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If you look at the Vyke site a number of Nokia phones work for Mobile Vyke I was sent an E51 a rather nice looking phone, however I was sent it from Norway and the instructions were in Norwegian luckily it was easy enough to install my SIM card etc so these were not required.

I was also sent a letter (in English) detailing the user account and password I had been allocated and the three applications to download from the Vyke site. I wrongly assumed these should be downloaded to the phone and despite numerous attempts I never got further than the Vyke site front page as soon as I tried to login it returned me to the phones front screen. I was then informed that I should start from the PC and then an SMS is sent to the phone and that has a link that downloads to the phone.

Mobile VoIP

This service allows you to make free or virtually free calls when in a Wi-Fi zone (lots of these about and a range of them are free, this would include your home if you have Wireless).

VoIP is a system that allows you to make calls from your PC to someone at another PC and this could be in the next office, in the next country or even the other side of the world. Here you can make calls using the Nokia phone to other mobile VoIP users and PC bound VoIP users for FREE. However as the person you want may not always be tied to a PC or even in a Wi-Fi hotspot you can call for $0.04 per call. This currently applies to UK, Europe, USA and Canada.

Once you have logged in to the Vyke site, filled in a few details an SMS is sent to the phone number you gave, click on the link in the SMS and that’s it. This install worked fine and was even sensible enough to ignore the leading zero I entered for my mobile number.

If you know other people who use VoIP either statically or mobile VoIP you have a mobile and spend time in wireless hotspots or who has wireless Internet at home this can save you both a fortune and for those occasions when one of you is not there then the $0.04 is very cheap. Of course if you the sender are not in Wi-FI range then it will be a standard call using your normal operator.

FreeTxT

Sending text messages normally cost money and any service that lets you send them for free is certainly worth investigating. During my conversation I could not really see any flaw in the service.

Again login to the Vyke site and fill in a few details (initially this failed for me because of the leading 0 in my phone number but as soon as I re-entered it without the 0 it was fine) and then providing the person you are texting is another FreeTxT user then it is virtually free. Note virtually free as although the text is free the data is not and your carrier will charge, if you have a contract then this is miniscule.

If you are sending a message to a non FreeTxt user then you will pay $0.06 per message.

Vyke Lite 2.0

This installed fine even with the spurious 0 at the front of my mobile number. Everyone signing up to any of the Vyke services is given a $1 credit (still currently shown as 50p if you login in the UK)

All the services seemed to work fine during my tests. A lot of people use Skype and I was assured installing VoIP would not interfere with this (it certainly did not for me) VoIP is the other technology and has some advantages to Skype. However this is not an article on the plus of minus points of either service.

I have praised Skype in the past and still use it but of course if the other party is not logged in then your only choice is to either send an email and hope they read it or make a standard phone call. Here the Wi-Fi angle and VoIP gives you more choices.

www.vyke.com