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Making Free Phone Calls With Google's GrandCentral
andrewmin writes with an enthusiastic pitch for Google's closed-beta call-aggregation service called GrandCentral, for which we non-beta-testers can at least reserve a number. Specifically, he's using GrandCentral in combination with Gizmo5 to make free VoiP calls. Excerpted: "Most of the time, I'm at my computer. Or near it. And if I had an internet device like a Nokia N810 or an iPod Touch, I'd have it with me 24/7. And since most of the time I'm at a place where there's a WiFi network, it makes sense for me to use VoIP rather than a regular phone line. ... I'm talking about making and receiving calls that are completely free (that is, $0.00/minute) forever (that is, no 30-day demo) for as much as you want (that is, no 30-day trial or five hour/week limit)."
half way thru your call
a soft 3rd part voice interrupts your conversation "this is Ads by Google: for free unlimited hosting please see http://..../"
So much for 95% of the world ...
If only Google would innovate a bit ;)
Someone already reserved (314)159-2653.
If sharing a song makes you a pirate, what do I have to share to be a ninja?
Maine just got indoor plumbing, you'd think we would be candidates for VOIP.
Anyway, Grand Central may be a replacement for a land-line phone, but I think Andrew is being a bit optimistic about the adequacy of using it as a "mobile" phone.
http://www.freeworlddialup.com/ Gives anyone a free phone number forever, globally, and you can dial to and from most VOIP services.
It works great with any VOIP SW or HW or Asterisk for a fancy home answering machine.
If you need the POTS (Plain Old Telephone Service) world to call you, http://www.ipkall.com/ will give you a free Washington phone nuumber.
don't cut it off www.mgmbill.org
This is not entirely accurate. I have been doing this on my nokia n810 for some time. It has worked, and worked nicely and freely to boot. However a friend of mine using this set up was told he'd need to purchase minutes in that he was over using the free service. He went back to using vonage. I have used the two in tandem and not had any problems with it whatsoever or had a limitation on phone minutes.
Hmm. My UID is 7 digits long...
Just as Google "earns" (however indirectly) from what we search for (eg, enabling it to increase its ad revenues, by positioning "relavent" ad's beside our search results)...
so can it (very likely) continue to earn even more, eg, automatically listening-in on our future phone conversations - using well-developed voice-to-text technologies - to gather valuable information from them.
Perhaps we should be -paid- for each use of Google's "free" VoIP service, ie, if/when it is unfolded before us... more as harvested info is sold at higher prices, less before it is sold.
A similar rewards model should also apply to Google Mail messages sent & received.
Ok, while you hold out for that, the rest of us will just enjoy free service.
Let us know how it works.
He's making free phone calls to the USA. I am pretty sure he cannot call Benin or Nepal free of charge. That is the nature of the industry. Once this Google product is out, free calls will not be to every device that can receive them all over the world. Free calls will be to USA and Canada.
By the way, can anyone tell me what determines the cost of an international call? My provider (Sprint Canada) charges an average of 49 cents/min for a call to Asia though you can use some of the many pre-paid phone cards and make a call at about 7 cents/min to the same destination.
VoIP to landland or cell phones are not free, at least if your time and friendships are worth something:
"Users NEW to the All Calls Free plan get 20 minutes of free calling simply by getting ONE friend to sign up for a new Gizmo account. There are no commitments and no hidden fees."
http://gizmo5.com/pc/network/mobile-or-landline-calls/
for the extra $3 a month i'd rather purchase the skype unlimited north america plan, the service and call quality are good and i dont't have to garble together a bunch of different services, for my $3 its just not worth the extra hassles to use gizmo or grand central.
just my $3
...sooner than you think. 2015 is way off. 2009? Maybe...
Knowledge is power. Knowledge shared is power multiplied.
The idea of universal and free phone access was raised in Scott Adams' "The Religion War," as a hacker's dying act to make all telephone calls in the world free. The war ends almost as quick as it began, and society rededicates itself to sustaining this new and free communication network.
Life is irony, and nothing ever goes as planned.
How many of these services are there now, hundreds at least. Maybe Google should make a search engine for VoIP services, so we can compare all the freeness.
- Adam L. Beberg - The Cosm Project - http://www.mithral.com/
I'm trying to think of a name for this technology. It's not vapourware, because it actually exists. It's not malware, but the amount of trouble it causes is comparable. It's like Linux was in 1990, fine if you have time to burn and want something that works 5% of the time to get a warm, smug geeky sense of satisfaction. I've tried Skype. It was bollocks. Worked about 10% of the time at most. Asterix systems too. All bollocks. Dropped calls, unintelligable connections, configuration nightmares, lots of "enterprise" companies offering things but no service or readable documentation from anyone. Like a secret club of people who don't really want you to know how to do it. Lot's of partial truths about the resquirements, hyperbole, talking it up as new panacea when in reality its unusable. That's the reality of VOIP. Sure it will "get there". In about 5 years when the ISPs carve up the land. Then it will cost as much as regular telephony and nobody will notice the difference. I name VOIP "bollocksware". It will never be anything but a geek curiosity in its present form.
Isn't it actually Gizmo that is making and receiving the free phone calls? So why not just use it? Or did I miss a big piece of the article because to me it just looks like the author is using Grand Central to push a call through Gizmo.
I use www.innoport.com which allows APIs for customizing access...
I've been using the beta for a few months now, and its pretty slick. I think the intention is to charge for the service at some point. On the settings tab, they list what "plan" you have.
Right now there is no advertising on the website or inserted into your calls.
Congratulations douchebag.
but alas, I've already posted. damn.
:x
The iwank touch does not have a microphone. How does one intend to speak? I know you apple fanboys ignore facts, but overcoming impossibilities will surely shatter your gay world?
To -make- calls, if you have no other option, the GrandCentral web system (http://m.grandcentral.com/) is a bit clunky, but OK for residents of FreedomLand.
(I signed up long before the Google acquisition; my number still works after a LONG period of inactivity)
IPKall takes away your number if you don't use it for a few weeks.
Gmail *does* pay you - with a free email account.
I've never understood people's desire to use VOIP over WiFi on their cell phones. What is wrong with just using your phone?
My wife and I share a family plan and we get plenty of minutes, and they roll over which is a big help because we don't have to have a plan that allows for that one month when we have higher than normal usage.
I guess some people are on the phone constantly and have to buy a prohibitively expensive plan? But are we talking 5000 minutes or what? Business folk who are on the phone that much every month probably need some mobility- i.e. you'd like to be able to leave your hotspot while on an important phone call.
The payment you are receiving is the service itself. You are under no obligation whatsoever to use it, and if the benefit of the service does not outweigh the privacy issues in your opinion, that's fine. For others, the service may be good enough to warrant the problems you spoke of.
I've still not gotten an invite ever for this, so don't forget about that aspect either.
I love being able to record calls, I love the call screening, and I love being able to select which number I receive calls on.
voice mail in your email, selectable ring-ins.
I love grand central.
They're using their grammar skills there.
Most public wi-fi spots are so saturated with traffic that IP telphony is next to useless. When you have 50 people all swilling nasty over roasted Starbucks coffee while watching Youtube videos you are not going to get a very good IP-phone connection.
Just another thing Google can do and MS or Apple or ? cannot do because of antitrust. How is Google able to do basically whatever it wants to and no one else can(specifically M$FT)? I smell a rat, but I sure the bulk of true /. people just love the monopoly Google is trying to develope as /. ers and others try to destroy the bad M$FT Just thoughts
GrandCentral - from whom I've had a number since before Google bought them - gives you the option of providing either (a) the caller's caller-ID, or (b) GrandCentral's caller-ID. If you use option (b), you give up knowing who's calling you before picking up the phone, but you can add GrandCentral to your "Fave-5" or whever you might have.
GrandCentral will still tell you who's calling, of ocurse...
What I love about GC is checking my email ALSO gets me my voicemail. No more checking a cell's vm, home machine, email all separately.
The time savings is great. Add that I get messages sooner that way too.
Finally, unlike the article's comment, it was just a few hours from when I reserved a number (in a more useful calling area for me) to when I was included in the beta (how sweet is that?)
It will be interesting to see what their revenue model is after beta...
Before you sign up, read GrandCentral's terms and conditions. I'd suggest using Xebba instead. They are not completely free, but they specifically mention that they do not record calls and do not harvest anything from your conversations.
Or do I need to have Flash on my phone?
Don't thank God, thank a doctor!
Phone calls are not all that expensive anymore, and most people who really need free calls just use VoIP.
I think GrandCentral needs to do a lot more to appeal to people. Right now, its model is that you give out its number to everybody and it then connects to your devices. I think that model is too rigid. They should offer different services (voice mail, forwarding, parallel forwarding, voice response, VoIP, etc.) and let the users decide how to connect those services to each other and to phone numbers.
Also, there are some really important pieces missing, like the ability to forward SMSs.
A. GrandCentral users will be able to choose from a selection of licensed sound files made available within the GrandCentral service, but will not be able to upload their own files. Knee-capping an existing service in order to force people to rent crappy 1k midi files for eternity?
Yep. Evil, alright.
I'd love to get rid of my landline to save money but I've had that phone number for 10 years so I'd rather not lose it. Are there any cheap services that can forward a landline to a cell number?
It's getting more and more difficult to be "out of touch", and I'm pretty sure I don't like it. Once upon a time, you could avoid somebody for a while without being flat-out rude to them.
Now we can't even use expense as a reason not to be at everybody's beck and call. I guess I'll just have to amend my message to say something like, "Dave only collects voice mail once a day, and it looks like you already missed today's check-in. Sorry."
More to my taste would be something like, "Fuck off, I'm busy", but for some reason it's frowned upon in a business environment.
I've calculated my velocity with such exquisite precision that I have no idea where I am.
I'm not disagreeing with you, I have recently signed up for voip with my isp Iinet, ( I am advertising this, if your in aust and you arent with them you are getting ripped off, I dont get paid for this i've just done my homework) here in OZ which offers free local and national calls, within what they call reasonable amounts, which I have never exceeded. Telstra have recently allowed to use the phone line without paying for the line, iinet call it naked im not sure what it is actually called. Which also means when overseas I can use my voip details on my laptop to call home, to anyones landline, for the cost of my internet. I have my mobile on a company offering free voice calls to people on the same network, so I have all my family on them, I wont say who im not advertising this.
Then there is regular overseas calls which we use Skype for. The only things I pay for, apart from the cost of internet and my mobile, are calls to mobiles on different networks. And you know this is only going to get better. Internet is getting cheaper and cheaper and easier to access outside the home all the time.
http://www.awfullybigmoustache.com
For the system to be reliable, we need an actual phone in addition to the laptop anyways, or a phone with internet connection (even more expensive)! T-mobile already offers regular mobile phones that can switch to ur wi-fi network and route calls thru Voip and use the cellphone network when wi-fi is unavailable. The calls routed over the wi-fi are free.
thanks for posting it on slashdot so that it is sure to be not free in the very near future.
I wouldn't recommend giving Gizmo your money. I've sent them money (two weeks ago) and am yet to receive any credit. A check on their website (http://forum.gizmo5.com/viewforum.php?f=26&sid=a017ebef79d1fed2787c5d0b244f4245) shows me that this is not an isolated problem.
Current issue of 2600 magazine (Spring 2008) had an in-depth article about something like this... with your cell phone and Skype, I think (I just took a glance through). Leaf through a copy at your bookstore and see if you want to pick it up.
Area code 603 is not available- and that covers the entire state of New Hampshire.
College-Pages.com - Online Colleges, Degrees, and Programs
... but not taking advantage of free VoIP phone calls from one of the world's worst privacy offenders is something we can manage to do just fine.
I can't speak for the Wi-Fi hard phones, but the Polycom hard phones we have around here have enough built into them to cancel a good bit of the crap you get with voip. Even with our Switchvox appliance internally, you can hear a major difference between employees on a soft versus hard phone. I would guess that the Wi-Fi phones are at least similar, though probably not as much so.
use your turn signal! you people act like it's divulging information to the enemy