Vodafone has launched a free encrypted voice call application, dubbed Vodafone Secure Call, for corporate customers in Germany, which is aimed at preventing industrial spying and snooping on corporate calls.
Developed in collaboration with German security firm Secusmart, which was recently acquired by Blackberry, the new service will offer end-to-end encryption for calls made over the VoIP-based app.
The application can run on both wi-fi and mobile calls over Edge, UMTS, or LTE networks in Germany and abroad.
The new app uses AES 128-bit encryption, which is currently being offered for iOS and Android devices for a monthly fee of €14.95 per user, while the version for Blackberry is also being planned.
Secusmart said in a statement: "Secure Call isn’t just designed for politicians and government agencies, it also helps companies of all sizes to protect their intellectual property.
"Secure Call is a product that offers both the corporate and consumer sector top government-level encryption for maximum voice communications security. Inexpensively priced, the app will be a very attractive option for companies of all sizes."
The demand for encrypted communications apps is escalating in the wake of NSA disclosures that the US government snooped on the communications of German politicians.
In addition, Deutsche Telekom launched its encrypted calling app last year in the midst of high demand from corporate users for secure mobile voice communication.
Deutsche Telekom uses an AES 258 bit encryption, which cannot be decrypted with existing computers and also supports encrypted texting.
Last December, Verizon also launched a new voice encryption offering called Voice Cypher, which offers end-to-end encryption for voice calls on iOS, Android, or BlackBerry devices used by business and government customers.
