• Free International Calling Yanked… Not Quite

    John Biggs

    Biggs is the East Coast Editor of TechCrunch. Biggs has written for the New York Times, InSync, USA Weekend, Popular Mechanics, Popular Science, Money and a number of other outlets on technology and wristwatches. He is the former editor-in-chief of Gizmodo.com and lives in Bay Ridge, Brooklyn. You can Tweet him here and G+ him here. Email him directly at... → Learn More

    Monday, February 5th, 2007

    at the Times. It was essentially a free international number that terminated in Iowa and then connected you to international numbers anywhere around the world. We used it quite a bit until they yanked it.

    It took advantage of some sort of loophole, explained here, that involves some sort of rural carrier arbitrage deal, whatever that means. Apparently some lobbyists and government types essentially shut down the number recently and there will be no free calls for you… or perhaps not?

    What I don’t understand is why the telcos don’t just create a Skype-killer and offer flat rate calls all over the world. They can make their money on selling home Internet access and grab a large chunk of late adopters.

    FuturePhone, a Thing of the Past? [GigaOm]

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