T-Mobile Turns Facebook Chat Into Free Phone Calls With New Bobsled App

T-Mobile and app developer Vivox equitable launched a non-slave, easy-to-use vocalism-chat covering called Bobsled that allows people to visit their friends from within the Facebook application or leave a voice substance with one click.

Bobsleds, you may remember from the last Wintertime Olympics, come screaming down their icy tracks at evil and sometimes deadly speeds. The early reports suggest that Skype and other VoIP providers may so never know what reach them once tidings gets knocked out to Facebook's fractional a one million million users.

Business enterprise Insider calls the voice natter app a "Skype slayer" because it lets you visit people connected your Facebook friends list immediately, rather than requiring them to set up a Skype account first-year. The people you call assume't need to have the app installed, although they do need a headset or mic and speakers. IT kit and caboodle on both Macs and PCs.

Vivox and T-Mobile lay claim that 88 percent of Facebook users they surveyed wanted vocalize chat. It may be a friendly lifesaver for people whose devotion to their virtual life is such that their friends don't remember what they sound like over the phone.

T-Mobile exec Brad Duea told The Associated Press that the item of "Bobsled" is to put T-Mobile's brand–soon to embody AT&A;T's brand–before many populate. T-Mobile could also ADHD advertising operating room start charging for calls from PCs to phones.

The ware has been test-marketed on Facebook under the mar name Vring, with T-Manoeuvrable's connection to the send off undisclosed.

Download the Plug-In

The Bobsled card, developed by Vivox, needs to be downloaded first from the Facebook Bobsleigh page. Restart your browser and you'll visualize a young green phone icon incoming to your friends' names if theyre procurable to chat.

A pop-up book box lets you check your mic and Speaker levels, and you're off to the races, provided your friend answers the phone. If they wear't lift up, you throne leave voicemail by clicking the Bobsled icon at the bottom of your chat buddy list.

According to T-Mobile's blog, the Bobsled trade name testament expand to let in other cloud-supported communications services: "In the near forthcoming, T-Mobile plans to acquire Bob by T-Mobile to include video jaw [and] the ability to lay VoIP calls to mobile and land line U.S. numbers, and [T-Mobile] wish bid applications on smartphones and tablets across individual mobile platforms, regardless of the toter that powers such devices," the web log reads nowadays.