back to article Optus kicks off WiFi calling in Australia

Optus has become the first Australian carrier to make the jump: it's launched a WiFi calling app to let users make calls when they can't get a 3G/4G signal. The company has launched its snappily-named WiFi Talk app, which like Skype lets users have conversations and send text messages over a handy wireless LAN connection. …

  1. aberglas

    Still no non-phone solution, SMS

    Neither Skype nor anything else will handle SMS properly (send and receive), on the same number as voice calls. And you need SMS as all other messaging systems work in walled gardens, so mum's use SMS. Amazing that the mess has lasted this long.

    Went through this recently, ended up having to use multiple mobile phones, which appear to be the only thing that can have a mobile like phone number. Here in Oz at least.

    1. Dr Trevor Marshall

      Google Voice works well for me (Re: SMS solution)

      Google voice sends and receives SMS just fine. It even allows you to "reply" to any SMS that have been forwarded to your Gmail account as emails, and then converts those replies to send as SMS. Very clean. Of course, this only applies to GV users who haven't converted to Hangouts, and are still on the old Obihai/GoogleChat GV connections..

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