Monday, April 30, 2007

To GPRS or not to GPRS ?

Again, its been a long time.

This time I was surprising myself with some downloaded mobile applications. Iam using these applications for a while and they are really attractive and sometimes addictive. One of the application is a Voice over GPRS application. It connects to GTALK and its able to establish VOIP sessions. It also can connect to Skype,SIP and other VOIP applications. Interesting....

Then I was really out of any reasonable/useful work, So I decided to take up this job of analyzing and rating these free softwares. :) ( Actually the word "Free" made me download it). I downloaded two of them "Nimbuzz" and "Fring". I had no problems in installing them in my N70. I was very very eager to try it at once, but strangely there was no one online in my Gtalk list. I was really disappointed, but then the applications offered a free BOT service. I connected to it and tried text chatting. It was fine then, but i wanted to try the VOIP services. I remained online using Nimbuz.

That summer afternoon, my phone made a really strange sound. It was my Gtalk friend pinging me. I was really happy to hear that sound, the sound of free software! I chatted wit my friend for a while and I wanted to call him. So i did. I heard hardly anything but static. I was really disappointed, but the only thing which made me happy was that I can hear static for free then! But then, my phone was glowing again, to put it correct, it was actually laughing at me. Yes, I lost Rs.12 for that call. As you guessed, I removed Nimbuzz from my phone in the next few seconds.

Time to try Fring. I got the SMS from Fring carrying the download link. I downloaded, installed, and gave my Gmail password to it. The login was successfull. I saw my friend working in US online. So i started chatting with him. And after a while, I was bold enough to make the call. I made it, it was clear but the voice was a bit low. We talked for the next half an hour. Know wat , i didnt get any bills for it, it was completely free. Then onwards Iam online 24 hrs in Fring. Fring rocks!

Now the question is, VOIP using GPRS is completely free but it is not that clear. GSM calls are crystal clear , but they cost too much, and I really had bad experiences with ISD calls. Do you think that we should all change the way we communicate? Should we switch over to Internet technologies instead of local Phone and Cell phones? And since we are so addicted to our cell phones, should we GPRS or just GSM?

2 comments:

gtalk2voip said...

A provocative question: would you use Fring if it won't be FREE ? Say, if it costed you some penny to make voice calls (or you would have to pay some small monthly fee) ? Or, would you buy Fring software for $10 ?

Anonymous said...

People should read this.