Tufone and MobileLime have each announced new services which allow you to do nifty things with your cell phone, without any additional equipment, and using your current cell provider. Make an international VoIP call using your cell phone, or pay for your purchases with your phone instead of your credit card.
Tufone’s new service allows you to use your cell phone to access their international VoIP channels. That’s right, you can make an international VoIP call using just your existing cellular phone and service! The way that it works is this: you dial a unique local telephone number using your cell phone. This call, explains Tufone, “opens a gateway into the Tufone VOIP telephone system. Once dialed, the customer is greeted with a standard dial tone. No ID or PIN is required as the Tufone computer recognizes the telephone calling; making a long distance call with Tufone very easy. Once an account is opened it can be used continuously. All that is required is a credit card or a pre-payment in any amount to recharge the service.”
And according to Tufone their rates for using their international VoIP plan are far less expensive than using a traditional long distance calling card, as many people do to make international calls. For example, you can call Germany, China, and the UK for .03 per minute or less.
Explains Tufone president, Moses Apsan, “The process of making telephone calls to families abroad should not be complicated or costly. Immigrants should not have to pay a large portion of their paycheck just to speak to their family abroad; instead they should be able to use these funds for more necessary expenses – support of their family, which is the basic reason most immigrants come to the United States in the first place.”
Another new service for your cell phone is that offered by MobileLime. How would you like to be able to pay for your purchases with your cell phone, instead of having to carry and produce a credit, debit, or ATM card? And how about not having to whip out the ubiquitous “loyalty card” (you know, like your supermarket gives you to track all of your purchases, in return for which you get special prices available only to those who have the Supermarket Card?)
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Well, with MobileLime’s new service, you can do all that. You just set up your MobileLime account, which is tied either to your credit card or to a special pre-paid MobileLime fund account, and whenever you shop you just call up MobileLime, enter your PIN#, and the Merchant’s PIN#, and you’re done. The funds are deducted from your MobileLime or credit card account and paid to the merchant.
The catch here is that it has to be a participating MobileLime merchant, and so far it seems that MobileLime has only signed up merchants in Massachusetts and New York, but watch for more to be added.
You can check out MobileLime at MobileLime.com, and Tufone’s international VoIP service at [Page no longer available – we have linked to the archive.org version instead].
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