Jajah Direct Provides Cheap Overseas Calling Without the Web

"Unique" local numbers allow low-cost international VoIP calls from any phone.

Jajah made its name by providing cheap, Web-activated international calling. Now, the company has launched a service that aims to free callers from the Web altogether. No longer will users need to type numbers on PC or mobile browsers; merely dialing a local number will connect them to those they want to reach. It's a streamlined, VoIP-powered version of decades-old calling-card and callback services.

The new service, Jajah Direct, uses VoIP technology to make inexpensive Internet calling almost as easy as using conventional phone service. When you make your first call to a person overseas, you receive a "unique" local number that you can always use to call that person. From then on, when you dial that number, the service calls the overseas person from an exchange nearby and uses a VoIP link to connect that call to the number you dialed. The resulting end-to-end calls cost pennies per minute.

Making the physical process of Internet VoIP calling easier has been a longtime goal of providers. The earliest services used headsets and client software on PCs. They were cheap or free, but they were not very mobile. Users had to be in front of their computers, in the office or at hotspots. This approach wasn't very good for spur-of-the-moment spontaneity.

Connect-a-call services like the one that made Jajah famous were a big advance. Callers went online to enter their numbers and the ones they wanted to reach via a Web browser. The service called both numbers from local exchanges and connected the calls via VoIP circuits. That made it possible for people to talk using regular phones rather than headsets. It still, however, required access to the Web to initiate a call. And the callback wouldn't reach those behind switchboards or PBXes.

The next advance was putting client software on mobile handsets. The software could automatically enter both numbers so users wouldn't have to do so online. It could wait for a callback from the service or instruct the handset to initiate the local part of the call. The software could integrate with the handset's phone book so smoothly that users couldn't distinguish between regular and VoIP calls. However, the software required downloading and didn't work on all handsets.

Jajah's new approach is the smoothest yet. You can put the unique number you receive in your phone book and use it as if it were the person's overseas number, but you don't need to deal with international calling codes and rates. Once you have the number, you'll never have to touch a keyboard to make that call.

As noted, the new service resembles nothing so much as the venerable calling-card and callback services that international transplants have used for decades to cut the cost of calling home. Those services undercut traditional phone companies by leveraging differences in international calling rates between countries, rather than leveraging technological efficiencies the way Internet calling does. Such services also require keying in long card numbers or PINs.

Jajah Direct is the 21st-century equivalent of such services, made modern and user-friendly through the magic of VoIP. It should represent the state of the art for at least a couple of months— until another company comes up with something even more clever and convenient.