When Josh passed this little nugget of goodness on to me this morning, I thought it was too good to be true. For the cost of a call to Iowa, you can make phone calls to a bunch of countries around the world using AllFreeCalls.net. The list of available countries is pretty large, and is supposedly set to expand in the near future. According to the folks at TechCrunch, this is how it works: the founder of the service established a phone company in the great (corn laden) state of Iowa, which is apparently the only state in the Union taking advantage of an FCC ‘kickback scheme’ that gives telephone companies a portion of the fees arising out of every single inbound call to an Iowa number. When you dial AllFreeCalls’ number, some of the long distance fees you pay to call Iowa go to the company. The key is that these ‘kickbacks’ are sufficient to, on average, more than cover the international outbound calling fees. Complicated? Yes; but who cares? You can make free calls overseas people!

Via TechCrunch


Garren Friday, 01.12.07 @ 2:46 pm

Like Futurephone this is taking advantage of an FCC kickback supported by the US Universal Service Fund (USF). This is exploiting a fund the FCC set up to assist states in the US where telecom systems are considered weak, in this case Iowa. Futurephone and Allfrecalls are making money out of the USF/FCC and you for every generated call, you are paying at least 6 cents a minute when long distance calling is not included in your plan. I’m more than sure that this isn’t allowed to continue for long — that’s really not what the USF is for!


Pat Phelan Friday, 01.12.07 @ 3:55 pm

Garren
you are moving all over the net, commenting here there and everywhere with the same comments.
I am the CEO of http://www.allfreecalls.net and I can guarantee you we are neither dubious nor stealing anyones money.
What would you have to gain by doing this, a competitor perhaps
here are two of your previous posts
http://ash-xander.livejournal.com/42320.html?view=146768#t146768
http://thefinancista.blogspot.com/2007/01/fsf-bonus-free-international-phone.html
I have no problem discussing our business plan with anyone and should you wish to step out of your veil of annoyminity head over to my blog.

Thanks very much for the link Josh and sorry for flaming




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