If you live in the US and Canada (Europe too?) and have family and friends in the good old Arab world (or the ‘Blaad’ as Arab Americans like to say 
) or the wider world, then you have to check out Olivoice, a new kind of telecom which has just launched today! And that’s not just because my SYNTAX team worked with the Olivocie team on their branding and design, by the way!
The concept behind Olivoice is unique. What’s driving it, technologically, is VoIP, which basically means it uses the internet to carry phone calls around the world at a fraction of the ‘normal’ cost of international calls, resulting in amazing savings for you, the customer. Olivoice has partnered with renowned US and UK based providers of VoIP infrastructure and services, added it’s own technological wizardry into a powerful package that rivals any VoIP offering out there.
But what’s REALLY driving this telecom is not just the great technology. Mix up a bunch of clever, globally minded entrepreneurs, with a passion to connect their community worldwide and a love of excellent customer experience design and there you have it: Olivoice.
And like every good company, the idea for Olivoice was born out of frustration with something. In the case of the Olivoice founders it was their dismay with the clunky ‘cheap’ phone services they had to endure when calling their friends and family back home in Jordan and Palestine while they were living abroad (think of those weird looking phone cards you can buy in the US for example). So they started a company to solve their problem.
This wasn’t without challenges, according to their website.
After 9 months of forgetting about weekends, evenings and holidays, George and Karim focused on a simple solution to a problem they are passionate about: keeping our community members in touch with each other no matter the distance between them.
The telecoms industry is not the most straightforward for two young entrepreneurs: it’s competitive, the incumbents are large and well-capitalized, and simply to understand the technology and the regulation is daunting. It’s easier to set up a fast-food business in any of the Arab capitals! But it is this immense passion to keep people connected that drives these two forward.
Olivoice is currently available for US and Canada. But you will soon see it available in Europe the Arab world as well. The service offered by Olivoice covers calling the whole world, but special attention has been given to provide the best prices for calling Arab countries.
If you’re considering to experience the future of telephony, check out Olivoice and give it a try.
Comments
9 responses to “Talk more with Olivoice”
But Skype still offers better prices… even to the arab world.
I use Broadvoice, and frequently make phonecalls to Jordan, specifically to cell phones. thier prices are better thank Olivoice
There are a bunch of VOIP providers out there, Vonage, Sunrocket, Lendo and a bunch others. All have different rates and prices.
My Recommendation is: Get any VOIP company, buy TWO accounts. Get broadband in the two countries, Connect the two VOIP services and BAM! you’ve got FREE calls between the two!
If you’re on a budget, get only one, connect it in the country of your choice in your family’s home, and enjoy calling them for free. If you want to be a little bit better, get an FXO/FXS gateway, and hook up your phone line and no you have your own gateway to that country.
Enjoy
The idea is great
However; we are currently using some of the prepaid services to call USA and it is way cheaper than these prices …
I haven’t studied the model yet but they seem to be using something similar to http://www.vonage.com/ … the latter gives you the ability to start your own network around the world and the calls inside the network can be as cheap as free of charge ..
Boy! this market is way too competitive!
I would like to see them succeed!
Moderation!? What happened to freedom of “blogging”?
Actually, Khalida, almost ALL of those calling card companies use illigal ways to get establish Voip networks. And since they don’t have enough bandwidth, the quality suffers.
If someone is tech savy, they can creat thier own network and bypass these folks alltogether
Here’s what you need:
Phone—-VoipGateway===Internet===VoipGateway—-FXS/FXO—-PhoneLine*
Once these are in place, you are able to call that country as a local number
(sorry for the crude illustration)
Thank you all for your interest in this post by our friend Ahmad.
Yazan, you need a turned on computer to use Skype, you do not get most of the set of free features we provide, and certainly not 911. We simply provide you a stable phone line connection even if your computer is turned off.
Qweider (hope I didn’t misspell your name), did you really check all our minute rates? Especially for Arab countries? In most instances we are cheaper. We do not aim to be the cheapest though, we would like to provide good quality routes to our customers.
Khalidah, we have free In-Network calls between all Olivoice subscribers
Again thanks for your interest.
George
Thanks George, and you spelled my name right
Not to stir the subject to any specific direction. I think VOIP is definitely the way to go. I think it’s the future and the old phone lines are on their way to extinction.
Next would be voip over cell phones, WIFI enabled phones that roams anywhere there’s an internet
Something that comes to mind is what do I need to use to hook up to your gateways? Do I need to buy something like a a voip router or something? Is it possible to use a soft phone?
Hi Qweider,
Indeed VoIP is spreading everywhere especially in the USA. I also think VoIP over cell phones and over WIFI are really cool ideas, (we will offer VoIP cell phone access to our customers soon). The service is currently available in the USA, and will be introduced in Canada soon. During the next phase we’ll target several Arab countries. As for the equipment, we provide the Sipura SPA2100.
Well all what you said guys is true about other companies offering similar services or maybe even cheaper or so, but isn’t the idea of a company owned by people of your own race just great, why not give them a chance instead of giving other companies owned by god knows who profit. Think about it that way, you can at least give it a try I know I will.
Thanks
Karina