Canada-based EQO Communications has unveiled plans to release a free mobile Internet phone application that lets Symbian (News - Alert) Smartphone users call anywhere in the world for rates as low as 2.3 cents (USD) per minute.

The application also offers international text messages and free access to popular instant messaging services, including MSN, AIM, Yahoo!, Google (News - Alert) Talk, ICQ and Jabber. 

Symbian smartphone users can now enjoy a faster and responsive mobile VoIP experience, said the software licensing company Symbian in a joint press statement.

Symbian develops and licenses an operating system called Symbian OS for smartphones. To date, over 145 million Symbian smartphones have reportedly shipped to over 250 mobile network operators worldwide.

"EQO for Symbian OS is a compelling, functionally-rich application that provides Symbian smartphone users with a cost-effective solution for voice-over-IP (VoIP) and instant messaging (IM) services," said Jerry Panagrossi, Vice President, US Operations, Symbian.

EQO’s application also enables Symbian smartphone users save up to 95 percent on international calls to landlines and mobile phones, and up to 70 percent on international text messages.

In addition, calls and texts exchanged between EQO users are free. Once the EQO application is downloaded, users can automatically import all of their existing contacts into their EQO phonebook.

EQO is already available on hundreds of device models and will be available as a native Symbian C++ client for S60 3rd Edition devices, including the popular Nokia (News - Alert) N-Series and E-Series models.

"We're taking advantage of the optimized performance that developing for native Symbian C++ brings, in order to deliver more advanced features to EQO customers" said EQO Chief Executive Officer Bill Tam."


Narayan Bhat is a contributing editor for TMCnet. To read more Bhat’s articles, please visit his TMCnet columnist page.