Smartphone app reduces cost of international calls

This month, international students got a little closer to home with Vonage Mobile, a free application for PDAs and iPhones designed to reduce costs for international calls.

The app is just one way the increasing trend toward using internet-based Voice over Internet Protocol, or VoIP, services to stay in touch is reaching students and members of the Penn community.

Vonage Mobile, available on the iTunes App Store and Vonage.com, joins the ranks of Skype, Truphone, fring, iCall and other mobile applications that use the Internet for voice calls, offering significant savings over regular per-minute calling rates.

For students making frequent calls overseas, Internet-based options can be very useful.

“I have a cell phone,” said College senior Stephanie David, who recently studied abroad, “but with Skype it’s definitely easier to keep in touch.”

Vonage Mobile offers calling rates to almost all countries for less than a dollar per minute and to most European countries for less than 25 cents per minute. The company says these rates save customers more than 50 percent on most international calls.

Unlike most VoIP services, Vonage Mobile uses Wi-Fi as well as cellular networks, allowing long-distance calling while traveling and at reduced wireless rates near coffee shops and other Wi-Fi hotspots.

The app will also sync with existing cell phone contacts, allowing it to activate automatically for long-distance calls and fall back to regular iPhone/PDA rates for local calls.

Vonage also announced its intention to bring the popular Vonage World plan to iPhones and PDAs.

Vonage World will allow mobile users to make unlimited calls to over 60 countries for one flat monthly fee, letting them pick the plan that fits them best.

Vonage is not alone in its efforts to encourage internet-based communication.

As students have moved away from traditional phones and use cell phones for an increasing variety of everyday tasks, Penn is taking its own steps toward new methods of communication.

Beginning in 2005, Penn Information Systems and Computing has been conducting trials of VoIP service, and in 2007 moved many of Penn’s landlines to internet-based service.

According to Deke Kassabian, Senior Technology Director at ISC Networking and Telecommunications, Penn officials are considering introducing VoIP software for laptops and multiuser chat apps for handhelds.

“[VoIP] gives us opportunities to provide integration with desktop and laptop tools, including IM and email and even voice communications from your computer,” Kassabian wrote in an e-mail.

Despite infrequent usage of wired phones in campus dormitories, these phones will remain in place for the foreseeable future because they are easily accessible and reliable in case of emergencies, Kassabian wrote.

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