Israeli-based VOIP start-up Fring has closed an estimated $12 million second round, led by US VC fund North Bridge Venture Partners. VenFin and previous investors Pitango, Veritas and Yossi Vardi also participated. If the investment estimate is accurate, it would be one of the larger rounds for a VOIP company.
Fring is a mobile application for Windows and Symbian phones that uses VOIP to make cheap/free mobile calls and instant message. Unlike Jajah, but like Truphone, Fring sends calls and chats over Wi-Fi internet access or your 3G or GPRS Internet data plan. Like Skype, users are charged a nominal fee to call standard phone lines. However, calls made to other internet phones are free. Fring connects to standard phones, other SIP based VOIP clients, and chat applications (Skype, MSN Messenger, ICQ, Google Talk, and even Twitter).
Fring has received a lot of praise from Crunchgear and TechCrunch, mostly due to its multi chat integration and free calls. However, call quality was an issue and the 3G phones Fring works on can be expensive. You should also see our previous coverage of other VOIP carriers.
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Sounds like a very interesting application…
If only the 3G providers in Australia didn’t charge $0.50 per MB of data.
- Anthony.
Mobile VOIP?
We still have to use skype fully and people already using VOIP in mobile phone. Hell, when will my country be developed?
wow… great features…
Have been with Fring for sometime. Great moneysaver for International calls from India. Aggregated contacts -lists from popular IM and be able to do VOIP with them is great. The SIP stack support gives them an advantage to work with any SIP provider. This App rules!
One thing they could improve upon is to make the Fring Application as ‘Power saving concious’ as the default SIP stack on Nokia S60v3 phones.
{sorry for the this subsequent post. }
Unfortunate name. One more “i” and they’re a dot-bomb.
Cheap or Free calls you can’t go wrong. Those are consumer’s favorite two words. Why should we pay more for calls if the don’t have too ? This is a great service.
It’s just a matter of time until the mobile network providers begin to block VoIP….
nice, but I still don’t see how they have anything on Nimbuzz, which allows me to make calls for free and supports over 500 phones. Seriously, Nimbuzz has been such a joy to use and I have tried EQO, Frin, Trufone, Jahja etc, but keep coming back to Nimbuzz - it’s just a very well integrated solution. Thought I might spread the word on this positive experience so other can have the same.
The T-Mobile Wifi/Cellphone plan I heard in the NYT is a great deal.. You get the best of both worlds..
http://www.nytimes.com/2007/07.....mp;ei=5070
looks interesting
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http://filelime.com
And for Blackberry users, you can use iSkoot for Skype VoIP! For me, simply the best software for IM on Blackberry
i confirm. iSkoot is great for BB. as well as Nimbuzz
Sound interesting.
Rajesh Shakya
http://www.rajeshshakya.com
This is great. Like the free mobile calls and IM
Fring works quite well from AT&T 8525 (aka HTC). Can call over 3G or wifi; skype contacts auto-load. Love it!
I used to live in the EU for over 4 years (2002-2006) after 18 years as a technologist in the Washington DC. During that period living and working there, I learned that due to unreliable and disappointingly inefficient service by the traditional phone companies there (both mobile and fixed), VoIP has a much more obvious market in the EU. People in the US are generally being well served by multiple service providers with great customer support. Their pricing is so low that I wonder if the audience for VoIP will be easily won over – a classic example, we all saw what happened to SunRocket. I had predicted that when they even got their funding. I even brought it up to them. Well, I was ignored. As a result, $80 m was flush down to the toilet.
I am sure you are aware the US based phone companies are all also offer VoIP to their US based subscribers, but there are many reasons they have not become so aggressive about it. The main one is most subscribers living in the US are happy with what they have and most of them do not make international calls – for a nation of 300 million , only 7% of Americans have a passport. So, do the math. Therefore, VoIP will not bring much value to
the people in America. Don’t get me wrong, there will still be many subscribers jumping on this VoIP services, but such limited numbers will not really help VoIP grow in the US and take market sure in such competitive sector.
By contrast, service by traditional phone companies in the EU and Middle East are so poor that subscribers are willing to pay more just to get decent service. The need for a VoIP company like Fring would be immediately apparent, with customers receiving better service, more inexpensively.
This looks slick. Maybe worth for Asians
((truphone)) http://www.truphone.com does something similar
Sounds cool. Though I’ll probably just use Skype, for the cell and home.
Fring is great - i have used it for months mainly for mobile access to all my skype and msn contacts; its totally free over wifi and because i have a decent data plan, its totally free for me over 3g too
1. Mobile Network Operators will make every effort to block VoIP, or price around it within their data offers. Though Truphone has been awarded an injunction against T-Mobile not terminating their calls, there is an appeal in place, and this will at some point go to court. As much as I favour a robust competitive market, I do not see the Mobile Network Operators losing this battle. They have paid HUGE licensing fees to governments to acquire spectrum and build THEIR networks. Mobile is NOT like the landline phone business. THe MNOs have bought and paid for their networks, and spectrum, and should have the full right to determine what is transmitted over their airwaves.
2. ELIAS - you make a very valuable point which is the real price competitiveness of VoIP. The incumbents have a lot of room to drop pricing to the point where making a move to VoIP is no longer based on a massive cost savings.
So I think think the VCs are taking a big risk here… but perhaps one that are willing to make as a hedge just in case third party VoIP providers do manage to use the MNOs airwaves for free.
JT
Jt, (thats my name too) - when it comes to mobile voip, internet service provided by mobile operators is at, the very best, satisfactory. Other wireless means of internet delivery such as WiFi and WiMAX are the future - look at developments in singapore, london, paris to name but a few.
By september, you could telly our mobile operator to hit the dirt as full, national FREE wifi access will be rolled out over singapore. It is the the mobile operators that will need to adjust their business models if they wish to survive in the long term. At the end of the day, they will never be able to compete on price with mVoIP especially as free, public access wifi becomes a reality in more n more places.
Ok, so fring just raised 12m bucks, they probably need to having gone the skype piggy-backing route. but look at companies such as Yeigo, there are under 20 people on permanent staff, and theres been no running to the hills for investors. They’re small, agile and efficient - this is what we want from a service provider, and not to be subsidizing manchester uniteds fetish for big bling american SUVs.
Yeigo delivers a world-class mVoIP service over their OWN system - i.e. they didnt buy or free-load off other, already congested, and outdated systems. Granted the technology is a couple years away from being common-place but the beginning is here, now and it works!
The only way MNO’s could compete with companies like Yeigo, Fring etc, is if they started paying YOU to call. They will need to adapt or the mVoIP crowd, and, inevitably - the World - will just look elsewhere.
J
This is welcome news. Companies like Fring and WiFiMobile have invested vast amounts of time and money developing their own VoIP client and deserve to be rewarded. It seems all to easy to simply ride on the back of the Nokia client.
Bill,
You mentioned WiFiMobile. They have just added a facility where you can make international calls at local rates. This addresses the problem of not always finding a Wi-Fi access point or having an unlimited data plan.