What is Free World Dialup?
Free World Dialup (FWD) is a service that lets people talk for free between computers. It is an IP telephone service for between computers strictly. 2. Dont MSN, Yahoo, AOL, and even Google now all have free services that do the same thing? All those providers do have free services that allow one to talk over the internet. However, Free World Dialup is a superior service to any of the others since it allows the most diversity in who can use it, such as Mac users. 3. How do they make money? Good question. Free World Dialup is owned by Pulver Communications, which sells IP telephone services. They sell sponsorship on their website, but most of all the hope is that their customer base will be a benefit to them as IP telephone technology takes off, like the ability to sell access to the regular telephone network. 4. Isnt it just like Skype? As a service, it is probably most similar to Skype, from a technology standpoint. (The user interface is quite different.) However, FWD uses the standa
Todays Free World Dialup is the third generation of Free World Dialup services to offer the ability to make free calls over the Internet. The first Free World Dialup service began in 1995. Todays Free World Dialup offers broadband users (cable, dsl, etnernet, satellite, etc.) the ability to join a community of Free World Dialup users who are interested in talking with other members of the worldwide members of the Free World Dialup community. Members of the Free World Dialup community can call one-another directly and the call will never go through the PSTN. It would be 100% over the Internet. Is there anything to buy? Yes, a one-time purchase of a Free World Dialup supported SIP device is required to be a member of the Free World Dialup community. Currently both the Cisco ATA-186 and the Cisco 7960 (with SIP image) are supported products. We are currently testing alternatives to the Cisco devices including a range of softphones.
Free World Dialup (FWD) helps people who have VoIP equipment to contact each other across the Internet. Without FWD, communication is still possible but you need to know the IP address of your correspondent – not very user friendly. FWD provides both a switchboard function and a web based directory. Contacting another user becomes simply a matter of finding a user’s ID (allocated by FWD at sign up) – using the web directory if you do not already know it – and then “dialling” that ID through a VoIP client. The FCC has ruled that the service is an unregulated information service subject to federal regulation. This is indeed good news for FWD since it is now effectively free from the threat of being closed down by regulators.
