Nimbuzz, a Netherlands-based VoIP and messaging startup, is introducing a premium calling service called NimbuzzOut. This service is available via an upgrade of its mobile client, which is currently available from the iPhone’s iTunes Apps Store, the Ovi Store and GetJar. So far, Nimbuzz has offered a meta-client that works on PCs, Macs, Symbian, Android and the iPhone and allows you to sign into any IM service including Skype. NimbuzzOut is the first step toward revenue for the company, which has pulled in an undisclosed amount of funding from Mangrove Capital Partners, original backers of Skype. In addition to Skype, Truphone and Fring are two other competitors for this fast-growing service. Nimbuzz has been adding about 40,000 users a day, or about a million new registrations every month, and now has a total of over 10 million registered consumers. The company says nearly 30 percent of those registered are regular users.

Nimbuzz has certainly come a long way. At the time of its launch, almost three years ago, we were pretty critical of the VoIP-on-mobile service because it was a me-too offering that was quite a pain to use. A year-and-a-half later, Nimbuzz introduced a new meta client for the Symbian phones. It allowed you to sign into various IM clients. In addition, it allowed some basic VoIP calling, but it wasn’t really until they introduced the new iPhone client that Nimbuzz started to see some serious traction. My previous post gives a good overview of the Nimbuzz feature set.

The company just announced a super communication client for the iPhone that allows you to communicate in many different ways. For instance, you can make free calls over Wi-Fi to your IM buddies. You can also call folks on their landlines and mobile phones with SkypeOut using any one of Nimbuzz’s 10 VoIP partners including Gizmo5, Vyke, sipgate and A1 and, of course, Skype. This is a new feature in the service, and makes Skype In/Out Services more valuable.

These services also work over 3G and are described as “Nimbuzz Dial-Up VoIP” which essentially makes it possible to call others by dialing a local access number which then connects to anywhere in the world via Nimbuzz VoIP servers.

For the past month, I have been using the pre-release of NimbuzzOut on the iPhone to place calls to my far-flung group of friends and family. The calling prices are pretty good– about 8 cents a minute to India, 2 cents to the U.S., and 3 cents to the UK. If you look around, that is pretty much what you pay with most services — Skype is a bit more expensive.

The voice call quality is on par with Skype, which is still my communication method of choice for work-related calls. NimbuzzOut is dead simple to place calls: Just hit the call button, and you are good to go. You can, of course, use other calling services, but I don’t see any reason why considering Nimbuzz is offering good rates.

NimbuzzOut has a few features I personally like — you can natively use the phone client to buy additional minutes. I also like the fact that the client uses the native address book and doesn’t create a duplicate contact list. The Symbian client actually lets you edit, add and delete contacts from your address book.

There are a few things I don’t like: If you leave the notifications on, the client will run down your battery and leave the phone pretty useless. If you are using it on an iPhone, then you have to use the Wi-Fi connection, which makes me a tad upset because you can make Skype calls over 3G. You can make NimbuzzOut calls via 3G on Symbian phones, however.

Bottom line: If you are looking for a well-designed, easy-to-use, all-in-one messaging client that also makes cheap long-distance calls, then you don’t need to look any further than Nimbuzz. I have no qualms in recommending NimbuzzOut.

P.S. There is a reward for those who read the complete post. If you are among the first 50 people who send their name and Nimbuzz username to gigaom@nimbuzz.com, the company will give you a $25 NimbuzzOut credit.

Update: This offer is now closed. Thanks for participating.

Vonage, a VoIP services provider, is making its first move to mobile by developing smartphone applications, the New Jersey-based company has confirmed to us. The news was first reported by Gadgetell. Unfortunately, Vonage wouldn’t provide many details on the applications other than to say it’s in talks with “top” smartphone makers, and that the applications will be available in the second half of 2009 and will offer competitive international calling rates. Vonage’s shift to mobile follows in the footsteps of Skype and smaller competitors such as Fring, Nimbuzz and Truphone, all of which have released applications for the iPhone (see past coverage here.) We won’t be surprised if they released an iPhone app, they are certainly late to the party.

Nevertheless, this is still a wise strategy for Vonage to expand its customer base, as the company will now be able to lure people who don’t want to give up their landline phones but want the ability to make international calls using VoIP on their mobile phones.

A Vonage spokesman also said the company is working on “integrating communication products so that consumers can easily link home phones, cell phones and computers.” All of which is a significant shift from Vonage’s traditional business model, which until now has been based on replacing landline phones by selling special devices that use broadband networks to carry voice calls.

Can Google be your phone company? The answer is yes. I came to that conclusion after I met with Vincent Paquet, co-founder of GrandCentral (a company acquired by Google) and now a member of the Google Voice team. Earlier today he stopped by our office to show the mobile app versions of its Google Voice service for Blackberry and Android. Google recently announced that it was going to make the Voice service widely available to users in the U.S. soon.

These mobile versions of the Google Voice service will allow folks to not only manage their Google Voice connections –- to access and playback voice mails, send and receives SMS messages and read message transcripts — but also make local and long distance calls from mobile phones. The apps are fully integrated with each phone’s contacts, so you can call via Google Voice straight from your address book. This is how it works:

The mobile app for Google Voice uses the regular PSTN connection to place a call to Google Voice, which then places a call out to the person you need to reach. Since these calls (and SMS messages) originate from your Google Voice, they display your Google Voice number for the recipients. The service needs a data connection but it isn’t necessary to have a Wi-Fi connection to place and receive calls. The wireless number you buy from the cell phone company becomes less relevant.

The Google Voice app essentially reduces the cell phone carrier to a dumb pipe. While the BlackBerry application is interesting, it’s the Android application that shows that Google has bigger designs. I have been playing around with the Android App for about an hour or so and I can see the broader implications. When I was setting up the app, one of the options I was given: to make all calls through Google Voice. And that’s when I thought to myself: Oh! OH!

The app is so tightly enmeshed with Android OS and the address book and other apps, you hardly think that you’re using Google Voice. If Google bundles the Google Voice app with Android and sells it to makers of cheaper feature phones, it can start to insert itself between the consumers and wireless companies.

This “man in the middle” position is Google’s strength. The company has inserted itself between consumers and information via its search offering and profited handsomely from it. Why can’t it do the same with this voice offering? There is anecdotal evidence that some consumers might actually be happy paying for their mobile service by listening to advertisements.

To be sure, Google Voice isn’t the first such service. Truphone and a handful of other startups offer similar services, but Google’s sheer size is what makes this a pretty interesting move. They also have a mobile OS and connections with handset makers such as HTC to get serious traction. In this summer of a lot of hot air from Google — Google Wave and Google Chrome OS, for example — this is the first interesting product with larger implications. Suddenly the idea of Google as my phone company doesn’t sound so preposterous.

Last night, reader Jim Rob Jones emailed to express his displeasure over my switch to the BlackBerry, calling us “irrelevant” because I am not carrying an iPhone. Well, Jim, since I’m not willing to put up with the poor 3G connections from AT&T, I carry an iPod Touch, which does pretty much the same job and allows me to write about iPhone Platform apps. Of course, it does prevent me from yelling at my iPhone, but my doctor thinks that is a good thing. With Wi-Fi and a growing number of VoIP apps such as Skype, Nimbuzz and Truphone, I can also use it to make outbound calls. Today Vopium,a low-cost VoIP service provider, jumped in the fray and released an iPhone app. The company will add iPod Touch support for its service in a couple of weeks. I will check it out then. Meanwhile, if you have an iPhone, you can sign up for their service today, and get 30 minutes of free calls and 30 text messages (SMS). Vopium also works on other handsets, such as BlackBerry and Symbian-based phones.

Fring, a mobile messaging client that works across different smartphone platforms, today released a new Twitter 2.0 add-on software that allows folks to see other Twitter profiles, check out their own followers and see who’s following them, conduct keyword searches and open links like Tiny URL’s in their incoming tweets. More details on the Fring blog. (Also see our previous Fring coverage.)

Truphone, a London-based mobile VoIP startup, tomorrow is expected to introduce a flat-rate plan (TruUnlimited for Landlines) that would allow its customers unlimited calls to landlines in 38 countries for just over $14 a month. In some countries — the U.S., Canada, China and Hong Kong, for example — the plan would also allow unlimited calls to mobile phones as well. Truphone is also offering another plan (TruUnlimited for Mobiles) that would allow unlimited calls to mobiles and landlines in 64 countries for about $35 a month. With Skype for iPhone (and iPod) likely to be introduced later this week, this seems to be a pre-emptive move by Truphone.

In a previous post, I noted that the iPhone had turbocharged Truphone’s growth. Skype threatens to take some of that sizzle away. Skype’s entry into mobile VoIP will give everyone a heartache. Truphone and Nimbuzz are betting that by being über-communication clients, they can continue to thrive.

If the reaction to my post about Skype’s debut on iPhone is any indication, the world’s largest international voice service is going to become a major player in mobile VoIP pretty quickly. I’m pretty likely to switch to Skype, mostly because my SkypeIn number has a local number — a service Truphone doesn’t offer just yet.

BlackBerry owners in the U.S. will be happy to hear that Truphone is finally releasing Truphone Business, a BlackBerry application enabling business users to make international phone calls from their devices at wireline rates. You download the application. It works in the background. The minute you dial a number that’s international, Truphone intercepts the call and connects it to the international destination via the Truphone network. This doesn’t need Wi-Fi, unlike Truphone on Nokia and iPhone.

Having been an ardent fan of mobile VoIP startups (including Truphone), I am beginning to worry about the company now. We have seen this movie before — low prices, flat-rate pricing and price wars were all strategies used by desperate broadband voice startups that burned through millions of dollars in venture funding. Will history will repeat itself?

Exclusive Heads up: A few months ago, I asked Skype CEO Josh Silverman when was he going to launch the iPhone version of the P2P voice and IM service that has now been downloaded more than 405 million times. He smiled and said, “Stay tuned.” And so we did.

A tipster — a very reliable one — tells me that Skype is almost ready to launch that iPhone version, perhaps as soon as next week. CTIA Wireless, a large mobile industry trade event, kicks off in Las Vegas next Wednesday, so perhaps the announcement will be made there. I am working on getting more details, as well as screenshots of the service. 

The biggest clue about Skype’s pending iPhone launch came when iSkoot decided to move on from its Skype-centric strategy. The company had been offering a client that allowed cell phone users to use Skype services. Skype already offers a Windows Mobile version of its client.

As I’ve said before, Skype will have to turn to mobile to keep its growth intact. In recent months, many services, among them Truphone and Nimbuzz, started supporting Skype in their communication clients. However, a standalone Skype client would get a lot of traction among the Skype faithful. In the meantime, I think Skype is slowly flexing its muscles and swatting away little VoIP players with some of its recent moves.

If you asked me what I missed the most about my iPhone, I would have said Truphone, because it was the cheapest and easiest way to call my mom in India. Well, today you can add Nimbuzz to that list. The company just announced a super communication client for the iPhone that allows you to communicate in a many different ways. For instance, you can make free calls over Wi-Fi to your IM buddies. You can now also call folks on their landlines and mobile phones with Skype Out using any one of Nimbuzz’s 10 VoIP partners including Gizmo5, Vyke, sipgate and A1 and of course Skype. This is a new feature in the service, and makes Skype In/Out Services more valuable.

These services also work over 3G and are described as “Nimbuzz Dial-Up VoIP” which essentially makes it possible to call others by dialing a local access number which then connects to anywhere in the world via Nimbuzz VoIP servers. Nimbuzz already allowed you to do social networking via its client. These services also work over iPod touch, but I haven’t yet tried that, and will do that later today. The new Nimbuzz user interface is much improved and easier to use. I think we have a new VoIP winner on the iPhone.

Meg Whitman, former CEO of eBay, once famously said that voice was going to be free. She was wrong in ponying up billions of dollars for Skype, but she was right in her assertion about voice. Thanks to European broadband service providers treating voice as a loss leader to attract triple-play customers, local voice has become almost free in Europe, according to research conducted by Telegeography, a division of market research firm PriMetrica.

In 2008, VoIP represented 26 percent of total fixed lines in Europe but brought in only 10 percent of the total fixed-line revenues. I bet a big chunk of the VoIP-related revenues are coming from VoIP-to-mobile phone calls. Mobile calls are seriously expensive in Europe, and as a result, any attempts by mobile VoIP companies such as Truphone have been met with resistance by the carriers.

Telegeography estimates that there were more than 35 million European households with VoIP service in 2008. That’s up from just 1.9 million VoIP lines in service in Europe in 2004. Telegeography also estimates that, during every quarter of 2008, more than 2 million homes signed up for VoIP service. Just to give context, in the U.S., we had about 19.4 million VoIP subscribers at the end of 2008. In 2004, there were 1.2 million VoIP lines. Telegeography analysts estimate that Europe will continue to exceed U.S. growth in VoIP lines.

Household penetration of VoIP telephony at mid-year 2008 ranged from slightly less than 50 percent in France to less than 3 percent in Spain, and annual subscriber growth rates ranged from 544 percent in Portugal to a comparatively anemic 13 percent in Norway.

One of the main reasons why France is so far ahead of rest of Europe is because of the presence of a truly disruptive company: Iliad, which offers a flat rate triple rate service under the brand Free. (Related article: Xavier Niel, France’s Broadband Maverick). Free’s offering forced everyone — including incumbent France Telecom — to offer similar, simpler triple-play plans, resulting in increased VoIP penetration.

Other related posts: In Europe, they like their VoIP (2007), VoIP growing really really fast in Europe (2008.)

A Los Angeles Times reporter recently called me for advice about a $400 AT&T bill covering his iPhone activities while “roaming” in Vancouver, Canada, over a weekend. He wanted to know what could be done to reduce such charges while travelling outside his carrier’s home territory. He’s in luck: Truphone says today its planning to launch one solution later this year: Truphone Local Anywhere. It’s a single SIM service that provides local numbers across multiple carriers (internationally!) on a single handset. Bottom line: Road warriors and mobile professionals can avoid roaming-charge shock on international travel. It’s due to launch in the third quarter.

What do mig33, iSkoot and Truphone have in common? They are all startups that have raised gobs of money from venture capitalists. They all offer mobile VoIP clients. And now, all three are looking beyond plain vanilla voice services as they try and navigate the new, post-credit crunch economic reality.

These startups are realizing that in order to make real money they would need to create billions of minutes in calls to off-net services. It is a game only the biggest -– Skype, for instance –- can play. And even then, making profits isn’t all that easy. More than a few startups have died trying to play the low-margin minutes game. (Related post: VoIP – Dead or Alive?)

For these three , the sheer size of their VC funding — over $100 million among the trio — provides a cushion while they plot their evolution.

Truphone, one of my favorite applications, has already gone from being just a mobile VoIP client to becoming an all-encompassing communications offering. By supporting Skype, Twitter and other communications services, Truphone is hoping to become the default (or at least the most used) communication application on the iPhone, which would allow it to generate more call-out minutes and also open up other e-commerce opportunities.

Mig33 is taking a different tack: going after digital goods for additional revenues. These digital goods would include virtual gifts, emoticons, and other means of self-expression. Such virtual gifts have been hugely popular in other online communities, such as virtual worlds and social networks. (Related Post: Venture Capital Loves Virtual.)

During our conversation, Steve Boom, a former Yahoo executive who recently took over as the chief executive of Burlingame, Calif.-based mig33, said that so far that company’s revenues have come from VoIP and digital goods, and that it will be focusing on the latter over the next six months. The company is looking to become cash-flow positive, and that is a big focus for Boom. Its application (and services) are extremely popular in Southern and Southeastern Asia, in addition to some parts of the developing world, where cheap calls are a lure for signing up new customers. (Related: Mad Money for mig33.)

Like its peers, San Francisco-based iSkoot has also tweaked its focus. So far, the company has been pushing a client-server solution that allowed folks to use Skype on their mobile phones. Its offering is the underpinning of the Skype service on 3, the UK-based 3G service provider owned by Hutchinson Wampoa. The company raised a whopping $19 million in Series C funding in November 2008.

The funds are to be used to develop a new platform for AT&T that would allow Ma Bell to offer iSkoot’s myriad services to its customers. For starters, iSkoot has released Notifier, a mobile application that allows folks to read RSS, and to interact with Facebook and Gmail on plain-vanilla mobile phones.

Company executives say that while iSkoot will continue to offer its Skype solution, the company has bigger ambitions, and Notifier is part of a bigger strategic shift by the company. (Related post: iSkoot Looks at a New Mobile Future) Who can blame them? It’s awfully hard to make a living selling a Skype solution to carriers who hate Skype to begin with.

Like mig33 and Truphone, iSkoot is making a smart move and losing its reliance on voice, a commodity business with razor-thin margins, and instead looking elsewhere for growth. Let’s hope by losing their (proverbial) voice, these three companies find something to sing about in the future.

I have been a frequent user of Truphone since it launched its mobile VoIP service over two years ago. What started as a simple VoIP client for Nokia Symbian S60 devices is fast becoming a unified client that does it all. You can make low-cost calls using Wi-Fi networks, utilize the wireless networks for call-back services and send SMS messages on the cheap.

The company is now taking a big step toward becoming an all-encompassing service by announcing support for Skype and other instant messaging. If you have Truphone installed on your iPhone or iTouch you can make (and receive) Skype calls and send instant messages to other Skype users by downloading the updated software on Jan. 12. So far, accessing Skype on an iPhone/iTouch has been hard. (According to our commenters, you can use Fring for iPhone or Nimbuzz iPhone apps to access Skype.)

I had tried to wrestle Skype CEO Josh Silverman on when he was going to release a client, but failed to get an answer from him. So, from that perspective, this is a welcome upgrade by Truphone. The company is also adding support to other messaging services as well. You can also access Twitter using the Truphone client. The offering is exclusively for iPhone and iTouch for now. 

Geraldine Wilson, who was recently appointed as the chief executive of Truphone, told me in a conversation earlier today that Truphone wants to “offer our users a comprehensive communications experience. We started out as a voice app but now we are broadening it to other applications.”

By doing so, Wilson and Truphone founder James Tagg believe that they will give Truphone users a reason to stay insider the application longer, creating more opportunities to make phone calls and bringing in much-needed revenues. “In a mobile environment it is hard to switch between different applications, and that is why we are creating a single application environment,” Tagg says.

As we have noticed previously, iPhone and iTouch have been saviors for Truphone. Wilson told me that the company has more than 100,000 subscribers who use an iPhone, and iTouch has started to see an quick ramp as well. “Since the iPhone introduction, we are seeing our subscriber base double every month,” she said. In Fall 2008, I spoke with Truphone’s CTO, Alistair Campbell, who told me:

Truphone for iPhone now accounts for about one-half of the total number of Truphone users. And while he wouldn’t disclose the total number of downloads, he did say that the company is focusing more of its resources on Apple’s platform.

OK, now I have another reason to use Truphone.

Yesterday, Skype announced the availability of two new beta clients for mobile phones: Skype for Windows Mobile 2.5 beta and a renamed Skype for Mobile, now called Skype Lite. While the new beta version of Skype for Windows Mobile basically provides improved call quality and stability for those with Windows Mobile smartphones, Skype Lite opens up a entire new set of potential cell phone users who will be able to make calls to Skype contacts from mobile phones at the cost of a “local” cell phone call.

Skype Lite is the latest beta iteration of the former Skype for Mobile beta, which only supported a few smartphones such as the Nokia N95. Skype Lite supports more than 90 Java-capable cell phones (including some smartphones) that also have some basic web browser and data capabilities. An unlimited data plan is recommended.

This morning, Truphone also made an announcement about its ability to use the cellular network to make low-cost VoIP-enabled calls from and to the iPhone. With both announcements, it now appears that we will be seeing two major players in the low-cost international mobile conversation space.

There a few differences between the Skype and Truphone offerings: Skype, with over 30 million users daily, supports both voice and its own instant messaging conversations across a variety of mobile handsets. landline phones and PC platforms. Truphone supports voice and has shown support for messaging via traditional SMS services across mobile devices and landlines.

One caveat for both services: the low cost only applies when calling from your home country; otherwise you could invoke significant roaming charges.

Seems like Truphone has taken the leadership for low cost international calling on what is becoming a most popular smartphone (as well as several other smartphones). Does the combination of Truphone’s announcement and all this Skype beta activity portend Skype for iPhone too? It could be something for the new CTO and CSO to get behind.

Jim Courtney is an Associate Editor at Skype Journal.

TruPhone just last week released an iPod Touch application that allows for VoIP calls on the device using Wi-Fi and also has such an app for the iPhone. But this morning the company has pushed out an app that allows iPhone users to make VoIP calls on the cellular network. With TruPhone Anywhere you can call using TruPhone even without Wi-Fi access — you pay for a local connection before the rest of the call is connected using VoIP. This means you can make international calls for as little as 6 cents per minute in 33 countries when you’re out of Wi-Fi range. The app also adds inbound TruPhone calling on the iPhone, so folks can make free TruPhone calls between two iPhones.

If you are like me, then you’re one of the many millions who have cut the cord with their landline and gone all wireless. However, that doesn’t mean people don’t want phones for their homes. Of course, for them, there are many options — some that use traditional telephony like AT&T and others like Vonage, which provide broadband-based voice service. It’s hard for folks to pick the one that is the best and most reliable.

Keynote Systems recently conducted a study (link to PDF) of some of the more popular services — AT&T VoIP, AT&T Landline, Comcast Digital, Time Warner Digital, Verizon VoiceWing (VoIP), Packet8, Vonage, Lingo and Truevoice. According to their study, AT&T’s landline service was the most reliable service, while in terms of voice quality, Comcast’s Digital Voice came out on top.

I wish Keynote had not been stingy and shared complete rankings instead of these teaser results. Nevertheless, even the very limited data they made available show that pure-play VoIP services ranked pretty low, hinting at poor quality and less reliability.

More importantly, not a single service measures up to being both reliable and exhibiting good quality; and though Verizon VoiceWing is a good enough compromise, it’s not clear if you can actually sign up for the service. I tried on their web site and failed — only existing customers can seemingly log into the site.

These results align closely to my own findings — while AT&T used to work, the quality of the calls was just horrible. I could not make a single call to India without redialing. So I gave up that service and then opted for Comcast. I very quickly realized that spending $40 a month for a voice service when I could easily get nearly unlimited minutes from my mobile phone just didn’t make much sense. Good-bye, Comcast.

I would love to know which service you use and what your real-world experience is.

Over the years we have seen the gradual separation of phone numbers from geographical location. To date, Skype’s SkypeIn service has been the best demonstration of this trend; even though I live and work just outside Toronto, Canada, I have a Palo Alto, Calif., SkypeIn number for historical family reasons, and I recently acquired a San Francisco number for Truphone. The same separation can apply to most VoIP-based voice services.

Over the past couple of years Belgian-based Voxbone has also developed an international numbering service which offers its clients a “local” phone numbers in any of 5,000 cities in 45 countries. OnState has used Voxbone’s “local” numbers as access points to its virtual call center service; its clients’ businesses can offer customer service and support centers with worldwide “local” access. However, it would be even more convenient for businesses selling into multiple countries if they could simply offer one universal number worldwide. Now, they can.

Yesterday, three months after the International Telecommunications Union (ITU) made available the +883 “global” country code, Voxbone announced the launch of its country-agnostic iNum service. I first learned of Voxbone at last spring’s eComm 2008 where Voxbone CEO Rod Ullens first mentioned the iNum concept. This announcement starts to realize his vision of enabling low cost conversations with worldwide access by taking advantage of the technology around IP-based communications:

“iNum is a new kind of phone number for a new kind of world — a world with a new geography that’s about local presence and global relationships, not about distance or national borders,” said Rodrigue Ullens, CEO and co-founder of Voxbone. “We believe the new geography is defined by the markets, customers and vendors that businesses need to connect with most. We need ‘local’ communication with these people — whether calls originate on public-switched or VoIP networks, whether they are truly local or ‘virtually’ local.”

In practice, that means a Voxbone iNum Service Provider Partner will supply a customer, whether an individual or a business, with a number that has an 883 country code. Once the service is fully rolled out to Voxbone’s 5,000 local points of presence worldwide, that iNum number will be accessible for, at most, the cost of a “local” phone call from any PSTN or VoIP service.

“At most,” because fundamental to Voxbone’s services is that they are IP-based and therefore calls amongst iNum Partners’ services are free. Currently Voxbone has 10 iNum Service Provider Partners, including Truphone, Mobivox and Voxeo, who either have made iNum numbers available today or will do so in the next few weeks. (For those callers who don’t use an iNum partner’s service, iNum numbers can be called through 55 “local” access points in 45 countries for the cost of a call to these access points.) Ullens, in a SquawkBox conference call yesterday, said that Voxbone will be negotiating with carriers and service providers worldwide to build out their service to become universally available.

Voxeo has set up a demonstration iNum service example; call +883 510 001 800 028 024, give their virtual operator a U.S. postal code and you will get local weather reports. This call can be made via the iNum Partners’ services today; it will become available via the local access points as they are set up over the next week. Another example: iotum’s Callflower Conference Call service will be using iNum numbers in a few days.

Jim Courtney is an Associate Editor of Skype Journal.