Four years ago, Arlo Gilbert and two friends launched a company called iCall to market a Voice-over-IP application that lets users make free or low-cost phone calls around the world via computer. Since then, more than 4 million copies of the software have been downloaded. A 2007 front-page New York Times story featured the company as one of several VoIP services whose success suggested that a new era of free landline calls for all was near.
Last year Gilbert set his sights on a new market: cell phone users. Why not offer them a version of iCall so that they, too, could make inexpensive long-distance calls by connecting either to other carriers’ networks or to VoIP — whichever was cheapest and most accessible?
