You need a new plan or provider

I love the fact that this conversation has deteriorated to a “who’s the cheapest” level. Proving what I say every time I weigh in: telco is a scale business.

The cheapest rates will be from the telco who has the greatest buying power.

Of course, rates are getting so low that the ability to differentiate on price alone is tough. The minutes business is a dreadful business. Congrats to you guys for $10M nonetheless.

First, I just shown calculation based on what you said in your previous response – you made call to your friend in Spain using your mobile phone…remember ?. I have used the same rates for Jaxtr that you quote … sheesh !! I suggest you go over my response again !

Even-though mobile plans come with free “incoming” mins, if I am making a call, I am paying for the “outgoing” call in some or other way (monthly/prepaid/peak-rate etc). I had not even accounted for charges for the “incoming call” mins for the destination party. So, I suggest you carefully read my previous response again.

So, I agree that I overlooked the precise rates for Truphone, but you have conveniently ignored the rates for TringMe. TringMe charges 1.32 cents per min to Spain landline and hence the total is 1.32*45 = 59.4 approx 60 cents…no connection fee, no other charges !! Even with Truphone rates, costs are less than whopping 540 cents charged by Jaxtr.

I think, we can go back and forth as much, but the fact-of the matter is that, anyway you slice it, Jaxtr is coming out to be more expensive and inconvenient for this feature !! ofcourse, redundant too with additional contact numbers !!!!

Sorry, but your post doesn’t jive with what I see from jaxtr (www.jaxtr.com/user/rates) or on Truphone’s site.

Landline w/jaxtr to spain is 2 cents/minutes on landline and 19 cents per minute on mobile, and our global SMS is without charge beyond your mobile plan.

Truphone to Spain is in EUROS and the website says that the prices are Landlines£0.03 (or 4 cents), Mobiles£0.15 (that’s 23 cents), SMS£0.10 (15 cents).

Additionally, if the caller is using a landline, there isn’t typically a per minute charge. And many mobile plans come with bundled minutes or free incoming calls, so local call cost is rarely a significant portion of the overall cost.

Plus TruPhone also requires downloading & installing a mobile client. Jaxtr can be used with any phone – no downloads or Internet connectivity on your phone required.

Airtel (www.airtelcallhome.com) gives me $0.06 per minute for cellphone or landline. This is the same rate that rebtel or jaxtr give. And the quality is very-very good. Absolutely perfect quality. I feel that its even better than calling US domestic on cellphone.

There is no hidden fee and I do not have to remember multiple numbers for multiple calls (as specified by Anand).

I am still not convinced why I should switch over to jaxtr or rebtel. I would be a very willing customer if you could either lower the rate to ($0.05 or less) or if you could provide some additional service (I cant think of any at this point).

All readers: I personally vouch for the call-quality (to india) using Airtel. I was a long time customer of Reliance but moved over to Airtel and needless to say that it has been a good experience. The only drawback is that their website supports only IE…it sucks..but I can live with that.

Assuming, local call charges to be between 10cents to 45 cents a min (based on VZW wireless US offerings), your 45 min call to spain can range from a whopping : 45*2 (rate/min) + 2 (conn feed) + 45 * 45 (local call charge) = 2117 cents to a minimum of 45*2 (rate/min) + 2 (conn feed) + 45 * 10 (local call charge) = 542 cents.

With TruPhone or TringMe – it comes to approx 60 cents for the call.

On top on that, with Jaxtr, I still need to remember different contact number for each country. Can’t see how it’s worth in anyway. Good for you that you folks already secured the funding prior to the announcement

The last thing that I want to do is mislead. In the spirit of transparency, here are some sample rates that you’ll find on the website and a link for ALL of our rates if you have a specific need:
• Canada: 1 jax/minute ($.01)
• China: 1 jax/minute ($.01)
• India: 6 jax/minute ($.06)
• United Kingdom: 1 jax/minute ($.01)
• United States: 1 jax/minute ($.01)

Rates: http://www.jaxt.../user/rates.jsp

Additionally, yes, you are charged your local minutes. Sorry that I assumed that this aspect was obvious as it applies to all calling cards and incumbent long distance carriers as you have to pay to have a phone in your home or office.

As for Spain, my bad, it was a call placed during beta and was a result of a bug (as the system was loading the wrong rates). Apologies for the confusion. It is 2 cents landline and 19 cents mobile to call Spain. There is a two cent connection fee, plus the cost of your local minutes. Again, my bad.

So why will people choose to use jaxtr?

Here’s how I see it…First, once you have a direct dial jaxtr number saved on your mobile phone, you have the ability for a marginal cost to call overseas whenever the thought hits you without software downloads or extra numbers.

Additionally, it’s a social communications package vs. simply cheap calling.
When you link your phone to the web with jaxtr, you can forward your calls to any phone linked to your account (mobile, home, office), never need to give people a new number for you as the jaxtr number can stay the same even if you change your mobile or office numbers, gain control over your calls by choosing to send specific callers to voicemail and others to your phone, and hide your number should you be using it for social interactions.

Check them out at http://www.WQN.com

@Adolf, see the comparision table by Anand. Jaxtr rate seems way above the competitors and Jaxtr representative is mum on it

The answer to your question goes back to our two revenue streams, which you can see from the earlier post, and because we spend $0 marketing as we rely on word of mouth. Marketing – as an acquisition tool – represents a huge expense for phone companies. Another reason is that we’re light on infrastructure and use technology vs. investing in capital. We can offer cheaper rates because we’re not bound by similar debts.

You were very clear …… in misleading the users here . I still stand by my point about how impractical this idea is and here’s why:

For every contact I call overseas, I get a local number. But that doesn’t mean I don’t need to store the “real” international number. Figure this… I travel from US to Europe and have to call the same friend in India .. I need to get another LOCAL number in Europe. How does that make sense? I will end up having multiple numbers for the same contact.
This is crazy !! .. How many numbers do I need to remember a contact ??

Instead of that, with the cheap worldwide calling rates, I would much rather use one number to call directly from my address-book using a simple to use MobileVoIP client (Truphone, TringMe etc). Also, please note that, I don’t have to pay per “cellular” mins charge to use your service since those clients work over any data networks including WiFi.

Taking your example
to call spain : I just checked your rates for spain and they are : Spain 2 jax $0.02 / minute
Spain (Mobile) 19 jax $0.19 / minute. So, unless you get an insiders rate , I can’t see how you would have spent only 45cents for 43 mins. Also, did you add your local cellular mins charge in this as well? Lay out your charges clearly for me: Is it “local cellular charge in US” + “Jaxtr charges for spain” ?

So essentially, for calling spain:
With Truphone, I pay landline: 3p/min and mobile: 15p/min.
With TringMe, I pay landline: 1.32 cents/min and mobile 14 cents/min.
With Jaxtr, I pay landline: 2 cents/min and mobile 19 cents/min + local cellular mins.

That only proves my point. This idea may look good on paper, but it isn’t a practical solution and it binds me to your charges which aren’t really the best in the market with multiple numbers for the same contacts depending on where I am currently located/travelling.

Will you answer this question:

Why do you think you can get international rates cheaper than those than the phone card guys?

Sorry if I wasn’t clear…you get a direct dial number for the contact which you save and use directly from your mobile phone. Here’s an example…My friend lives in Spain. I got a jaxtr number for her and saved it into my mobile phone. Now, when I want to call her, I simply find her name and hit the green talk button on my mobile phone just as if she was living down the street. I called her last week during our test period and talked for 43 minutes for 45 jax (~54 cents) from my mobile.