Giving some competition to ISD players such as Bharti Airtel, Reliance Communications, BSNL, Idea Cellular, etc Nimbuzz in partnership with Spectranet announced cost effective VoIP international calls.
Nimbuzz and Spectranet announced Rs 0.60 / minute VoIP call to the U.S., U.K., and Canada, three major countries where Indian are travelling for businesses or have migrated.
Indian internet users can avail Spectranet hello ip by creating an account on Nimbuzz. The platform hosts the Spectranet hello ip dialer where users can make international calls and also buy calling credit. The service is purely a pre-paid offering and users can recharge their accounts through credit card payments. Spectranet hello ip is only an outbound calling service and will not support domestic calling with India.
Vikas Saxena, CEO, Nimbuzz, and Udit Mehrotra, CEO, Spectranet hello ip, announcing their plan at a press meet in Delhi on Tuesday said this will be the first fully complaint VoIP service to retail users in India. Spectranet uses its ISP license for launching VoIP calls on Nimbuzz platform.
Though Nimbuzz and Spectranet announced cost effective international call packages, there are zero cost overseas calling options available. Also, their new services cannot be protected under an IPR since this is not innovative. Also, anybody can enter the business easily.
Spectranet hello ip will price its VoIP international call at Rs 0.60 per minute against current tariff of Rs 6.4 per minute.
A call to Canada costs around Rs 10 per minute. The cost of Spectranet hello ip will price its VoIP international call to Canada will be 0.60 per minute. The cost to reach a person in the U.K through a call is Rs 14 per minute at present. Spectranet hello ip will charge only Rs 0.60.
Though it will put pressure on established players, the business impact will be significant as there are several routes to talk to friends abroad. Since everyone abroad may not be accessing their computer to receive a call from India, there is scope for growth in mobile VoIP business. In addition, an India who is travelling to US can make a call to Canada or any other foreign county with the same cost effective VoIP tariffs.
However, users can not make calls from abroad to India as the current TRAI regulation does not allow domestic to domestic VoIP calls in India.
The service can be used across all data networks and Wi-Fi. Nimbuzz and Spectranet hello ip have also set up 24*7 calling email support to assist users with their concerns around Spectranet hello ip powered by Nimbuzz.