iPhones and Jajah
I recently stumbled across this article about Jajah and the iPhone. Jajah, for those of you unfamiliar with the service, is a free telephony provider that lets you make local and international calls[1]. You place the calls at the Jajah website, and they connect first to your regular phone and then to the phone you're calling and they connect the two together.
So why would Jajah be of interest to the iPhone, which presumably has its own calling plan through AT&T/Cingular? Well for one thing Jajah allows you to place international calls using local incoming minutes. Jajah calls your phone before connecting you to your party. Second, if you subscribe to Cingular's "Metro Plan", which offers free incoming calls, you wouldn't use any minutes at all. Of course, this applies only to users in the free calling regions listed on the Jajah website.
It's a nifty article. I recommend you read it all.
[1] Jajah is also the website of choice for April Fools jokes. I'll let you google the details.
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Reader Comments (Page 1 of 1)
Brian Yamabe said 11:50PM on 3-08-2007
Um, the iPhone is a closed platform, and I believe this is why. Cingular isn't going to allow a VOIP app unless they can monetize it. The only "announcement" of Jajah and the iPhone was on their blog, promising they would support the iPhone as soon as it was available (http://tinyurl.com/2hesah). Just because they want to work with Apple doesn't mean they are working with Apple.
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Erica Sadun said 11:53PM on 3-08-2007
Jajah can be used with any cell phone. It doesn't run on the iPhone, it connects to it. The article merely talks about ways to maximize its potential with the iPhone.
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jordan said 12:13AM on 3-09-2007
Cingular will not allow a voip app on their phones for awhile. Jajah sounds a bit like the old phone tones used by hackers in the 80's. You would call an 800 # and play the tones to get an open line.
Jo
http://www.cerealinsider.com
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Bryce said 12:36AM on 3-09-2007
You have to pay for *incoming calls* in america? that sucks.
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Audun said 1:54AM on 3-09-2007
I also reacted on the sentence about paying for incoming calls.. That's crazy!
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Julien said 2:45AM on 3-09-2007
Jajah isn't an application but is web-based and the unique feature provided by the iPhone is that you can access jajah's website with your iPhone when in range of a wifi zone and schedule a call, I don't think Cingular has the ability to limit this possible feature, but u're right international people, this is the US, where the consumer accepts to pay more for less (less bandwidth, less minutes, more, more money:)
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Joar said 2:46PM on 3-12-2007
Not much new here. Opera last year announced a deal between Oera software and Jajah to allow usage of Jajah through Opera Mini. So no need to wait for the iPhone to do this, you can already to it though Opera Mini on your ancient Nokia N-gage or any other phone that runs Java.
Here is l ink to the press release fron Opera: http://www.opera.com/pressreleases/en/2006/04/06/2/
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Joar said 12:43PM on 3-12-2007
Not much new here. Opera last year announced a deal between Opera software and Jajah to allow usage of Jajah through Opera Mini. So no need to wait for the iPhone to do this, you can already to it though Opera Mini on your ancient Nokia N-gage or any other phone that runs Java.
Here is l ink to the press release fron Opera: http://www.opera.com/pressreleases/en/2006/04/06/2/
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Christian said 7:26AM on 3-09-2007
As Jajah is not always free to use the telco would get its share/money from Jajah instead from the user directly when a call is made.
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Hilton Wolman said 10:46AM on 3-09-2007
That Cingular plan and press release are a few years old - it dates back to when Cingular was introducing their GSM system - there is currently no "Metro Plan" with free incoming minutes, only the rollover plan where unused minutes rollover to the following month.
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Brian Yamabe said 11:11AM on 3-09-2007
Thanks for the corrections. So this works because the iPhone has a brower and thus it has nothing to do with iPhone/Jajah integration and would work with other similar services.
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Ron said 12:17PM on 3-09-2007
Been using a similar service for over a year now called Mino (www.minowireless.com), think they have been out longer than JAJAH, and seems that Mino’s rates are cheaper. For those who don't seem to get it...the service is web based so all you need is a browser and access to the web, nothing to install. You can even download a java version to your phone so you don’t even have to open up your browser….works flawlessly on my BBpearl (my stand in for the iphone).
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Gman said 6:07PM on 3-09-2007
why is everyone talking about Jah jah, when
http://www.webcalldirect.com exists. It is suuuuuuper cheap (same conept as jah jah). You pay 5 cents per call (not minute) almost anywhere in the world. For example: I call my friend in London, we talk for 5 hours - I pay 5 cents!
Thank me later...
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David said 9:02PM on 3-11-2007
The only service that I am really familiar with is jajah and we love it. We get 60 free minutes per day if the called person also has jajah; if not, we pay $0.028 per miniute; that is less than three cents per minute.
We call South Korea totally free on a mulit-day weekly basis. It seems to offer the best of all worlds for us, including the fact that we have to have no extra equipment; we just use our regular telephone.
I would certainly be interested in trying another product, if someone can direct me to a seemingly improved product; the direction would be sincerly appreciated.
David
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Souheil said 1:26AM on 4-09-2007
It will be interesting to see what bucket plans Cingular creates to compliment the iPhone. Meanwhile, for some VoIP providers such as Rebtel and Jajah, it's just another call wihtout much worry about the actual platform.
my post
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Souheil said 1:29AM on 4-09-2007
It will be interesting to see what bucket plans Cingular creates to compliment the iPhone. Meanwhile, for some VoIP providers such as Rebtel and Jajah, it's just another call wihtout much worry about the actual platform.
http://forum.rebtel.com/wordpress/2007/04/05/let-rebtel-help-you-save-on-the-cost-of-your-new-apple-iphone/
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