The global credit crunch is causing problems in the VoIP and Internet telephony community. It seems that funding, start-up money, and investors left some companies in a pinch. One such company is EQO. EQO was/is a VoIP/social networking play offering a free application that provides free IM, cheap calling and cheap texting to your mobile phone. The problem is EQO was like about a dozen other companies on the market with the same business plan triangle of free client/cheap calls/on mobile phones, including Jangl, Jajah and TalkPlus.

Also in this mix is Jaxtr. Some companies are dying a clow death, others are gone, and Jaxtr just released Jaxtr 2.0. See more about Jaxtr.

The secret to success is the marriage of cell phones, speed dial, and calls to anywhere in the world. With no high international rates and weird configurations, when a company makes calls easy the company wins. If a company can do it for free that is even better.