As phone calls over the Internet became very popular, the client software for them progressed as well. LowRateVoip allows you to make long-distance phone calls, to both mobile and landlines all over the world. You can also send SMS messages through it.
The program itself is freeware, but in order to use it, you have to pay for calls. It's the same system used in prepaid mobile phones: you need to pay a certain amount of money, then you spend it on calls. Besides low costs, first month is free after you have paid, which is a pretty good deal.
Installation is very simple. The first thing you have to do after you install the program is to create an account. Once logged in, you can start calling by typing phone numbers or adding people at contacts and selecting from your contact list. There are options to import phone numbers from Outlook contacts. Contacts can be organized in groups too, which will ease their management.
I have used this application for the last two years and the audio quality seems very good to me. During longer calls, the connection gets dropped sometimes, but it only happens once in a while and is not a big problem.
v4.1 [Mar 2, 2008]
general: New voice engine 6.10, The adaption speed of the echo canceler has been improved, also CPU usage is reduced.
general: The logoff procedure has been changed and is much faster now.
general: Some textual and visual changes in dialogs.
general: The software is signed with a new Verisign certificate.
feature: Missed calls while offline implemented.
feature: User can now choose for country at register new user.
feature: One minute before credit runs out, a sound will be played and a message will be displayed with a warning to inform that the user is almost out of credit.
bugfix: Some import contact functions were not working properly.
bugfix: Some getting started wizard issues solved.
bugfix: Logon after sleep could take a while.
bugfix: Fixed the volume control in the active screen.
bugfix: Peer 2 Peer connections where not always correctly setup because the private ip address was not detected properly.
bugfix: VoiceEngine 6.09 implemented. Fixed a memoryallocation bug which could sometimes crash the program due to heapcorruption.
bugfix: Presentation restricted flag was not set correctly in the profile if changes where made in the call settings option screen.
bugfix: The configuration of the VoiceEngine was not cached correctly.
bugfix: Introduced voice-engine 6.08. Fixed issues with selecting sound devices on languages that use non-ascii character sets.
bugfix: The client could crash when it received a specific server message.
Mall Creeps
