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December 27, 2003
Fixing a Hole: Free Calling WILL BE back soon...
In early December I started thinking about offering Free calling into the USA and Canada during the holiday season. It took a couple of weeks to make sure that everything was in place, but in the end, by leveraging a few relationships I had, before going on vacation, I thought everything was in place to enable free calling for the holiday season.
Somewhere along the way I decided to start offering free calling into additional countries and before I knew it FWD was servicing calls into 9 countries.
While the word about the promotion was slow to spread and I was getting pretty discouraged with the results of my "social experiment", I emailed my friend Avi Weiss about our activities and the next thing I knew, literally thousands upon thousands of people started signing up for FWD...and after handling tens of thousands of free calls, our "credit" with our minutes provider ran out last night and until we are able to replenish the funding in our account, the only calls that will be able to be placed that touch the phone network will be toll-free calls into: USA, UK and Netherlands.
Sorry team. ;-)
My hope is to have everything back in place sometime on Monday, December 29th (EST), Tuesday the latest. Right now the "business" part needs to be worked out in order to enable the dialing again.
My expectation is that people will be able to call their friends and family and wish them a Happy New Year! by being able to take advantage of the FWD Network.
After our free promotion is over, my hope is that some people will stay on and keep using FWD to speak to other friends and family members who are also living in an "always-on" broadband enabled world.
Happy New Year to all!
We are Fixing the Hole...
Posted by jeff on December 27, 2003 10:30 PM | Permalink
Additional resources: #140conf events | Watch the Jeff Pulver Show | Jeff's Qik Videos
Comments
Happy new year Jeff and thanks you.
We would like to have a payble service from FWD.
Omri
Posted by: Omri Gonen at December 29, 2003 07:21 AM
Hi Jeff, nice end-of-the year present :)
When we get here in Belgium free calling ?
Happy New-Year 2004,
johan
Posted by: johan at December 29, 2003 06:22 AM
Thankyou Jeff!.....and yes, I would also like to know how much this would cost if you could institute it as a premium service to fwd users.
Posted by: Zeek at December 29, 2003 01:17 AM
You are DA MAN Jeff !
Take your time and Fix the Hole .
:)
Happy New Year and u shuld be happy for your great Job
Nabil
Posted by: NaBiL at December 28, 2003 06:16 PM
Hello Jeff,
Happy New Year too.... thanks for the info... now we are been relieve for the 404 error... we thought we did not configure it right our SIP phone software....
Hope the service will last for long sometimes... but anyway we are a member now of this amazing technoloy so we will stil here in focus.. thanks to you...
its me Neo,
FWD# 96029
Posted by: Neo at December 28, 2003 05:05 PM
FWD is a great service, and free call to PSTN something incredible to be done!!!! Good work Jeff. Go on.
Hope to get my own ATA soon.
FWD# 73337
Posted by: adria at December 28, 2003 04:57 PM
Hey man, take a break on this holidays. As long as the free service is available 355 days we all are happy.
Sorry, I have never used the service, though.
Posted by: Never Used at December 28, 2003 12:44 PM
Thanks for this great service and I wish you a Happy New Year!
do you want to call Italy for free go to www.chocophone.com
Posted by: Firas at December 28, 2003 11:55 AM
Thanks. The same to you I wish a very happy New year.
Posted by: Leoul at December 28, 2003 11:17 AM
Thanks for ur free ofer I hope I will be able to say Happey new year via FWD.
Happy new Year for U
Sitotaw
Posted by: Sitotaw Yirdaw at December 28, 2003 11:17 AM
ug
Posted by: arik at December 28, 2003 11:00 AM
happy new year , keep traying
Posted by: eli at December 28, 2003 10:04 AM
Dear Jeff ,
I was really disappointed that the only calls that will be able to be placed that touch the phone network will be toll-free calls into: USA, UK and Netherlands ,ONLY.
I'm from Israel and I didn't have a chance to enjoy FWD...please if there's some way that Israel will be able to enjoy FWD even for a day , it will really be a great holiday.
thank you very much even for tryin' ;-)
Posted by: Many men at December 28, 2003 09:39 AM
happy holidays to u.. i was priveledged to have used the free service and it was good.. :P i think daniel blamier has a great suggestion..how about looking into it jeff? thanks so much for this great way of connecting to family and friends!! have a nice day guys :P
Posted by: marsha Guevara at December 28, 2003 06:42 AM
Jeff it has been a geat work and we love you for that. Even if the hole is not fixed within these days we had such woderful time the last few days. Thank you and May GOD bless you.
Posted by: Mesfin at December 28, 2003 05:25 AM
I didn't get the chance to us your service yet, but I look forward to do so. Please let me know how much your service would be after the free offer? and do you know if there is any cost to the local phone company?
Happy New Year!!!
Posted by: liran at December 28, 2003 05:23 AM
Hello,
Thank you jeff for your great work!!
I would like to know if the Free-Toll calls will stay even after the end of the year?
Thanks!
Posted by: romy at December 28, 2003 04:59 AM
Don't worry Jeff You Were Doing it was great
even if it was for a short while
its better that it was at all, then that it wouldn't be.
Happy Hollidays!!
holding my fingrs for the service!
Posted by: Victor at December 28, 2003 04:43 AM
Don't worry Jeff You Were Doing it was great
even if it was for a short while
its better that it was at all, then that it wouldn't be.
Happy Hollidays!!
holding my fingrs for the service!
Posted by: Victor at December 28, 2003 04:43 AM
It would be very good if this was permanently part of the service. Is there a way people around the globe could offer calls through their internet connection?? - Eg. Someone in New York who gets free local calls, offering free calls to this area for FWD users. In a similar way, someone in the UK who gets free calls to offer this via FWD ???
Posted by: Daniel Blamire at December 28, 2003 04:04 AM
Jeff,
Great initiative... The technical bugs are secondary - it's your A+ efforts that count for now.
We used to speak many years ago on 15m when you were active as WB2 - 'Bacon on Toast' and even then you had great ideas.
Keep up the momentum and best of luck. We're all rooting for your success.
Rich
WB2JBS/4X1DA
Posted by: Rich at December 28, 2003 02:32 AM
Happy New Year to you Jeff. Than you for the info. Waiting to try it after you fix it.
the 1-800 numbers works just fin.
Posted by: Ami at December 28, 2003 12:49 AM
no worries jeff, no need to apologize, we love you!!! you should know that by now!
Posted by: mags slars at December 27, 2003 11:03 PM