Launched by a team of Italian developers, the app takes advantage of phone rings instead of the data network. At the moment, however, there are still some flaws
Since a few weeks WhatsApp has, or would have, a new fearsome competitor: Dostupno, a new instant messaging App that works even without an internet connection. To send messages with Dostupno, in fact, all you need is a normal telephone connection, a minimum amount of credit needed for our operator to allow us to send a call, and nothing else.
Dostupno is an Italian invention, created by Cristian della Posta, a young Roman, and Angelo Carucci, a Taranto entrepreneur in the radio sector, who created the company IF Inspreifon. On the company's website there are some videos in different languages where the functioning of the App and of the service are illustrated.
How Dostupno works
With Dostupno, messages are transmitted not through the data connection but through a technology that encodes them within the phone rings. Sending messages through this App, available on Google Play Store, is absolutely free (phone credit is only needed to launch the call, but then there is no charge). The app is also free in its version with advertisements.
Reading the first reviews left by users who downloaded it, however, the app doesn't work as it should: spartan and unintuitive interface, difficulty sending and receiving messages, compatibility limited to certain smartphone models. At the time of writing, the app has 93 reviews on Google Play Store: 57 1-star, 6 2-star, 4 3-star, 6 4-star and 20 5-star. Average rating: 2.2 stars out of 5.
To the negative comments IF Inspreifon responds that "The application has a particular functionality, to send messages without connection you have to wait for the database alignment. For any info we are available on social pages including facebook". It seems, therefore, that this app is still in an embryonic stage of development despite the great publicity received in recent days. The idea, however, is good, at least in the words of IF Inspreifon: "send text messages and more, even if you have no connection or if you have otherwise finished the giga provided by your rate plan.