On Monday October 15, Tech2 announced that Plingm, a Swedish VoIP service provider, has released an app to enable free global calling through Facebook and LinkedIn.
Customers can get Plingm through the Apple store for the iPhone, and through Google Play for the Android. Once the customer has downloaded the app, they have to connect their Plingm account to their Facebook and LinkedIn accounts. You will be visible to other Plingm users on Facebook and LinkedIn, and you will be able to see when other Plingm users are logged into their social profiles.
The app is free to download, and a Plingm user can call another Plingm user for free at any time. Customers only ever have to pay when they use Plingm to call landline phones and mobile phones that aren’t on Plingm.
Prices differ for landline and mobile calling based on country. A user in the US could pay $3.99 for 100 minutes of calling to other numbers in the US, as well as Canada, China, India, Malaysia, Singapore, and Thailand. Prices go up from there and lots of countries are very expensive to call. For example, a caller in the US would have to pay $29.99 for 50 minutes of calling to Afghanistan, Mexico, Libya, or Poland.
The Plingm app is available in English, Spanish, French, Arabic, Chinese, and French.
Many people use Facebook to stay in touch with family and friends, and to look up people they have lost touch with. LinkedIn is popular for professional networking. It makes a lot of sense to use these social profiles as a vehicle for VoIP calling. Many people, especially young people, are far more inclined to text or use social profiles to stay in touch with friends. With Plingm, customers can call friends whether or not they have their phone numbers. Their social profiles act as their contact lists.
Plingm has also announced that their app will now be available in India, and many countries in the Middle East and Northern Africa. In countries like these with large populations of people living below the poverty line, an inexpensive calling method is absolutely crucial. Internet access is becoming more common in some of these countries, especially in India, so a free VoIP service could become extremely commonplace as a method for cheap calling in these countries.
Rachel Greenberg is the Site Editor for My VoIP Provider.