VoIP provider Jajah announced today that two million consumers are now taking advantage of its free and low-cost calling options.

The news comes a year after the company first introduced its global web-activated telephony product. Jajah started out as a PC-to-PC service, but in September of last year it announced the launch of the Jajah Mobile Suite, which allows virtually any mobile phone to make Jajah calls. The Jajah Mobile Suite currently works with all Symbian and Java-based J2ME phones (with more OSs to be added) and soon will enable text messaging and smart-phone/browser solutions. Once this occurs, most cell phones and PDAs on the market will be able to support the service.

Jajah Mobile is seamlessly integrated into the Jajah desktop solution, allowing consumers to manage their account on Jajah’s website. All a user needs to do is go to the site, find out if the phone they have is supported, and if it is, then they need to download a small plug-in onto their phone through their PC. Once that is done, the phone will “know” when the user dials an international number – and it will send the call through the Jajah network (and the user can customize which calls go over the Jajah network using the Web interface). All the back end functions, including billing and call history, is handled through the Jajah system.

Jajah does not charge monthly, annual or first-time fees for its service – plus users get to keep their existing phone numbers. All registered users can call each other for free using Jajah’s Free Global Calling Plan. All other calls are subject to typically low VoIP rates - usually less than 3 cents a minute.

Interestingly, Jajah’s announcement comes on the same day that market research firm In-Stat (News - Alert) released a report showing that, as of Q4 2006, 9 percent of U.S. households now use a VoIP service - up from 8 percent at the end of Q3 2006. According to data from the research firm’s US Residential VoIP Market Tracker service, more than 10.6 million US households now have at least one active VoIP user, up from approximately 9 million households at the end of Q3. (However, the In-Stat report mainly attributes this increase to Vonage (News - Alert) and US cable providers, and, in fact, states that the success of these dominant players has caused a slowdown in the uptake of client-based VoIP.)

“One year after launch, our vision remains the same - to bring improved telephony solutions at a fraction of the traditional price,” said Jajah co-founder Roman Scharf in a press release “We’re glad to celebrate this milestone and thank the two million users who recognize that they can keep their number, their current phone and choose Jajah to lower calling costs.”

Jajah made news on TMCnet last week when it announced that several businesses are now taking advantage of the company’s innovative technology to lower costs in the call center. With Jajah’s web-based solution, companies can easily integrate “click-to- call” services on their websites in order to realize dramatic savings in telephone support costs, while at the same time, improving the customer experience. Logitech, a provider of peripherals, innovations in PC navigation, Internet communications, digital music, home-entertainment, gaming and wireless devices, is one of several companies which have made use of the Jajah solution to provide customer support.

For more information, visit www.jajah.com.

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Patrick Barnard is Assignment Editor for TMCnet and a columnist covering the telecom industry. To see more of his articles, please visit Patrick Barnard’s columnist page.