Internet Voice calling app, Ringo, has temporarily halted its domestic calling service in India and alleged that some operators were blocking the service on its networks.In a blog post, Ringo CEO Bhavin Turakhia said that the company is pausing its services until the issue is resolved.
[Update] Bharti Airtel CEO, Sunil Mittal mentioned Ringo during an event called Broadband for All organised by the Cellular Operators Association of India (COAI). He said, “Just a few days ago we saw a service called Ringo which, because of a rule of no termination charges, is using fixed line to connect users and there's no termination charges on both ends”
In the post, Ringo has insisted that the service is a “full legal, compliant service, and follows all aspects of the DoT and TRAI regulations.” It says that services were blocked on November 30 without any notice to its service providers and that they plan on taking relevant remedial action. Ringo has also stated that if the process takes longer than two to three days, it will refund the any unutilised amount that the user may have paid. It has also assured that this issue is for domestic calls only and international calling will continue to work as before.
Ringo had announced domestic calling facilities in India a few days ago. The service offered local and STD at 19 paise per minute. When a user makes a call from Ringo, a request is sent to its servers. It then calls the user and the person the user wants to talk to and acts as a conferencing bridge. Since both users get an incoming call, carrier charges do not apply, while the original caller pays Ringo based on the length of the call. Another interesting fact is that the service doesn’t require an internet connection to make calls, so it’s not a VoIP service.
Ringo entered India in January this year and claimed that it offered international calls at 70% cheaper than mobile telephone service providers. It also stated that the service is 20% cheaper than calls made from Skype and Viber through the internet.