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How it works

Freedom Fone allows anybody to create their very own, two-way telephony service to be able to interact with select audiences, at any time, without recourse to internet or other media. There are no geographical limitations to Freedom Fone. It can be used in any country with a mobile network coverage. 

The Power of Voice

We believe in the power of voice. By using interactive voice menus, Freedom Fone enables you to create and share audio content in any language - even multiple languages, simultaneously - providing an easy way to engage with marginalised or illiterate communities. 

You will be familiar with this kind of voice menu on customer care services or automated helplines already: 

"Press 1 to access your account, Press 2 to speak to a representative, Press 3 to record a message..." 

This may seem straight forward, but there are many innovative and creative ways to share information via voice menus. Freedom Fone provides a simple, user-friendly interface that allows you to design, change and update your own interactive menus to:

  • Share relevant audio information with your callers. Personalised audio information can take many forms including voice menu options (press 1, press 2, etc.), interactive audio dramas, short news items or even a song! You might also want to replay the recorded message of a member of your audience.
  • Organise a poll to enable your audience to vote on an issue using their phone.
  • Collect SMS messages from your audience - these might be updates about specific news events, alerts or similar critical information in real time.
  • Get your audience to leave audio messages to share their opinion on a particular topic, leave a message or report in their own language.

In addition to ordinary mobile phones, your callers can use landlines or internet-based phones to access the service. This means that Freedom Fone can receive and deliver crucial information via mobile phone or landline in situations facing power constraints or where access to critical information is limited or interrupted.

What do you need?

Freedom Fone is a free and open source software that runs on Linux. Ideally, Freedom Fone should be installed on a dedicated server/PC that is then connected to a simple GSM device (we recommend either a 1 SIM card Mobigater or 4 SIM card OfficeRoute) that must be purchased separately. See overview below. 

Freedom Fone provides an installer that automates much of the setup, empowering non-technical users to independently set up a sophisticated telephony server in under 30 mins.

Once you're set up, a graphic user interface lets you navigate the system where you can upload audio content, organise your voice menus, create an SMS poll and safely access, organise and evaluate all your caller data. 

Get the Latest Version

Bellow is some information on our latest version available for download from this site: 

Version 2.0 is now available as a beta version. Make sure to check the Known Bugs page on our development wiki for instructions on how to update this version with bug fixes - also keep your eye on the FAQ page on the dev wiki for breaking information.

Version 1.6.5LTS-04 OR is going through testing and should be available end March 2011. This release adds native support for the OfficeRoute to v1.6.5LTS.

Please let us know what you think of our software – and more importantly, tell us what you're using it for. Our Community Forum is a good place to share your thoughts and ask questions.

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