Many click-to-call (c2c) solutions require connecting two legs of a call, which adds additional cost. TringMe has just launched enhanced click-to-call solves this multi-leg cost issue by making it a single leg call and instead using a notification method such as SMS to notify the called party of the caller's phone details.
TringMe's blog explains, "Instead of originating multiple calls (call-legs), TringMe intelligently notifies the called entity about the caller. Notified entity then automatically initiates a call back to the original Caller. The method of notification can be of any type, including sending an SMS containing the caller details OR using the data network."
For example, a website visitor can click on a click-2-call link which will notify the caller’s phone by a special message using SMS or data network. The caller’s phone receives the message and then it will automatically initiate the call to the caller using Tringme's lost cost termination rates.
Tringme states, "The call can be either cellular or using our MobileVoIP or a combination of both depending on the cheapest method to the caller’s destination. For example, a local call could be cheaper by cellular, and long distance by VoIP (a typical scenario in markets like China & India) and hence be routed accordingly."
This diagram shows how a single-leg click-to-call can be made:
Of course, if you have a SIP softphone client on your mobile phone, along with a SIP-based service provider, you can also have a 1-leg inexpensive click-to-call solution. Or if you have a SIP-based IP-PBX such as Asterisk, you can also configure SIP softphone clients on mobile phones. However, except for some Nokia phones, and some other brands, it's rare to see SIP-based softphone clients on mobile phones. And often they are limited to the WiFi connection only - 2.5G, 3G, CDMA, etc. need not apply.
Damn it, there's always a catch!
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Hi Tom,
Thanks for the well-written article and the coverage.
Let me clarify a key thing. For our enhanced click-2-call solution, it is NOT NECESSARY for one to have Mobile device with WiFi capability. In fact, we do support this from all Symbian phones and many of them doed not have VoIP or WiFi functionalities. Our software is intelligent enough to initiate call from cellular or mobile voip channel based on cheapest destination and availability of data network.
As you may already know, in many Asian and European countries, mobile to mobile calls are a lot cheaper than VoIP. For example, in India, the mobile to mobile calls can be as low as 1 cent/minute (while VoIP is approx 5 cents). Take this example of one of our customers. They wanted to provide a click-2-call solution in India and wanted to support mobile to mobile calling. This so because mobiles are very prevalent in India given the rising teledensity. Working out the numbers, they realized that using the traditional click2call solution, the overall costs were too high for them to deploy this solution (approx 10-13 cents/minute). With out current solution, as you can see, the overall cost can now be drastically reduced (just 1 cent/minute). They now see a solution that is really cost economical, can support the low-cost-mobile device users and can continue to scale to the ever growing mobile teledensity penetration in India.
Yusuf
Yusaf,
I guess I wasn't clear in my post. When I started talking about the SIP softphone on a mobile phone I was talking about a solution that doesn't require TringMe. I was thinking aloud about a 100% SIP-based solution with no need for a service provider.
But after thinking about it, even if using a SIP softphone on a mobile phone, and a click-to-call button on a web site, you'd still need two legs - one to the calling party and one to your SIP softphone. This would require some sort of gateway/bridge.
You could eliminate 1 leg and the gateway/bridge if you could have the c2c button send the phone number of the calling party to the SIP softphone(SMS, email,etc.), which then initiates an outbound call to the calling party's number. This could be a manual or automatic process.
Of course, it sounds like you have a patent on that.