VoIP apps on your smartphone are a dime a dozen, helping you to save some money and avoid running up a nasty phone bill with your network of choice. But what if you are the network? How do you compete with free?
With O2 it seems to be a case of “if you can’t beat them, join them”: they have plans to trial a new service called O2 Connect which will allow you to make calls to UK landlines or mobiles and send texts over your WiFi network. The plan right now is if you’re an existing O2 customer then you would be able to make calls to other O2 customers and UK landlines for free – other scenarios seem to be up in the air right now. One of the benefits to using O2’s solution will be that your mobile number will be your ID – no need to set up yet another user account then.
O2 plan to offer a dedicated iPhone and Android app to make the magic happen, and the trial will initially be limited to 1,000 users. Invitation only I’m afraid, although if you’re planning to crash the Wired 2011 event in London, you might be lucky enough to get in on the action.
If all goes well with the trial, then O2 Connect is expected to launch in 2012.
Source: The Next Web
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