Talkster is similar to services like Jajah, Rebtel, Hullo, ConnectMeAnywhere, and Fring in that it uses VOIP to make cheap (currently free) long distance phone calls. But those services are highly targeted towards the consumer market, whereas Talkster is not. CEO James Wanless calls the consumer VoIP market a “race to the bottom of rates.” Talkster doesn’t want to play that game. Talkster has its sight set on the enterprise.

Talkster enables calls between and across phones and PCs, with the necessary software bridge. Unlike Jajah and Hullo, however, Talkster doesn’t require a download and works via the Web through your mobile phone and desktop browsers. This makes it more widely available than Jajah’s Symbian based client. Talkster will have a Java client in 2007. Currently, the system connects mobile phones, VoIM (voice over IM), VOIP phones, and PSTN Phones, with the potential to connect to any service that speaks SIP. You can also use Talkster to place free mobile calls to virtually any phone or buddies on MSN, Google Talk, and Gizmo.

After registering for the service online, you have the tedious but necessary task of inputing your contacts’ alias, email address (for VoIM), and phone numbers. VoIM contacts must accept your invitation to be included in Talkster.

When you log your mobile phone into m.talkster.com, you are greeted with a list of contacts’ VoIM online/offline status and can either connect to the contact over VoIM or be automatically forwarded to their phone number of choice. In the case of a long distance call, Talkster acts as a VOIP bridge between the two callers. When making local calls, Talkster steps out of the way and just connects directly.

If you don’t want to place a call on the PC you are working on, Talkster has call-in or call-back options that lets you place a call through the computer, but connect using the phone. The option has definite cost benefits, depending on your mobile plan.

Talkster’s device agnostic model is reminiscent of text based JumpChat and Swarmteams, but incorporating phone calls makes the model much more powerful. The Web interface was a sacrifice but it will at least get Talkster in front of the maximum number of people. An easy-to-use client will really make the service hum and make it far more attractive to test than Jajah or Rebtel. Still, we have yet to see if this is the killer VOIP service we have been waiting for.

Talkster is relying heavily on its enterprise target as the big differentiating factor. We couldn’t get the company to flush out the reasons why it is better suited for the enterprise than the consumer but we were promised that there would be added enterprise functions in 2007. Meanwhile, the beta will battle test the core service.

Alec Saunders was an early beta tester of Talkster – read about his experience here.

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VOIP is great when you initiate calls from VOIP phones or software (Skype, Vonage, etc.). These VOIP networks can call other VOIP phones, or patch into the normal telephone networks to make relatively inexpensive calls. Vonage long ago replaced my normal telephone service, and an increasing number of people are using VOIP solutions instead of a normal telephone.

But a new crop of companies have a launched that are trying to let people make free or cheap VOIP calls from a normal POTS (plain old telephone service) phone (often a cell phone) to another POTS phone. If someone gets it right, there’s a huge market out there to destroy. The problem is that no one has gotten it right. And the mass market won’t adopt these services until they are dead simple to use.

These services generally take one of two approaches to allow people to make VOIP calls. One approach is to tell the service what number you are calling from and what number you would like to call. The service then calls both parties and connects them. The second approach is to assign special phone numbers to use instead of the normal phone number. These special numbers are controlled by the VOIP service and bypass the POTS system for the most expensive parts of the call.

Neither approach allows people to make quick calls on the fly to someone. Both require multiple steps to make a call, usually involving the use of a website as well (meaning you have to be at a computer or try to access the services via a mobile browser).

Here are a few that we’ve been tracking:

Jajah: Go to the website, tell it your phone number and the number you want to call, and a call is initiated to both phones. Call rates are very cheap, sometimes free. But you have to be at your computer to use it, and have a billing relationship with jajah if you are making non-free calls. They have some big news coming out this week, however, that will be worth noting.

Rebtel: We first covered Rebtel here. They just announced a whopping $20 million in venture funding. Rebtel has an extremely confusing method for making calls. The basic fee is $1 per week. They then assign local phone numbers for each of your friends. You call that number instead of the normal number for that friend. Your friend picks up the phone, hangs up and dials the number that just called them to connect to you. The call is then free. If that wasn’t clear, you can see the instructions here. You can also use Rebtel without the person hanging up on the other end, but you will be charged for the call (rates are lower than normal phone rates).

Hullo: We covered Hullo here. Very similar to Jajah, with slightly better features.

ConnectMeAnywhere: Sam Sethi wrote about ConnectMeAnywhere on TechCrunch UK. Like Rebtel, ConnectMeAnywhere assigns local numbers to your contacts, and you use those local numbers instead of their normal phone number. Unlike Rebtel there is no free option where the person hangs up and calls back. Instead, CMA just charges a lower rate than your phone company does. Their rates are here.

None of these services is good enough to change user behaviors in the mass market. Having to be at your computer, or call special phone numbers, is too much trouble for most people. Certainly forcing the person receiving the call to hang up and call back isn’t very attractive. And traditional POTS rates continue to fall fast, meaning the incentive to go with a hard-to-use VOIP provider is lower.

We’ll monitor new services as they launch, of course. And perhaps someone will come up with a better solution. Until then, I’m not betting on any of the current crop of companies.

I am sitting here at AlwaysOn conference watching the CEO, Hjalmar Winbladh, demo the product as part of the CEO showcase that Mike Arrington is moderating. Rebtel has received a good reception with the audience and the judges here as it seems to be a simple, yet inovative solution for the high costs of long-distance telephone calls.

You can try the product by filling out the form on the front page of their website. It will send an SMS to both the initiator of the call as well as the recipient and then connect the two ends. It will setup a local number for each friend you setup. The cost of each number that is setup is $1 per week, which is for unlimited calling to the other end.

The company is based in Sweden and was founded by serial-entrepreneur Hjalmar Winbladh, the founder of SendIt (which was acquired by Microsoft in ‘99) and a General Manager for Microsoft Mobile solutions in Europe.