Many of us have our near and dear ones abroad; people with whom we want to stay in touch with 24x7 but the high international calls rates just don’t allow us the luxury of this. We still think twice before calling someone abroad as we know even a short Birthday call can cost us a few hundred bucks. If you are one of those who have their brother, sister, boyfriend, girlfriend or any other acquaintance in abroad because of which you end with a really big phone bill at the end of every month, we have great news in store for you.
Ringo, a mobile application launched by Directi, allows users to make international calls without Wi-Fi, internet or carrier minutes at rates that are about seventy percent lower than those currently offered by mobile phone companies and creditbased calls over Viber or Skype. The huge advantage that Ringo has over all its counterparts is that the receiver is not required to download the app to receive a call.
According to Bhavin Turakhia, founder, Directi, the model has a huge potential of disrupting India’s market for overseas calls. It is estimated that the country spends some $2 billion annually on international calls.
The charges for making overseas calls via the app will be comparable to the local call rates. Making a call to the United States through the Ringo app will cost a user Rs. 1.08 a minute, while a Skype call costs Rs. 1.45 a minute and a telecom company charges Rs.8 for the same.
Once a user makes an international call using the app, the application dials out a local call the user in India and another local call to the overseas user and then connects the two over reliable carriers. In order to make this system work, Directi has partnered with many local and foreign carriers through aggregators. The Mumbai based company buys carrier minutes and pays interconnect charges for calls that terminate on the telcos’ networks.
The users even have the luxury of adding cash to the app for making international calls via debit, credit cards or net banking. The call charges then don’t get deducted from the main balance of the phone. The money added to the app stays valid for a year from the day the cash was added.
The application is available for Windows, Android and iOS devices. Ringo was launched in the year 2014 and is currently available in 14 countries: USA, UK, Australia, Switzerland, Belgium, Spain, Canada, Singapore, Germany, Poland, Hong Kong, Netherlands, Italy and Mexico.
Advertisements
