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Free calls to India during Holi festival

February 27, 2007 on 9:34 am | In Voice | 24 Comments

Save on calls to India during HoliHoli, also known as the Festival of Colors, is an annual spring celebration that takes place in India.

In honor of this popular festival, Yahoo! Messenger calling rates to India during the week of Holi will be reduced to 4.9¢ a minute. And during the two days of the Holi festival, calls to India are free (Phone Out subscription required). Check out the promotion page for complete details.

 IM the Holi promotion to a friend

From the looks of some Holi pictures I found on Flickr, this festival is anything but boring. Revelers delight in throwing water and colored powders at each other which gets messy, but fun! To learn about all things Holi, head over to holifestival.org.

Want to add a little bit of Holi color to your IM conversations? Click on one of the images below to make it your display image (you need to be signed into Messenger):

   

And the best news? Even after Holi ends, you can still save with our new lower rate of just 7.9¢ a minute on calls to India (starts March 7 at 9pm PST).

Holi Hai!

Sarah Bacon
Product Manager

24 Comments »

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  1. Hi.GOOD Very GOOD yahoo Is the Best!

    Comment by sajad — February 27, 2007 #

  2. Can I call using the Mac version?

    Alex

    Comment by Alex Rodriguez — February 27, 2007 #

  3. Hi Alex – I’m sorry but voice features are not yet available in our Mac version. So you would need to use the Yahoo! Messenger version 8.1 for Windows to take advantage of this offer. You can download it at:

    http://messenger.yahoo.com/download.php

    Sarah Bacon

    Comment by Administrator — February 27, 2007 #

  4. A Reason to Rejoice this Holi! Yahoo’s Offer has come out with Flying Colors. Thanks Sarah & Team.

    A similar promotion was held in December 2006 and great to see Yahoo! is getting back with spectacular promotions for India’s colorful festival with colorful scheme :-)

    Cheers,
    Dreamchaser

    Comment by Dreamchaser — February 28, 2007 #

  5. yahoo is faast and furious like formula1

    Comment by lalit jaat — February 28, 2007 #

  6. Could Yahoo! provide a pap2 service like many of the voip providers do? That would convert many people to use Yahoo! services. Pretty please?

    Comment by sandeep — February 28, 2007 #

  7. Assalamualaikum.

    that’s great! colorfull festival..! I….Like it!

    Comment by abu_hilmaz — March 1, 2007 #

  8. Very Good. But, Why not free calls to Nepal? Nepal is a Hindu Kingdom (more than 89% Hindus) and people celebrate Holi there.Duh!

    Happy Holi!

    Comment by user — March 1, 2007 #

  9. “And during the two days of the Holi festival, calls to India are free”

    http://voice.yahoo.com/holi

    2 days of Holi is correct. Calls will be free for only 1.5 days. Kindly take note everyone. I just wanted to clarify. Anyway, good!

    Happy Holi!

    Comment by user — March 1, 2007 #

  10. “Free calls are limited to thirty minutes”

    Uh. There is a good old saying…Always read the * and the the terms and conditions.

    What do you mean by “Free calls are limited to thirty minutes”? It is not clarified on that page!

    1) In 1.5 days, we can only have 30 minutes of free calling?
    2) We can call unlimited free minutes during the 1.5 days but only the first 30 minutes of a call will be free and after that it will be charged?
    3) Any other…

    What does that mean? Please explain.

    Okay everyone. Thank me for noticing this and bringing it to your attention.

    Comment by user — March 1, 2007 #

  11. Hi user – There’s no limit to the number of free calls you can make to India during the Holi festival (please see http://voice.yahoo.com/holi for exact dates and times), but each free call can not be longer than 30 minutes. Thanks,

    Sarah Bacon

    Comment by Administrator — March 1, 2007 #

  12. Cool. Thanks for the clarification. Much appreciated.

    There still is a ‘political error’ in your above post, “Free calls to India during Holi festival”.

    I will get back to it later. Need to eat.

    But people, ENJOY! Happy HOLI and Happy Calling!

    Comment by user — March 1, 2007 #

  13. [...] Still, if you know folks there and want to join in a bit of Holi festivities, the Messenger team has a deal for you, including Free VOIP calls. Granted, things start around March 7th, so you’ve got a bit of time, but I figured folks may want to spread the word a bit. [...]

    Pingback by Yahoo! Cool thing of the Day » Blog Archive » Splash of Color — March 2, 2007 #

  14. Hey. Free calls are between 3rd and 4th ( http://voice.yahoo.com/holi ) and not starting 7th. The lower rate starts on 7th.
    You should be registered for Yahoo! US (mail.yahoo.com) to use it “more precisely”. I don’t know if free calls are working with other Yahoo! sites. If you are not with Yahoo! US, just register yourself with a yahoo.com ID, give YAHOO! US contents as your preference while making the ID and then go to the above link.

    Also, I am already giving the word to my friends and family. Yay!

    Comment by user — March 3, 2007 #

  15. Connection problems and voice quality is also getting ridiculously bad. I used another messenger (…..) service to call up the same number in India and the quality was Good. The same problem having with other numbers of other places. Please try and improve the connectivity and voice quality.

    Comment by user — March 3, 2007 #

  16. The audio quality on PC-Phone calls is terrible at times (Yes, I’ve got a 512Kbps ADSL line).

    Most of the times I get really LOW audio levels for both sides, eventhough I’ve jacked up all levels on my Creative Audigy 2 Soundcard, if I use my onboard Intel mainboard Soundmax soundcard, its even worse.

    I get no such issues with Skype, which btw has a handly volume slider right on the main window for on the fly level adjustments.

    I suggest Yahoo! Messenger copy this feature rightaway.

    Comment by Muzammil — March 3, 2007 #

  17. The volume is okay. I have 18Mbps ADSL. The problem is connectivity. And the bigger problem voice is breaking too much at both sides.

    I tried making the same calls with another messenger service. I am not using Skype (which is bloody hell expensive). I am using another messenger service (which gives free TV and free US phone number). Their quality is good.

    Yahoo! buck up!

    Comment by user — March 4, 2007 #

  18. Sarah,

    When can we expect Voice features in the Mac version of messenger? Can we expect it in beta 2? Any timeline on this? Please let me know.

    Comment by Sunny — March 5, 2007 #

  19. I have a possible bug to report for PC-PC conference calls.

    I currently have two soundcards but I use my secondary onboard Soundmax soundcard (Not Windows Default) to make Yahoo! PC-Phone calls from Yahoo! Voice. They’ve always worked.

    However, I discovered when I initiate or join conference calls Yahoo! Messenger uses my main Windows Default soundcard (Creative Audigy 2), even though the second soundcard (Soundmax) has been properly selected and saved via audio tuning wizard.

    The bug is: it reverts to my main (Windows Default) soundcard only for PC-PC conference calls, even though I’ve selected my secondary soundcard (Yahoo! Messenger default) in Yahoo! Messenger preferences.

    Can anyone else confirm this please?

    Comment by Muzammil — March 5, 2007 #

  20. hi? I’m from VIETNAM.I think yourblog very good. Do you know about mycountry ?I hope you will visit mycountry in the future…I speak english not good and i hope you will help me.thanks

    Comment by quynh nga — March 11, 2007 #

  21. Im in UAE and from the holy day onwards, our phoneout service stoppped working ! what a disappointment.

    Comment by Sharaf — March 12, 2007 #

  22. Sharaf,

    TRA has instructed Etisalat and DU to block all PC-Phone VoIP traffic, it never worked anyway, nore do direct PC-PC calls.

    Comment by Muzammil — March 13, 2007 #

  23. This is for all ppl interested in voip services and there is one reliable service tringotel bcoz i guess they have partnered with Sunrocket and this company has good review and the shipping charges are absolutely free although there are some delays in the shipment.but that’s not a problem

    U GUYS ROCK!

    Comment by anonymous — March 14, 2007 #

  24. Dear,Friend
    Holi is one of the major festivals of India and is celebrated in almost every parts

    with great fun and frolic. The joys of Holi know no bound. The festival is

    celebrated across the four corners of India or rather across the globe. However,

    each part of the country has its own way of celebrating Holi in a different way.

    Let’s have a look at how Holi is celebrated in different part of the country
    Please Visit For More Detail
    http://desidirectory.com/indian-festival-events/

    Comment by sidni — March 18, 2008 #

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