The Skype fad never really got hold of me. Instead, I have worked and played with a number of other VoIP applications, from Echolink to Cisco. My newest acquaintance carries the exotic-sounding name Jajah.
Where Skype and its ilk require both software and hardware (headset) installations, Jajah is download-free and headset-free. These features translate to an immense improvement in usability. I made my first Jajah call (it’s on the house) by, in effect, filling in a web form and picking up my phone. This is how Jajah works – the dialing is (usually) done on the Jajah web site, after which your own phone (landline or mobile) rings. When you answer the call, Jajah connects you to the dialed party.
I really like being able to make calls by clicking on an address book entry (Outlook, Plaxo, and other plugins are available) instead of searching for the number in the contact list on my phone (where the text seems to shrink smaller year for year). This approach doesn’t even require the caller to know which number to dial – he could be clicking on a screen name, and be connected to an unlisted number.
What else is in it for the user? Free calls, if you happen to live or work in a country where those are offered. Currently both landline and mobile calls are free in the USA and five other countries. Landline calls only are free in a few dozen other nations (including, for example, Finland and Estonia).
As always, there are downsides as well. First, calls may in fact be ridiculously expensive. As an example, the basic mobile plan at Finnish leading telco Elisa charges calls at five cents (i.e. 0,05 €) per minute. Using Jajah, mobile-to-mobile calls in Finland are priced at 19 c/min. Not exactly “low cost”.
Privacy might be the most sinister issue though. Perhaps you trust your local telco and police not to listen in on your calls, but when the calls are routed through a provider with its headquarters in the USA and its development center in Israel, a healthy whiff of paranoia is in order. Truly secret information should, of course, never be divulged over the phone anyway (unless end-to-end encryption is used), but there is a lot of intelligence information to be scraped from normal business discussions as well. Jajah actually seem to reserve the right to do so; near the end of its privacy policy, under “Phone Calls”, this passage can be found:
Among the services JAJAH offers, Users may initiate phone calls between them which are partly or fully handled via JAJAH telecom partners. Therfore (sic) any information which You may post during such phone call, including any personal information shall not be deemed private. JAJAH cannot guarantee the security of such information, that you disclose or communicate in such phone call and you do so at your own risk.
Such terms are outright illegal in my jurisdiction. On the other hand, Jajah contends in a blog entry that they have “absolutely no interest to spy on its users whatsoever”. This apparent contradiction leaves me confused as to the security in using Jajah even for private calls, not to mention the business usage Jajah invites with their “Business Account”.
I would be most interested to read about your thoughts and experiences with Jajah or similar providers – please leave a comment!
One Comment
Dear Thor,
thank you very much for your post. I read your article carefully yesterday and I hear you. Nevertheless I would like to clarify a couple of things.
First of all I can restate that we have absolutely no interest nor the technology in spying on our users conversations whatsoever. We are an Austrian founded company and the privacy policy was written by European lawyers, policies like this are written in the best interest of our users but also to protect the company from getting sued. Our policy says “Among the services JAJAH offers, users may initiate phone calls between them which are partly or fully handled via JAJAH telecom partners [...] JAJAH cannot guarantee the security of such information, that you disclose or communicate in such phone call and you do so at your own risk.” which simply says that we - nor any other company - could GUARANTEE the security of phone calls made through a worldwide network of operators, it is simply impossible and we have to protect ourselves against the fact that somebody is gonna come up and says “but you guaranteed that …” This is not bad will nor expressing any intention in doing so, but we just can not issue a “guarantee” from our hand side.
Regarding the mobile call using Elisa: Jajah provides the biggest savings on international phone calls, we show the rate before establishing any call and there will be a solution or plan for national calls which might be cheaper in a number of countries. None the less you save a lot of money while using Jajah even when calling from mobile to mobile nationwide in most European countries, especially when made between different cell phone network providers. I couldn’t find a “Rates” page on the english version of the Elisa homepage nor is my suomi very good, but I’m sure you will find some big savings when using your cell phone calling India, Spain or Japan compared to the rates when using Jajah.
I highly appreciate your support in writing about us and describing our service but I wanted to make clear that there is absolutely no bad intention nor would anybody spy on any phone call, despite the effort technologywise would be outrageous and speech-recognition is still in such an early stage that the only fear that I have regarding this issue would be our own governments.
Thank you and get back to me anytime (-9h GMT) when you have any further questions or feedback.
Best regards,
Frederik
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