BroadPoint Communications was a US telecommunications company in the late 1990s offering free long-distance calling supported by advertising

Advertising

Advertising is a form of communication used to persuade an audience to take some action with respect to products, ideas, or services. Most commonly, the desired result is to drive consumer behavior with respect to a commercial offering, although political and ideological advertising is also common...

, a service the company called "Sponsored Communications." Perry Kamel was founder and CEO

Chief executive officer

A chief executive officer , managing director , Executive Director for non-profit organizations, or chief executive is the highest-ranking corporate officer or administrator in charge of total management of an organization...

 of the company, based in Landover, Maryland

Landover, Maryland

Landover is an unincorporated community in Prince George's County, Maryland, United States, within the census-designated place of Greater Landover. The Prince Georges County Sports and Learning Complex is in Landover...

. Users would sign up online for the company's FreeWay service by filling out a questionnaire. To make calls, users dialed the BroadPoint toll-free number, then entered their PIN, followed by the desired number. Users could then earn minutes of calling time by listening to brief advertisements, five to fifteen seconds in length, targeted to their interests and location. GEICO

GEICO

The Government Employees Insurance Company is an auto insurance company. It is a wholly owned subsidiary of Berkshire Hathaway that as of 2007 provided coverage for more than 10 million motor vehicles owned by more than 9 million policy holders. GEICO writes private passenger automobile insurance...

 was a frequent advertiser. However, the minutes earned could not be carried over to another call, so users would sometimes accrue many minutes of free calling, only to lose them when their intended party was busy or did not answer. Perhaps because of such shortcomings, the FreeWay service soon ended. The company filed for Chapter 7

Chapter 7, Title 11, United States Code

Chapter 7 of the Title 11 of the United States Code governs the process of liquidation under the bankruptcy laws of the United States...

 liquidation in January 2002. Broadpoint's former URL is no longer associated with the company, and is now made up only of advertising links. Kamel is now COO

Chief operating officer

A Chief Operating Officer or Director of Operations can be one of the highest-ranking executives in an organization and comprises part of the "C-Suite"...

 of Maxamine, a Web analysis company.

A similar service in Sweden

Sweden

Sweden , officially the Kingdom of Sweden , is a Nordic country on the Scandinavian Peninsula in Northern Europe. Sweden borders with Norway and Finland and is connected to Denmark by a bridge-tunnel across the Öresund....

, GratisTel, interrupted calls periodically for advertising, and was similarly short-lived.

External links

• "A word from our Sponsors: BroadPoint's unique revenue plan holds water." From Telephony Online, September 7, 1998.