Viber is a VoIP company which has been trying a lot of things to beat Skype in the internet telephony service. Not only it is trying to capture some ( or all ) market share of Skype but sincerely trying to integrate mobile and desktop chat/messaging and calling service which means they are going against all the calling services like Skype and also messaging apps like WhatsApp, Line, WeChat and others. Viber desktop was announced with a similar goal in mind and somehow in some parts of the world Viber is working great as an alternate to Skype.
But Viber’s new Viber Out calling service was introduced in some parts of the world which very well appreciated in some regions. Viber Out is what Skype does when you try to call non-skype contacts/numbers. Skype lets you call any number internationally from your Skype account as long as you have credits in your account to do so. The charges for Skype call vary as per the location/country you are calling to and calling from. But more or less at some places Skype calls are cheaper than calling from regular phones. Especially when it comes to making International Calls. Skype becomes a very cheap medium to do so.
Last month a powerful typhoon hit Philippines and everyone was in distress, the number of people who lost their loved ones is bigger than you could imagine in any natural calamity. In such drastic situations people rushed in to call their loved ones and other family members all over the world to get support, help and emotional stability with the grave struggle they had to go through. Viber very generously helped people in Philippines the best way they could. They opened their arms to let Philippines users call International numbers for free. They called the International numbers as the Non-Viber numbers and let people call their loved ones for free. Nobody was charged and Vibe managed all the charges with the help of few cellular carriers who later provided assistance to Viber to make this free-calling service possible. You can read about it on the Viber Typhoon Haiyan Relief page.
Viber Out
One month later today, Viber introduced ViberOut a new service available to everyone to use. ViberOut is what described above, it lets you call international numbers including landlines at a very cheap price as long as you have credit in your Viber app purchase by the in-app purchase for iOS or Android or using credit card to buy credits on their desktop App. Viber promises to provide HD audio over their calls at substantially low price. We already know Viber has the resources and the ability to provide excellent service, so giving it at such a low-cost is really a win for users. It definitely looks way cheaper than Skype and might force Skype to change their rates for International calls.
If you are not familiar with how Viber works, it attaches itself to your phone number instead of asking you to register a new account or activate a new account, it attaches to your regular phone number. So when you call anyone from within the Viber App it will show as your calling them on their Viber app, similarly when you receive a call from Viber user, their number would show up in the Viber app as incoming call instead of a unknown contact. Once you update / refresh your contacts in the Viber App, the app tells you which users are using Viber and you can call on their Viber number for free. If they aren’t using Viber then you can make a standard call as they are non-Viber user and the above mentioned charges would be applied. Do note, when the user receives a call they will see your number instead of a randong VoIP number, this not only makes it convenient for you but also for the receiver as knowing who is calling is very important.
Viber has more than 200 million users globally and they have the Viber App for iOS, Android, Windows Phone, BlackBerry, Bada OS, Mac, Linux, Windows, Symbian and even Nokia S40.
