I saw a posting about jajah and couple weeks back and thought “what an ugly product name and logo. pass”. Today I read what they do, and it definitely wasn’t a pass, it’s actually quite impressive. I haven’t tried the service (but I’ll update the post once I do). It’s a pretty simple idea: go the website, enter your phone number and the number you want to call, jajah calls you and once you pick up your phone, calls the other number. Seems they run their servers out of ireland and offer some dirt cheap rates (like 1.7 cents from the US to Canada or Russia, for example).
SkypeOut offers similar rates but also requires you to install their app, have a headset if you want good quality, and then you have to sit by your computer. You might also ask “I can get the same rate with a calling card”, which is true except for the fact that every calling card I’ve ever used that doesn’t have 3-minute rounding, connection charges, and expires in 3 months was actually 3 cents a minute (which is almost twice as much at 1.7 cents). What I think is really interesting is that any website could setup a “reverse toll free number” with jajah. For example, I was recently looking online for hotels in italy, many of which are family run or small operations. Their basic website could have a “jajah-call-me” widget. You would enter your number, jajah calls you and then the hotel, you either speak to someone or leave a voicemail, and jajah bills the hotel. Google is actually testing a similar service for adWords.
brilliant concept.
My uncle was telling me about this yesterday. He said it works really well. He used it to call London (from Sydney) and had no troubles. The fact that their service calls both parties also means there really can’t be any additional fees, since you aren’t calling any numbers.