Small Business

Make Free/Cheap International Calls From Your Cell Phone with Mobivox

By Rick Broida

Updated on: August 16, 2007 / 9:35 AM EDT / MoneyWatch

If you routinely rack up big long-distance bills from your mobile carrier, you might want to check out Mobivox. This intriguing service lets you make free calls to other Mobivox users (and to Skype users) and cheap calls to anyone else. It works like this:

Mobivox provides you with a special local number that you dial when you want to call someone. The only charge is whatever you pay your provider for local minutes.
After you dial the number, you say the name of the person you want to call or punch in his/her number. Mobivox connects you.
If the call is to a Mobivox or Skype user, there's no charge. If it's to anyone else, in just about any country, you'll pay Mobivox 1.9 cents per minute. (India costs a little more: 7.9 cents/minute.)

So let's say you have a business contact in the U.K. If you can talk him into signing up for Mobivox, you can call him free of charge. Otherwise, it'll cost you the aforementioned couple pennies per minute. Not at all a bad deal, especially considering that Mobivox works with any phone and requires no software to install or contract to sign.