Blueface, Ireland’s leading internet telephony provider has developed an innovative new app which gives iPhone users a ‘virtual landline number’ and can save users up to 90% on calls.

The Blueface ‘Banter’ App eliminates the need for residential and business customers to pay costly line rental fees, saving them an average of €25 per month. Once users download the app and enter their details they are given a virtual geographic number depending on their desired location (Dublin 01, Galway 091, Cork 021 etc), and their account is credited with 50c free trial credit. Users can then make and receive calls from the virtual landline number via their iPhone handset.

Making a call via the app is simple. Users can access their iPhone address book through the app and select a contact. When the user presses ‘call’ the app sends a message to the Blueface hub to call the user first and, once answered, call the person they wish to contact.

Alan Foy, CEO, Blueface, commented: “We identified a gap in the business and residential marketplace for a cost saving app that can provide the option of a landline number without the line rental fee. While small entrepreneurial businesses need to provide customers with a landline number, they can do without the extra costs associated with a landline contract. Similarly, 30% of the residential population of Ireland no longer have a landline, but often do not wish to make expensive calls from their mobile phones. The Blueface Banter App provides a solution to all these needs.”

As well as the saving on line rental fees, customers can make significant savings on calls made via the app, particularly on international calls. A call from Ireland to Australia, for example, made from a traditional mobile network, would cost the user from €1.46 to €2 per minute. However, if the same call is made via the Blueface Banter App, the call would cost as low as 9.7c per minute, a saving of up to 96%.

Blueface developed the award winning app in connection with Vennetics, an innovator in telecommunication and IT application solutions, using GSM OneAPI specifications. This partnership between Blueface and Vennetics resulted in the companies winning the North / South Collaboration Award at the Irish Times Innovation Awards 2011. The awards celebrate companies that have the ability, not only to come up with great ideas, but to take those great ideas and ensure they add significant value to all users and can be applied to create tangible organisational and business impact. It is clear that the Blueface Banter app successfully fulfils these criteria.

The Blueface Banter App is free to download and is available now on the iTunes store. See further details at www.blueface.ie or access from the iTunes store.  If you don’t have an iPhone, Blueface has an alternative service ‘goMobile’ which can be viewed here. The goMobile service allows all mobile users to access very low international call rates.

For more information, please consult www.blueface.ie or contact Alan Haverty at +353 (0) 1 524 2009

As part of the Top support queries, I’d like to explain in more detail a feature we have that not enough people are using, more than likely because they are not aware of it : automatic top up.

Could I be warned when my credit balance is about to run out ?

We have an option that allows handling low balances on your Pay as you go credit. When your balance reaches a set threshold, you can either  :

-          Do nothing

-          Receive an email

-          Automatically top up a set amount

By default, the behavior is : do nothing. (we don’t want to harass people unless they chose too)

If you want to change that, login to www.blueface.ie, go to the Account Management page (2^nd tab of the customer menu, called : My Account) and look at the following section :

Setting up the ‘Receive an email option’ is easy, you simply need to choose which threshold you want (1 euro, 5 euro …), click on the radial button after the “Email me” and press the ”Update” button.

Setting up the “Automatic top up” option is almost as easy but you need to have at least one credit card stored on our system. If you don’t have any stored you will see just below on the Account Management page, a line : “You do not have any credit cards registered yet” with a link :’fill the form’ underneath. Complete that form with your credit or laser card details and then you will be able to use the Automatic Top Up option.

Note that the credit card storage is secure and all communication with our web server is encrypted.

When your balance is automatically toped up; you will, obviously, receive an acknowledgement by email.

We think it’s a nice feature since it means customers don’t have to worry about running out of credit or having to manually top up. It also avoids having to talk to the nice woman with a charming voice telling you that: your account is currently too looow to make an outgoing call.

If you need more information or have a question about this feature, do not hesitate to start a conversation on our forum.

Guillaume