i see what you are getting at. to me one problem with ribbit mobile as a service for people who ‘can not afford to miss a call’ is that it appears to be using many workarounds/hacks. for example the links to skype and MSN i assume are not part of a special deal with those corporations but actually some instances running on a server someplace as a ‘hack’ connection. for the ‘must be reachable crowd’ the only real option is direct calls to landlines and cell phones.

i do see ribbit mobile as very interesting. but that is as a geek/hacker and an early adopter who has a strong interest in everything VOIP. most people like me(who i see as your biggest audience considering the features offered) are not going to spend $30.00 a month and would not find the free version feature rich enough to be interesting.

what would be very interesting is a sort of hosted PBX/VOIPswitch that includes your call routing to the VoIM networks and skype and perhaps the possibility of using voicemail and transcriptions at a flat rate annual fee. i would probably be willing to pay around a $100/year but not much more. but i would not need any PSTN termination or DID’s as long as the platform allowed flexibility it terms of SIP access for inbound and third party termination providers.

at least i would like to think that the free accounts after beta could use services like outbound PSTN calling on a per minute basis.

by the way is it possible to place SIP calls to a ribbit mobile account?