Talkster – Free International Mobile Calls?

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Its kinda works. I was calling my friend in UK, but keeps getting dc after awhile.

Talkster – Free International Mobile Calls? | Wap Review

Talkster – Free International Mobile Calls?
Published
by
Dennis Bournique

TalksterTalkster (free.talkster.com) is a VOIP based service that lets you make “free” ad supported phone calls between 22 countries (North America, most of Europe, plus Hong Kong and Israel) using any phone - mobile or landline. The ads are about 10 seconds long and are heard by both parties.

Talkster doesn’t charge anything for the service but the calls aren’t really completely free. You’re making a mobile or landline call to a local Talkster access point. If you are using free night and weekend minutes or an unlimited landline then Talkster calls really are free. But even if you have to pay for the local call, Talkster will be much cheaper than a normal international call.

Using Talkster is a bit complicated. Say you want to call your friend in Spain. You go to the Talkster mobile or PC web site and enter your number and the number you want to call, Talkster texts you a new permanent local number that connects with your friend and also texts your friend a local number that connects to you. You call your friend’s Talkster number and are connected. Now here’s were it gets tricky. The initial connection disconnects in about 10 seconds - just enough time to tell your friend to call you back on the number that Talkster SMS’ed to her and which also appears in her caller ID as the number you are calling from. You stay on the line and Talkster completes the connection after you have both listened to a 10 second ad. Obviously not something you can use for business calls or booking hotels but completely practical for calling friends and family members. Pluses for Talkster is that it doesn’t require 3G or WiFi as the local loop is provided by your mobile or landline phone company and you don’t need to register or install anything to use the service

Talkster competes with Jajah and Rebtel which also offer cheap and limited free international calls from mobiles and also require you to initiate the call on the mobile web. The others are easier to use, cover more countries and are more business call friendly (no ads and generally no callbacks) but Talkster has one big advantage - unlimited free calls.

I have my doubts about the long term viability of Talkster’s business model. Can they sign up enough advertisers at high enough rates to cover the cost of access points and bandwidth? Their target market, personal calls between friends and family members, is one were calls tend to be long. Can a single ten second ad cover the cost of a two hour call?

Update: Thanks to Chai340 for pointing this out, Rebtel is now offering unlimited free calls without ads using a callback scheme similar to Talkster. Nice, but obviously not economically substainable, enjoy it while you can!

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Re: Talkster – Free International Mobile Calls?

Nice. :k:

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Re: Talkster – Free International Mobile Calls?

^^^ actually it works better than I expected & voice quality isn't bad. I wish they had something like this for Pakistan.

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Re: Talkster – Free International Mobile Calls?

:hehe: I tried it too…so question:

It says the other person is supposed to call you back on their disignated number. Are you supposed on stay on the phone? Or do you hang up and wait for them to call you back? :hmmm:

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Re: Talkster – Free International Mobile Calls?

^^^ Well, when you call, you have 10 secs to tell the other person to call you back on their local number. Don't hang up. While waiting for other person to call back, you have to listen to their advertisement (I guess thats how they make money). After few secs you should hear other person back online. Its bit complicated, but once you get used to it, its not that bad.

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Re: Talkster – Free International Mobile Calls?

Tried it. Thanks for sharing.

Works really well :k: The voice quality is not bad either.

Timepass - October 2013
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Re: Talkster – Free International Mobile Calls?

I am not sure but have you people check if it is “I” or “O” call I mean sometimes you know the person whom you call have to pay for the call automatically. This is known as “Collect Call”

Can anyone confirm this?

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I’m not sure what I or O is, but this is VOIP (Voice over Internet Protocol). If your local calls are not free ( you have to dial local number) than its not free for you. They will charge you I guess

http://www.talkster.com/Countries.aspx

Travelling with a nine month old in a long haul flight
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Re: Talkster – Free International Mobile Calls?

Here is another interesting thing…

iCall - iPhone Video - Overview

Talking Pictures/funny memes
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Re: Talkster – Free International Mobile Calls?

hmm.. i don’t think i would bother, sounds too annoying lol.

i use localphone. once you register you add the mobiles and landlines you wanna call from, then add the people you wanna call (it assigns them local numbers). you need to buy credit for the use of these local numbers but no other charges from your operator as long as you can call that local number for free. i like it because it’s only 5.7pence/min to pak.

i just looked at rebtel and that looks much ‘nicer’ to use than talkster (no ads etc) but it would be pointless for me. when both parties have the time to go through all the hoops, we’d ordinarilty be chatting on skype voice or videocall, the quality of which is much better than the phone.
when i wanna make a few min call any other time, the direct connection method is preferrable even if i have to pay for it.

but if you do spend long periods on the phone, it makes sense.