For everyone using iCTel to make cheaper phone calls in South Africa
or to chat to their friends on Skype or GoogleChat from their Cellphone, you will be glad to hear that the iCTel service will be free until further notice.

After noticing that 31 August have come and gone without changes to iCTel’s website I asked their support team for how long the service will remain free.

iCTel Support Replied to my Question:

We are setting up a new payment system but it is not yet in working
order therefore the service is still free till further notes, we will
send out a newsletter as soon as the system is working.

As for the R79.00 you paid up to now you can use it as airtime as long
as the free period lasts, we will let you know via newsletter when the
new paying system is in working condition. So in other words the
service is still free and  all the money that you put onto your number
will go as airtime and as soon as the free time is over registration
will be R79.00 Hope this explains your question.”

This still begs the question as to how much of “fixed line call airtime” one will receive for the R79 monthly charge or whether it will only cover ictel to ictel numbers…

Tags: ictel, 3g,

I’m quite excited to try out the much anticipated iCTel voice-over-IP cellphone software that has now been released in South Africa which allows cheap or free calls to other members and normal phones.

I’m still quite interrested to see how I can save and even make a whole lot of extra money simply by using and referring a telecom system in SA.

Best of all is that now with the SMS registration fixed someone doesn’t even need a computer to install it! iCTel cellphone software can simply be downloaded to your phone (thousands of phones are compatible)

You still have to register to download the ictel software

How to install it on your phone:
Visit wap.ictel.co.za on your Mobile / cellphone

Read my post further down to setup your Vodacom, MTN, cellC or Virgin Mobile 3G settings to allow you to easily download icTel software after registration directly to your phone.

Download ictel directly from your phone: visit wap.ictel.co.za

All registered iCTel members can now visit wap.ictel.co.za and download the software really easily DIRECTLY from your phone. No Computer required. Whohoo!

It also seems to work on thousands of phones.

You can purchase icTel airtime which allows Internet phone calls from your phone at really good rates I have found.

Additionally icTel has also launched additional services which will definitely cut your phone bill in half!

Briefly here are some of the developments:

The call back service is structured for members to save money on communication using any phone

You call to a local cell phone number and punch in your international destination of 52 countries to call without the need to buy airtime by iCTel (pay only the cell phone cost)

You can now call from any phone to international destinations by calling with your free minutes. Call from Telkom or cellphone to a local landline and pay only for your discounted international part of the call.

iCAirtime can be used on all the products iCCallBack, iCCallVia and iCCoIP.
You need iCAirtime before you can make calls through iCTel unless you are calling to other iCTel members using your iCCoIP software and they too are using iCCoIP software.

Your subscription of R2.60 is deducted from your iCAirtime daily so that you do not need to pay other accounts.

NOTE: There is no fee during free period (May 2008 to end of August 2008) which could probably be extended after that.

Heres the link where you can join iCTel

If you have a WiFi enabled cellphone you could call for FREE wherever you have access to a wireless network.

New VOIP Competition to Telkom in South Africa is taking the Market by storm.

This has sparked a nation wide sign up of people, not only interested in the service which iCTel provides, but also the Profit sharing in the product.

Update May 18th 2008:

There is a free test of 3 month to try the service available from May 19th 2008

Comments, questions, curiosities or complaints? Please leave a Comment

Note: I am also independent promoter so iCTel technical issues will affect me too. Ask the iCTel helpdesk about your number details once registered

Additional help and support available from myself at the links below:

Related posts:	iCTel Support Helpdesk information
	iCTel Mobile version currently unavailable
	icTel Desktop Softphone screenshots
	icTel compatible with X-lite
	icTel is flirting with Telecom Market – Make Money as a referral
	Youtube video on icTel

With all disruptive technologies there will always be a certain amount of scepticism to new ideas and technology, especially in the case of South Africa where it’s telecommunication services has been miss-managed by the government for so long.

The main concerns initially were:

1) What is ictel’s physical address :This has been visible on their website for a long time : www.ictel.co.za/11405

2) How can their prices be so low compared to Telkom and normal Cell phone rates?

iCTel uses technology called Voice-over-IP (similar to what products like Skype use) but go further by allowing you to call landlines and cellphones from your computer, or even call computers and ictel members from your cellphone for a fraction of the traditional price using their pre-configured software downloaded via SMS to your cellphone.

3) If it is just a service, why is so many people advertising it as a business opportunity?

Well, although it is just a nice telecom service which allows you to call for cheap (even internationally) to landlines and celllphones, or for free to other ictel members on their mobiles or on their computers, many people have become very excited to share it with their friends because ictel will PAY you simply to use the service and tell your friends about it.

If you are not interrested in making extra money, don’t worry, it is not compulsory to advertise the service. You can simply just use the service without ever having to tell anyone about it.

If however you would like to suppliment your income or just get all the ictel services for free you can tell friends, family or colleages and you will get discount for everyone that uses it and buys additional airtime, and possibly make quite a bit of extra money if you seriously advertise it.

For the real entrepreneur iCTel offers additional business opportunites which will require more of a commitment but will provide higher income. Some of these opportunities require technical installers of Wireless internet spots, Business premises owners and some more.

4) Why did they take so long to launch?

As a matter of fact iCTel only launched one and a half month later than initially advertised. As part of their pre-launch advertising campaign they allowed people to tell their contacts that something good is coming and to potentially earn some extra money when the commercial service launched.

It seems that iCTel refined its focus a few months after the launch and the massive amount of registrations to focus on the mobile phone software client, which is now available via SMS.

register for free and then click on products-> icCoip to get instructions on how to quickly download the software to your phone to start saving.

I believe iCTel could have done a better job at communicating with their clients to keep them up to date with all the nice developments, but I’m sure they will soon send out somehting that will blow everyone’s mind!

Watch this space.

DON’T PANIC! It’s really easy to do (I once showed a 70 year old lady how to do it, and then she showed her husband)

The following Cellular service Providers in SA provide automatic setup of your 3G/ GPRS settings:

• Virgin Mobile (SA)
• Cell C
• Vodacom
• MTN

The guys from imod.co.za have summed it up at:

CONNECTIVITY

Setting up GPRS/3G
Get connected via your service provider’s service menu; just follow the simple instructions below:
(It helps to know your mobile’s manufacturer and model. Oh and remember, you only have 2 minutes to complete these steps, don’t ask us why!)

Vodacom:

1. On your mobile, dial *111#
2. Select option 5 (phone settings) from the menu that follows. (Answer -> 5 -> send)
3. Select option 1 to choose your mobile make and model from a list, or options 2 to have Vodacom identify the phone for you.
4. In both cases, simply follow the steps provided to get the WAP settings sent to your phone.
5. Connection settings will be sent to your phone; save these settings.
6. If any of the above mentioned steps fail, simply retry.
7. Still having trouble? Call Vodacom’s call centre on 111 from your Vodacom cellphone or 082 111 from another phone. Alternatively visit a Vodacom outlet near you.

(GPRS/3G can only be activated by the person in whose name the contract was taken out, so some of you might have to get mom or dad’s help on this one. Good luck!)

Cell C

1. On your mobile, dial *147#
2. Connection settings will be sent to your phone; save these settings. If a password is requested enter 0000
3. If any of the above mentioned steps fail, simply retry.

Still having trouble? Call Cell C’s call centre on 140 or visit a Cell C outlet near you. (GPRS/3G can only be activated by the person in whose name the contract was taken out, so some of you might have to get mom or dad’s help on this one. Good luck!)

MTN

1. On your mobile, dial *123#
2. Select option 1 (phone setup) from the menu that follows. (Answer -> 1 -> send)
3. Select option 3 (WAP).
4. Connection settings will be sent to your phone; save these settings.
5. If any of the above mentioned steps fail, simply retry.

Still having trouble? Call MTN’s call centre; dial 808 (contract) or 173 (pay as you go) from your mobile phone. Alternatively, visit an MTN outlet near you. (GPRS/3G can only be activated by the person in whose name the contract was taken out, so some of you might have to get mom or dad’s help on this one. Good luck!)

Virgin Mobile

When you first insert your Virgin Mobile SIM into your mobile you’ll receive an SMS asking you if you would like to accept Virgin Settings.
If you reply YES, your settings for MMS and WAP can be automatically downloaded and installed on your mobile.
Do the following to manually request MMS and WAP settings:
Go to the ‘Virgin Mobile’ menu which you will find on either the main menu or applications menu of your mobile.
Select ‘Virgin Settings’ and reply YES when asked if you’d like to download them.

Still having trouble? Call Virgin Mobile’s call centre on 123 or visit a Virgin Mobile outlet near you. (GPRS/3G can only be activated by the person in whose name the contract was taken out, so some of you might have to get mom or dad’s help on this one. Good luck!)

Consumers will no longer be locked into long-term contracts with mobile operators, should the Independent Communications Authority of SA (ICASA) have its regulations approved.

http://www.itweb.co.za/sections/telecoms/2008/0806231100.asp?A=CEL&S=Cellular&O=FPLEAD

This will be of great benefits to south African Mobile phone users, so if you’re like me and like to be able to move around you can do so.

The Desktop icTel Softphone is still running fine (so you can still make ridiculously cheap calls to landlines and mobile phones), but icTel has temporarily disabled the downloading of the ictel mobile phone software of the icTel / fring until they have sorted out some issues with the customised Fring download.

Looking forward to the new software being released.

Signup for free with iCTel to get updated when the new mobile software is released.

You can still use the Softphone version to call landlines and mobile phones over the internet for cheap cheap..

Refer to my blog entry Softphone downloaded and tested on 16th May 2008

Hope they fix this quickly.We know they are working on a simple download via SMS method… but its still in the works

O.K — SO what to do then ?

This is not a solution but it should keep some of you busy for the time being. Note that you will have to remove fring from your phone again when icTel enables you to download icTel mobile / cellphone software again.

Step 1: Go and register with www.ictel.co.za/11405

(you can use my referral ID:11045 )

Step 2: Download the non-ictel customised version of fring from www.fring.com

Step 3: Changed the settings under SIP to reflect sip.voipstream.co.za with your icTel username etc…

Related posts:
Youtube video on icTel
icTel Mobile version currently unavailable
icTel Desktop Softphone screenshots
icTel compatible with X-lite
icTel is flirting with Telecom Market – Make Money as a referral

Register for free with iCTel

Most users probably won’t need this as iCTel have updated their F.A.Q and User guide which actually would have answered both of my support tickets

Join iCTel and start saving 70% of mobile phone calls and have the opportunity to earn some extra income.

Visit www.ictel.co.za/42965 to register for free.

(this way you will join my network and benefit frommy technical expertise)

Related posts:	iCTel Support Helpdesk information
	iCTel Mobile version currently unavailable
	icTel Desktop Softphone screenshots
	icTel compatible with X-lite
	icTel is flirting with Telecom Market – Make Money as a referral
	Youtube video on icTel

The iCTel desktop software (not the mobile version which doesn’t suffer from this) needs to authenticate to a database which port might be blocked if you try to run it at your work.

Your network admin would be able to check if this is the case:

Port 3306 (mySQL) has to be open for communication.

To be honest, I prefer to use X-lite configured with iCTel’s settings which will work in almost all corporate networks:

You can follow my setup instructions to get iCTel running using X-lite.

Have fun!

This is a good thing, as it shows that there are a lot of people who have shown interest in the company’s service as well as the business opportunity associated with it.

This large potential profitable customer base will give iCTel the confidence to continue putting money into upgrading their IT infrastructure and work on their business dealings with their service providers.

An moderate example of the type of income that can be generated once iCTel activates its commercial service later this year (hopefully as soon as possible is shown below.

I would suggest that members who have signed up like myself to follow these steps:

1. Purchase or book a iCTel number (to avoid disappointment)
2. Give yourself realistic expectations about how fast (or possibly slower than you though) it can take to build up a referral network as shown in the picture above. Nothing in life comes without some effort, even the “free” things.
3. Give yourself time to get into the business side. If you try to grow your network all in one week and no one is interested because the service is still in DEMO stage, what then?
4. Explain to people that the service is still in “Alpha mode” and not *yet* fully operational. Once it is up and running completely everyone will reap the benefits or cheap calls and free iCTel calls + Skype,Googlechat,Yahoo,MSN chatting right from your mobile. (without having to configure their mobile software like I did)
5. Get it up and running on your computer (and mobile phone when released again) and just simply use it. The product is nice to use even if they didn’t do profit sharing. (which they luckily do )
6. Refer people to this blog if you like to show them the software if you don’t have it on your phone /laptop at the time.

The main thing to remember is that once your network of people using the service is up and running, you will be able to earn a residual PASSIVE income. So its not how quick you get new people to us the service, its how long they will be using the service which is important.

Don’t put people off by “selling” iCTel as a “get rich quick scheme… everyone, including myself hate those..

This is all dependent on whether iCTel will continue to provide a good service to both the PC users as well as mobile users, when they bring out the mobile phone software.

The image below is iCTel running on my mobile phone under Fring (unbranded as iCTel version temporarily unavailable for download)

Please be aware that since iCTel hasn’t launched the commercial service yet there is no commission to be given to anyone (obviously…), but the flip-side is that there is nothing you need to pay either , you can simply use the demo account to tell your friends to get ready for the mobile phone version,

If you aren’t registered with iCTel yet, visit www.ictel.co.za/42965 to register for free.

You will be kept up to date once a month on the development of iCTel and can cancel any time (if you so wish)