Recently it seems everybody is experimenting with the ways to sell international and long-distance VOIP through some non-traditional ways. Perhaps this was triggered by Vonage getting sued, which is going to change the way residential VOIP is offered. Jajah was the first (or among the first) to offer Web-based call origination without being a Web-based VOIP provider, like Yahoo! Messenger with Voice, where you need a broadband Internet connection to call. Raketu is among the latest companies to do the same. You enter your phone number and destination phone number, your phone rings and then you get connected to the destination phone number. No speakers or PC microphone involved - you need to be connected to the Web to initialize the call. Raketu runs some kind of promotion right now:
Starting Monday, August 20, 2007, customers who purchase credits for Raketu’s prepaid voice over Internet protocol (VoIP) dial out calling service will receive up to 1200 minutes of free calling per month for three months to locations in 40 countries. To be eligible for the promotion, Raketu customers must purchase credits of either $9.95 or $24.95 to use towards Raketu’s ultra-low global calling rates.
I haven’t tried Raketu, but some time ago I tried out Jajah and was reasonably happy with the quality, so for $9.99 commitment it’s worth checking out.