, one of America’s leading VoIP providers, is floating shares to raise capital.

The fast-growing but loss-making business hopes to raise up to $250m from the flotation (£142m) to win new customers and expand its services.

To me, it sounds like either Vonage is planning to really go big time–i.e., going face to face with the telecom giants–or they’re at the losing end of the battle, and badly need cash to survive.

At any rate, I believe VoIP is here to stay. It’s just the business model and the players that are bound to change.

Check out my latest article on Pinoy.tech.blog: The Free 411 Hack: Free Calls to the USA!

This is a cool hack that’s been discussed in some techie circles recently: free calls to the USA via 1-800-FREE-411.

I tried it via Skype, and OMG–it’s way cool!

Yes, you can call listed US numbers for free via this toll-free number.  If you can’t access using your POTS (that’s Plain Old Telephone System), then use Skype–SkypeOut calls to 1-800 numbers are free.

It’s not exactly advertised on the Budget Card’s web profile, but PLDT has been distributing flyers to its landline subscribers that they’ve lowered their rates.

Yes, that’s 5 Pesos per minute!  They actually course the calls thru the Internet.  Yes, that’s PLDT going VoIP (they’ve been at it for some time now).

Check it out at Pinoy.tech.blog.