I first got to see an early version of FRING at fall VON last September. Then the program was rough and really in an true development state.
Now, some five months later, FRING is out the door and ready the company says for prime time to bring p2p calling on a variety of mobile phones.
Fring is a peer to peer communications program that lets mobile users talk for free between one another over WiFi, 3G or GPRS. What's really interesting is the folks at FRING have engineered a way to talk to Skype users as well as Google Talk users from within the the Fring client. This is interesting because Skype seems to have abandoned efforts for the time being to be in the mobile market. For months we've been hearing tha there was going to be a Symbian Skype client but at CES I heard this was far from close to happening, something that has Symbian fans scratching their heads.
Fring solves that and actually offers users a wider option of calling possibilities.
What's I like about Fring is that it encourages the sale of data plans, something mobile operators will like, and doesn't directly steal minutes, as the shift to the data side clearly means the carrier gets something. For the calls that run over WiFi what Fring has done is created real time voice for free. With services like this and new Video PTT (push to talk) services like EyeJot coming to life the way people communicate over their mobile phones is rapidly changing.
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