How to make free calls on Android Smartphone and Tablet through Internet

[Raj]

There are bunch of few good apps that can help you to make free calls on your android phone through mobile data. This can save a lot of money. After having a bit development in Mobile Internet, we are able to get a lot benefit in free messaging. Popular application like WhatsApp, Viber, Line, etc emerged and offer us a wide platform for free chatting as well audio and video calling. We hardly use SMS now. The best example will be WhatsApp. A easy to use app where you can not only send text messages but you can also share images, audio and video. That means you have a complete multimedia messaging platform that gets cheaper compare to telecom charges. To use that all you need is an decent mobile internet pack. We have 2G and 3G both, but the most affordable today is 2G. In this you get an unlimited data usage plan for a entire month at low cost. The price varies on the basis of different telecom provider. Unlimited 3G is costly and very much near to the cost of regular broadband service. But for calling 3G or Wi-Fi is best. Due to high bandwidth your voice quality and transfer speed is fast. In this am I am going to add a few apps that can help you to make free calls.

Most of them are popular. Along with this I am also going to show you the way to calculate the amount of data used while making a call. So that if you are using a limited internet data plan, you can keep a track your call stuff. This ca helpful if you are doing vice calling on 3G which can became costly compared to local call rates. Because here the voice call in counted on the basis of bit rate. The size depends on the voice codec the application is using. Most of this app are using VoIP Codec's that has different bit rate. I use my Wi-Fi internet connection most of the time for calling. But the person on the other end is on 2G and most of the time I can see poor network error on Viber. This is because I am sending a good amount of data packet from my end, but the receive on the other end has a low kbps internet. And that takes time to download or there might be high latency in the connection. This calls loss of connection. Everything works simple like upload and download. When you make call you are sending data packets. If the receive on the other end has a low internet connection, it will take time for him/her to receive that. The best way here is to send audio messages. One that you can do in WhatsApp chat box. You can record your audio and send the message and that will be downloaded on the receiver end depending on his/her internet speed.

Here first we will see how this voice call on different android apps works. Most of this app are also offering you calls that you can make directly on a phone number which is not having a similar app. This are called as out-calls. The person on the other end does not need the application nor they need internet connection. They can receive the call on their regular mobile network. That is a different thing has carries more cost. Unlike US, we are not having a very advance internet infrastructure. Many apps I had seen give you to make free calls on US numbers. But with certain limitation and if you use Skype you can buy credits. There is not huge difference in the call rate. We will first find out the amount of data used when you are calling through internet.

Tracking how much MB do you to use while making a call on Viber, WhatsApp. Facebook Messenger, etc.

The benefit of using this internet calling service is that you don't have to wait for a mobile number. The communication can be done through different ways. Like Facebook Messenger has recently integrated voice calling service and it allow you to make call to a Friend. Here things are not limited to a number. Calculation of MB or data that you had used while calling is bit complicated but can get simple if you use a third party app. Most of the android phone has a data tracker in it. It shows the amount of data used. This monitoring service is good for those who are on a limited internet connection. Most of this applications are using VOIP to make calls. A simple protocol where audio is transmitted in real-time on internet. No need to telecom cables here. An audio is heavier compare to text and images. VOIP is something where audio in minutes is converted to mb's and on that basis your data package can be calculate. You can find out how much you are paying per mb and compare that with the existing call rate. If you have a unlimited high speed internet connection then this one is more cheaper.

The calculation goes on the basis of your internet speed. Like if right now you are having a 256kbps of connection and you are talking for 60 seconds. Assume that the total amount of audio created is around 15MB. So here depending on your internet speed 15MB of file will be moved to another phone. If the internet connection on the other end is slow this file will be slower. For example when I record my audio on the regular recording app, a 10 second audio generate 183KB of file in 3GPP format. In the same way VOIP also use some sort of codec's for generating the audio files and then transferring them. Another example I can give you is of Viber. A message on viber is around 828bytes for every 500 English alphabets. Depending on that an hour call is around 15MB. And the call is transferred on the basis of 240kb per minute. And if you are having lower bandwidth then your connection will fail. Most of this thing works very well on 3G connection where bandwidth is here. 2G bandwidth keeps on fluctuating. I had notice a low as 8 to 10kbps on 2G depending on the network coverage. And on 3G this is more exempted. A constant speed of 100kbps is enough for getting decent call quality on both ends. You can find a VOIP payload chart on web. This chat will give you information about different codec's and the voice sample based on millisecond. It directly offer you the actual size that is generated. But different apps uses different codec and on that basis the voice data size also differ.

[Raj]

Using data usage tracking app for finding out mobile data usage:

It is possible to find out how much data you are using up when you are making call. It is great for those who are on 3G internet connection. Because there your data usage is limited. You get a 1GB or 2GB limitation. And calling on 3G can give you good communication platform but same on the basis it might end up really fast. So here there are few good apps that you can use for monitoring your data usage on voice call.

3G Watchdog - Data Usage comes in two version. One if free and other one is Pro edition that coat around Rs.189. This is one of the best data monitoring application. With an simple interface it gives you your existing data usage. It is very simple to use and works with 4G, 3G, Edge and GPRS. It is recommended that you must install the app in the phone memory. Not in the SD card. Compare to the free edition, the Pro is lot more stable and offer some additional features. Like it will also give you information on roaming based data charges with Wi-Fi. You can add certain rules in the app to ignore a few things. Like you can exclude uploads, 2G/4G, etc. It allow you to export all your data in the form of csv file. It is great to get an Real Time traffic graphs depending on your different connection. It also has a alert mode.

3G Watch Dog Free Edition ScreenShots:

3G Watch Dog Pro Edition ScreenShots:

Apps for making free calls on Android:

Now we will move to a few application that are quiet popular and still many of us are using this. They give you feature to make free calls through your mobile internet. Almost all this apps are complete pack of multimedia messengers. You can share lot of things on them. And many might be coming up in future with new things in it.

Facebook Messenger: Recently Facebook Messenger ha integrated calling feature in it. So that you can talk with your friends directly. It allow you to talk with your friends on internet on the basis of facebook profile. So here if you are having too many friends on your facebook and you are willing to talk to them you can use Facebook Messenger. When you talk the person on the other end will receive the audio 2 seconds late. This can be due to the internet speed. I found the app a bit better to use. Because here you are connected with your Facebook friends. It is a full multimedia messenger where you can share many things and is also low on resources. It work will on android phone with 512MB ram. When someone contact you on the chat, you will see a tiny circle which is called as chat head on the home screen. This looks a amazing.

LINE: LINE has got popular now a days. it allow you to make free calls and it is rapidly growing. The app is free to use with a lot of things to use in it. It is a bit good quality audio calling features. Buy paying a small fee you can still make calls on those phone that are not using Line. You can also make video calls on the same. Other than it is very much similar to WhatsApp. Where you can chat with your friends, you can make group and share different multimedia files. This apps comes for various mobile OS and it is also available for pc. This apps gives you a simple timeline feature from where you can get a lot of updates from your friends. It has bunch of good stickers to use.

Viber: Very much similar to the above one, Viber is also a chat messaging app. It gives you options to share audio and video message and you can also make calls on the same. It works well on Wi-Fi and 3G. There is a option available in it called as Viber-Out. Where you can make calls on any mobile number buy paying a fee on the same. Similar to Line, this app is also available on different platforms. Texting is the most common feature most of this apps have. This app allow you to create a group of 10 people at one time. It offer you a lot of good stickers to use. You can also use it from your desktop.

I am not going to add more here. It will be quiet waste of time and you can easily find any good chat messenger on Google Play. The point is that when you are using this app and if you are having limited data plan, then do monitor it. Sometime it is cheaper when you are calling through this apps, but sometime when you are on limited plan it gets costlier. Most of the telecom providers charge for per kb when your plan is used up and there is no popup for the same. So you have to use the data call usage app to limit the same or atleast generate a alert.