EQO.com - it's crowded out there...

Once again a I was informed about another voip operator with Internet and Mobile applications.
This time it's EQO.com, which has a slightly different packaging and business model for the same technique as Rebtel, Jaxtr and Jajah.

As with the others, EQO gives you the opportunity to call friends abroad via a local number. You call EQO's number, they use voip-based calling for the country-to-country part, and uses a local number in the foreign country. That way they can keep rates lower than traditional operators, since traditional operators are well known to overcharge for international calls (just as they did with long distance calls until competing smaller firms offered low price long distance calls. After a while the traditional operators lowered the rates on long distance calls. Some of the competing smaller firms had by then become large enough to remain a competitor, some was bought by the larger companies, and some went out of business. It's market economy, guys ;-) ).

Anyway, EQO offers that service, and it does so through a java applet that you install on your cellphone. Once installed, the application will download your regular contact list from your phone to EQO, and you then make regular calls to your contacts. If the contact is in your country, the java applet will make a regular call to the contacts regular number. In that case, nothing else will happen than that you send and receive some data to the EQO service. If the contact is abroad, the applet will create a call to a local number that you get from EQO, and you are just charged for the local area phone call by your normal carrier, and for the international call by EQO. As in my case, when my local calls are free of charge, I will only be charged by EQO. That's pretty nice.

If your contact is also a registered EQO user and has the app started, the call will be free of charge! Nice one, EQO.
Some other nice features of EQO is that you can send text messages and go online to online messaging services as MSN, and that your contact list is stored at EQO.

The biggest advantage with EQO is that you don't need to learn any new numbers and that you don't need a computer to use their service.

So what's the downside? I'd say that the main disadvantage is that you need to download and run a special app in order to use the service, and that your friends has to do the same as well as having an EQO compatible phone, if you want to place totally free international calls.

I'd say that EQO is worth a try if you like mobile applications, but Rebtel, Jaxtr and Jajah is just as good choices.

Come back to this blog in a week or so, then I will have tried these different services and then I can say which service I prefer.

EQO.com