The Gizmo free-call surprise, too good to be true?

Wow, the open standards Internet telephone company the Gizmo Project is offering free calls to 60 countries now.

This is serious stuff. Skype was doing something similar, but it was bought up by eBay and never had to prove it could make money. Gizmo’s announcement is almost exactly the same thing as what Jajah recently announced, but Gizmo has one major advantage: You don’t have to take the extra step of being on hold for about ten seconds while your fixed phone rings you back to connect the call.

Sure with Gizmo, you have to download their software (details here) and are tethered to your PC while you make the call (Jajah lets you use your cordless home phone, so you can walk around), but the direct call still gives it a leg-up. The company, barely more than a year old, is an “open standards” product, meaning it can be easily integrated with other phone platforms. For free calls, the person you are calling also has to have Gizmo’s downloaded software (At Jajah, the other person has to register). But free calls. This is a race to the bottom that reminds up of 2000, when Dialpad offered free Internet calls, on the bet that if it won traffic it could make money somehow through advertising and so on. Things feel slightly saner this time, but only just!

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