New offer of free phone calls

Voice over IP (VoIP) service provider Babble is offering free calls over the internet to landlines in 25 countries.

Regions covered by this FreeB offer include the US, Europe, Australia, China and the UK, and calls can be made from a PC, laptop or IP telephone.

Babble's offer is available to both new and existing customers. To register, send a text message, which costs £1.50, to Babble and install the appropriate software on your computer.

FreeB calls are limited to 30 minutes a day and the offer lasts for three months.

Today's announcement follows rival VoIP company Jajah's offer of free web-activated landline calls to a wider range of countries. The Jajah system allows you to use a standard dial-up phone.

Babble's service uses the open Session Initiation Protocol (Sip) enabling users to place calls to other Sip-based VoIP services for free. In contrast, Skype maintains a proprietary, closed system.

Skype is the dominant player in the UK, carrying 48 per cent of all VoIP calls last year.

There's plenty of attention on the growing VoIP market and many service providers are releasing offers such as this one in an attempt to build market share and brand awareness.