Flashphone: Free Browser Based Calls From Russia With Love
Duncan Riley
31 comments »
New SIP-based VOIP calling service Flashphone from Russian company “Innovation Systems of Communication” offers browser based free calling.
Flashphone is currently in beta and has some limitations (3 calls up to 3 minutes each per day), but upon launch is promising unlimited free calls to a range of countries and services. Where Flashphone is interesting is in its interface; the service is Flash based and operated exclusively from the browser, with the (obvious) only need being that the user has Flash drivers installed. The flash based phone GUI can also be embedded on other sites.
I tested the service and it does work. Call quality wasn’t brilliant but was usable on a call from Australia via Russia and back again, and really no different to some of the Skype out calls I’ve tried making from home as well (Skype works better for call-out when you’re in the US when making the call).
The service has its limitations, for example you can’t pay to call services that aren’t on the free list, and the general layout of the service isn’t inspiring (see shot below). Having said that free is one of those magic words that helps build a willing user base. Worth a look if you want to make a free call.
Interesting - did Adobe add SIP support to Flash (as many people have predicted they would do) or did these people find some kind of workaround?
when can we have this in india?
btw duncan do you cover indian topics?
asian topics?
and do asian topics cover indian topics?
in soviet russia free calls phone you
Tech For Novices
yes, yes and yes. Done plenty of stories regarding China based companies and a fair few covering Japan, Malaysia and Singapore that come to mind (probably some other Asian countries as well). Happy to cover India or anywhere for that matter if it’s an interesting startup or story. You seem to forget I’m on the same timezone as China and Singapore
India is also on the free list for this service, although I suspect like Australia it will be landlines only due to the excessive interchange fees on mobile connections.
Ready for the hacks?
cool tc. we love ya very much
do you read labnol - amit’s blog?
he writes from india though many of his topic concern us uk other asian countries audiences
thanks for reading our comment
Tried signing up in English, the security question is in Russian!! Agree with #5, won’t just trust them yet.
Duncan, you may want to feature a Russian day on Techcrunch. For now, please see at http://ru.blognation.com
edward, Hm… security question is in english… And why you don’t trust? Just because it’s free right now?
Kurt, Security question now in English, but GENDER now in Russian. Have screenshot to prove.
It’s funny cause i’ve checked - everything in english in my case. Anyway, it’s a beta-test, I think they are working on their problems
I like this idea, mainly because of two factors; the ease of use (it’s web based) and it being free of charge. For the occasional user I think these two reasons are enough to use Flashphone over Skype.
For the more hardcore user there could be some problems though. One thing that might prove problematic with the web based approach is offering a SkypeIn equivalent. Obviously most users aren’t prepared to keep a browser window open with the Flashphone at all times. A solution could be a tiny application (something like Gmail Notifier) that opens up a browser window with the phone whenever someone calls you.
I look forward to seeing how this develops.
i tested it . its cool
Robert, i think they can create an AIR application for people who wants to receive calls. It will be a little .exe file with flashphone… This is an awesome technology i think… For example for click-to-call advertising in the Internet…
Crap voice quality.
Does it work? 3 out 4 times, it popped up an error dialog and last time it kept on connecting but call didnot went through.
my browser crashes everytime I login
eBay is losing money on Skype I heard, never tried this, but anything that doesn’t involve eBay is good
you really hate Russia dont you ?
rus
i’m from Russia and I like it
i just dun’t like our soccer team cause of their Andorra “great” victory lol )))
The idea is good as it allows call over the browser providing the end user with mobility, No tight coupling with device involved. The service need to develop in future time with some enriching features.
Will help in establishing the idea of “OneWeb”!!!
calls phone you
Oh, design is horrible and it has poor voice quality…
One benefit of a flash based solution should be less demand on CPU resources. I recall that Skype can slow down some systems while the client app is active.
I meant to add, I personally do not use Skype. I have read that the client can be demanding for some older computers.
Never worked for me
ArgumentError: Error #2082: Connect failed because the object is already connected.
at flash.net::LocalConnection/connect()
at Flashphone/init()
at Flashphone/___Application1_creationComplete()
at flash.events::EventDispatcher/flash.events:EventDispatcher::dispatchEventFunction()
at flash.events::EventDispatcher/dispatchEvent()
at mx.core::UIComponent/dispatchEvent()
at mx.core::UIComponent/set initialized()
at mx.managers::LayoutManager/::doPhasedInstantiation()
at Function/http://adobe.com/AS3/2006/builtin::apply()
at mx.core::UIComponent/::callLaterDispatcher2()
at mx.core::UIComponent/::callLaterDispatcher()