Less then seven months after it was acquired by Telefónica Europe (aka O2), for $207 million, VoIP service Jajah is launching its first integration with the large European carrier. O2 subscribers in Germany will now be able to designate up to five friends abroad as their Global Friends; Jajah will assign each of those friends local numbers, allowing you to call internationally from your mobile phone at local rates. The product will be powered by Jajah, but customers will be seeing the O2 brand.
This is interesting for a few reasons. First, it’s obviously a fairly speedy integration given the size of O2. Jajah CEO Trevor Healy also says that this marks the first time that a global carrier is offering a VoIP-powered service to its subscribers — he explains that O2 is willing to embrace the ‘Silicon Valley approach’ to digital communications, as opposed to holding steadfast to tradional voice services. Here’s to hoping the US carriers follow suit.
O2 says it will be rolling out further Jajah-powered features in the next few months (presumably including a rollout of Global Friends to countries outside of Germany). O2 has 54 million subscribers across Europe.