Free internet searches over the telephone

If you love 411, and mostly free 411 (see my previous post) then you’ll love for sure this new service: free internet searches over the phone.




In the beginning I didn’t believe so I picked-up the phone and called the number 1-888-ISP-FOR-U ( 1-888-477-3678 ). Just to spice the things a little bit (and also due to the fact that the landline was occupied by my wife) I used GizmoProject to call the number. After only two rings a lady operator answered and welcomed me to the system. I was very impressed by this: not only because a human operator answered directly (a rarity these days) but also because she looked like a native English speaker.

Without having prepared any question from ahead of time I just asked her to find me a good price for my digital camera ( a Sony DSC-F717 ). Using free conversation she gave me a good price. Curious about the ways she obtained the information I asked her. I was impressed to find out she used EBay, Froogle, etc. (like probably any other internet user). She offered also to send me the search results by email. I considered is not necessary at this moment.

Even if personally I will not need somebody else to make the searches for me I still consider is a good service targeting mostly beginners and travelers. Maybe someday, even myself, when in front of a product at Best-Buy, I will call the number to search reviews of the product.

For more information visit their website at http://www.internetsearchpro.com/

FREE 411

If you are used to call 411 to get information then this is good news: Jingle Networks launched a free (advertisement based) 411 service. The service works basically like regular directory assistance. You dial the number; say the location and listing name. The only difference is that you must listen to a short advertisement from a related service.

You can find more information on their site at http://www.free411.com/ or by simple trying the service calling 1-800-FREE411 (1-800-373-3411). Being a 1-800 number you can invoke the service for free using a telephone line or GizmoProject/ SIPphone network.

After some research in this direction I discovered other 2 services that claim to offer free 411 assistance. Feel free to test them and drop me a comment with your findings.

Make FREE long-distance phone calls using any phone set

A new player in the VoIP arena offers (at least for the moment) the possibility to make free long-distance phone calls to US and other several countries. To give a try to this service simply go to http://www.ipcall2phone.com/ and create a new account. Make sure you put a valid phone number in the registration form, or at least don’t forget what you typed there. After confirmation your account is ready to be used.

The email that will arrive shortly will contain brief instructions about how to make long-distance phone calls. There you’ll also find several local access numbers that you need to call from the phone you typed during the registration process.

The second nice feature offered by the service is the ability to use a SIP client to do the calls. All you have to do is to set up your preferred soft/hard phone (take a look here for a short review of two good and free SIP soft phones that you can use with this service) using this information:

Proxy: sip.ipcall2phone.com
User: [your phone number from the registration form]
Pass: [your password]

Although the website and received emails lack the professional aspect, the voice service seems to work. In the end it’s a good deal for a free service.

Send SMS notifications for each received voice mail

Using a VoIP service as a PSTN landline replacement is a common practice these days. The majority of VoIP providers offer free voicemail boxes with the ability to deliver messages by email as attached .wav files. Although some providers send also wireless notifications, not all of them have this option.

Using the following trick is possible to implement wireless notifications (via SMS) no matter if the VoIP provider supports it or not. All you have to do is to configure your VoIP account to send voice mails to a Yahoo mail address (http://mail.yahoo.com/ ). Then, setup a filter on your Yahoo account options page to match all emails containing voice mails and make sure you specify to forward them to your wireless device.

Tip: Don’t delete those voice mails from your account. The 1GB storage capacity offered by Yahoo! should be enough to receive hundreds of voice mails.

Quickly get a customer representative on the line

It is almost impossible these days to call a company and hear immediately the voice of an operator. To minimize costs and ‘improve’ company image most of today businesses implements complex IVR systems for their phone systems. With all of the features offered by these IVRs sometimes you just need to talk with an operator.

This is the reason behind the gethuman website. The site offers several tips for quickly get an operator on the line and also maintains a database ( http://gethuman.com/us/ ) with known shortcuts for several well known companies.

I don’t know if those companies are happy with this information exposed on internet or if the database reflects latest IVR system changes, but the site worth at least a visit, even if only for this joke:

“gethuman psychiatric hot line.

If you are obsessive-compulsive, please press 1 repeatedly.
If you are co-dependent, please ask someone to press 2.
If you have multiple personalities, please press 3, 4, 5 and 6.
If you are paranoid-delusional, we know who you are and what you want. Just stay on the line so we can trace the call.
If you are schizophrenic, listen carefully and a little voice will tell you which number to press.
If you are manic-depressive, it doesn't matter which number you press. No one will answer.”

Email to SMS

Although not a news and not really VoIP is still worth mentioning again the way of sending SMS messages from E-Mail clients. The following are the email addresses format for the top six US cell providers:

T-Mobile phonenumber@tmomail.net
Cingular phonenumber@cingularme.com
Verizon phonenumber@vtext.com
Sprint phonenumber@messaging.sprintpcs.com
Nextel phonenumber@messaging.nextel.com
Virgin Mobile phonenumber@vmobl.com

Just replace the phonenumber with the actual number and send the email.

As you can probably noted you need to know the carrier of the phone number. If you don’t know it and you are fine with a small advertisement appended to your SMS you should consider teleflip.com Just send the SMS to phonenumber@teleflip.com and they’ll handle the rest.

Alternatively you can use the service provided by sendu.info and send the email to phonenumber@sendu.info

Although these Email to SMS services have nothing to do with VoIP, you can easily use them as a notification services for VoIP applications. For instance if your Email provider allows to forward each received email to a second address you can make use of the Email to SMS feature to receive notifications on your cell each time when a voice mail is delivered to your email inbox.

Links:
Comprehensive list of email to SMS
T-Mobile Send SMS online form

OnDO SIP Server

In a previous post I presented you a simple to use SIP proxy that can be installed even by beginners on any Windows machine. Another very easy to use SIP Server is coming from brekeke.

Called OnDO SIP Server the product is a SIP Registrar and Proxy Server that registers and authenticates users, and routes calls between user agents. Although the product has by far less features than Asterisk, is still an interesting option for VoIP beginners, especially because OnDO SIP Server is free for personal and educational use.

You can download the software from http://www.brekeke.com/ and in a few minutes you’ll be your own VoIP provider.

DIY VoIP projects

The Internet is full of DIY articles covering all imaginable topics. The following is a short list with interesting DIY VoIP articles. Most of them have Asterisk as main subject.



Build Your Own PBX.
Read.

How To: Building an Embedded Asterisk PBX
Read.

How To: Asterisk Answering Machine
Read.

Build a Skype Server for Your Home Phone System
Read.

Extend legacy business applications to send voice notifications

A bunch of three new voice services provided by a VoIP startup captivated my attention in the last days. The services are not addressed to end users, but to software developers who want to easily implement voice notifications.

All services are basically one and the same application exposed via three different interfaces.

Voice-SMTP

This is the first one in the package. As the name suggests is an SMTP server doubled as an email-to-phone gateway as well. The service is addressed to developers who want to extent legacy applications or applications for which the source code is not available with new services such as voice notifications. If a legacy application is able to send notifications via emails by configuring an SMTP server and the message text then integration with Voice-SMTP is as easy as 1-2-3.

The first step consists in setting Voice-SMTP as the SMTP server of the application. Then, the second step is setting the message that is sent to the SMTP server. The Voice-SMTP will receive the message but instead of treat it like an email it looks into message content and interpret the enclosed text.

The message content should be written in a simple XML format that instructs the Voice-SMTP server how to deliver the voice message. One of the tags represents the phone number that should be called, while the rest describe the message that should be delivered.

For a pleasant human voice the Voice-SMTP server accepts prerecorded audio messages. The prerecorded audio messages may be stored ahead of time on the SMPT server itself for repetitive use or sent as email attachments for one time use. The user has the ability to select these messages by adding a few tags in the XML message. Voice-SMTP server comes also with a text to voice engine that can read a text with either a female or male voice. The system is able to deliver the message to both humans and answering-machines (by instructing the system to wait for silence on the line).

Email to Phone

Instead of using the Voice-SMTP server to deliver the voice message, use any SMTP server but send the message to a particular email address where a bot application will read all the emails and process them as described earlier.

Web Services Phone Gateway

The same story with this service as well. This time, though, targeted are not legacy applications but newer applications capable to consume a Web Service. This is because the platform is exposed this time like a Web Service.

To the reader: If you know any other similar services or just want more information about these ones just drop me a note.

Skype and your privacy

In our times, when an average email account is flooded with tens of spam emails each day, and people are afraid to post their email addresses on internet, Skype offers to potential spammers tons of valid details about Skype accounts.

Just try to do a simple search in Skype and in an instance it will be displayed to you entire lists of people that match your search. Using all the parameters available in the search tools, such as language, age, country a potential spammer may find targets in an easy way.

Of course, Skype offers you in Settings -> Privacy options section the ability to specify that you want to accept chats or phone calls only from people on your list but I couldn’t find any option to make my entire profile private. Skype states that the fields from your profile are optional but the fact is that a lot of persons fill up those fields to show more information to their friends.

In a recent post in Skype journal, somebody discovered a way to find out if a person is online or not, even if the status is set to Invisible. He used the information provided by the webcam symbol which apparently due to a bug in Skype stays visible even if the person turned invisible.

Running multiple Skype instances on the same computer

This is one of the most requested features not only by Skype users, but also by other voice and IM applications users. Having the ability to simultaneously run multiple Skype instances on the same computer has certain advantages to those who have multiple accounts.

For instance you may have a Skype Work account and a Personal account and normally you want to communicate with peoples from both lists in the same time. Until this feature will be supported by Skype you may use one of the following workarounds to accomplish this:

Mode 1: Double click on the Skype shortcut to start the application as usual. For starting the second instance, right-click on the shortcut and select “Run-As…” from the contextual menu if you have Windows XP (or check the appropriate option in the property window if you have Windows 2000). Select another user account and type the corresponding password. You’ll end up having 2 Skype instances running on the same computer.

Mode 2: Alternatively you may use virtualization software such as VMWare Workstation or Player to create a virtual computer on top of your physical one. Install Skype as usual in the virtual machine.

Note: Don’t forget to check also the article “Skype is Call-center ready” where you’ll find out how to register with the same account simultaneous from multiple locations.

Skype is Call-center ready

One of the least used features of Skype is its ability to register simultaneous from multiple locations. By contrast other VoIP software allows only one registration at a time. Although this feature may say nothing to a home user, a small call-center business can make use of it by implementing the call-center business on top of Skype.

The setup required to implement the call-center is minimum and basically consists only in registering Skype with the same user name from multiple computers. From this point on the call-center functions as expected, having features found only in more expensive setups.


When user calls in, all available support Skype installations begin to ring. In this moment any available customer representative may take the call. Successive calls ring only the remaining support team members.

Send emails from any phone

The young space of online voice recording and publishing services is crowded by companies who try to bring all sorts of audio recording and sharing instruments to web. Although most of these companies address to podcasters, some of them offer features that may seem appealing to other categories of users as well (see my previous post about odeo.com).

Springdoo Phone Service offered by Springdoo.com ( http://www.springdoo.com ) gives you the ability to send emails even if you are not in front of a computer. Any DTMF phone can be used to send an audio email. Unfortunately the service is not free and I didn’t have the opportunity to test it better but according to company’s site, in order to send an email a user has to do the following steps: upload or add contacts to Springdoo, then to send an email call Springdoo and start talking, pressing # when done, then select a contact using the phone key pad. Springdoo sends your selected contact(s) an email with a link pointing to an audio file hosted on Springdoo site.

Get a free real phone number for GizmoProject

Having a real phone number that terminates on your PC is an extra feature for your GizmoProject software.

For adding a free incoming phone number to GizmoProject you may use one of the following methods.

Get a free number from IPKall
http://www.ipkall.com

IPKall lets you receive free calls over the internet from any phone. The service provides a truly free phone number in Washington state area that can be forwarded to almost any SIP account. To make use of the IPKall phone number in GizmoProject you need to configure the service page with SIPphone SIP number and proxy information.

Area775 number from GizmoProject
http://www.gizmoproject.com/area775.html

The second option is to use Area775 service provided by GizmoProject itself. As name suggests the service gives you a free number in area 775 (as well as other area codes). The particularity of this service consists in the fact that incoming calls simultaneous ring computer and a regular phone. Answering a call on the PC is free but answering from the regular phone cost you $2 per call answered (if you have the free Area775 account).

Alternatively, people without a PC may reach you via an Access Number provided by a PSTN gateway such as these ones (dial first the gateway number, then the SIP number):
http://www.sipbroker.com/sipbroker/action/pstnNumbers http://www.gizmoproject.com/access-numbers.html

Throw away your cell and get a WiFi VoIP phone

If you live in San Francisco this may look like good news. After EarthLink and Google will complete their project to offer WiFi throughout the entire San Francisco city ( http://news.zdnet.com/2100-1035_22-6058432.html ) you’ll be able to cut the costs associated with mobile phones by switching completely to VoIP.

In the same way you are now carrying your mobile phone with you in a pocket you can put a nice VoIP handset. The cost advantages may be tremendous especially if you are doing a lot of international phone calls.

And the market of small VoIP hardware and software phones is on the rise. If you are carrying around all day long a PDA then you’ll carry also a phone. Both Skype and SIP based services run happily on any WiFi enabled PDA.

If you prefer a hardware phone you should take a look at latest models coming from Linksys and DLink.

For a more complete offer you can always take a look in your favorite VoIP supply online store.

Bridging Skype and SIP

You are addicted to VoIP, you like SIP and all those wonderful SIP devices but you cannot ignore Skype user base? Try bridging Skype and SIP using free software from NCH Swift Sound: http://nch.com.au/skypetosip/index.html

The software lets you connect calls between the two systems. It connects both incoming and outgoing calls to the Skype network. Can be used to make SkypeOut calls from a SIP device or PBX or receive SkypeIn calls and direct them to your SIP extension.
In my tests the software performed in general well with a few crashes (related to playback/recording devices) reported by Skype.

Online chat tools for businesses

With all voice advantages some companies have found that sometimes a little chat is a more efficient way to guide lost customers on a seller site. Being lost on a web site or calling the support number and hear a message like this: “Please listen carefully because our menu has changed. Press 1 for…” is not fun at all.

The solution offered is via real time online chatting with support personnel. Although is possible to use already made chat tools (such as MSN Messenger, Yahoo Messenger, etc), the companies prefer to implement solutions with a more business like look. The advantages are for both customer and company. The company is able to answer faster to customer requests and the associated costs are always lower.

The following list is just a small offer of business chat tools for web sites:

http://www.liveperson.com
http://www.boldchat.com
http://www.sightmax.com
http://www.groopz.com
http://www.click121.com

Although this solution has some advantages, serious sellers should not use it exclusively. Almost always the presence of a phone number in the contact section of a web site increases customer’s trust.

Have fun on chats with voice alteration software

Voice Changer Software from http://www.audio4fun.com/ is a voice alteration program that may bring lots of fun if is used in addition to a chat or VoIP software. It lets you tweak your speaking voice in real time by adding echos and other sound effects. You can download a trial version from the web site and if you like it you can purchase it.

To maximize the fun and help those with no technical audio knowledge the software comes already packed with several alteration presents tuned for both male and female voices.

You can use this application with virtually any chat or VoIP client.

VoIP rates with Romania as of April 01, 2006

Either if you have a small business or just keeping in touch with family you need to make a lot of phone calls to the destination. For US or Western Europe all providers are offering now low rate deals but finding a good deal to calling an Eastern European country such as Romania is not always an easy task.

The following information addresses to individuals or small companies calling Romania. The table lists several well known VoIP providers available on subscription or prepaid and their rates (as of April 01, 2006) to Romania.

Subscription

http://www.vonage.com 13¢
http://www.lingo.com 12¢
http://www.sunrocket.com 14¢
http://www.packet8.net 14¢
http://www.usa.att.com/callvantage 14¢
http://www.netzero.net/voip 13¢
http://www.zingotel.com 13¢

Prepaid

http://www.sipphone.com 14¢
http://www.stanaphone.com 14.80¢
http://www.teltel.com 12.9¢
http://www.vbuzzer.com 14¢
http://www.freedigits.com 11¢
http://www.inphonex.com 13.8¢
http://www.teltel.com 12.9¢
http://www.dialpad.com 16.3¢
http://www.skype.com 12.4¢

Create a virtual PABX for free

Create your virtual PABX online in a few minutes using the free service offered by http://easypabx.com/

This Aterisk based service gives you all the features you’d expect from such system. To speed up the testing of the service, the site allows you to create a preconfigured demo system. The demo system quickly introduce you to the benefits of using easyPABX (for home of business) including extensions, direct dial in, opening hours, hunt groups, IVR menus, wake up call, etc.

Caller ID Spoofing

It is supposed that any technology is designed with good intentions in mind but no matter how hard you try to impose that, some people find ways to use it for a wrong purpose.

VoIP is emerging like a very appealing replacement to traditional telephony by its low costs and offered features. Being easily implemented in software, the technology gained a big number of adepts ranging from corporate users to hobbyists. Open source server software such as Asterisk makes the technology available to an even bigger number of users. It’s easy nowadays to become your own ‘telco’ with only an old computer and a copy of Asterisk.

Unfortunately some people out there thought at implementing not so legal public services using this technology to offer a very dangerous service to anonymous users: the ability to spoof the caller ID. Any non technical person may do an account with such caller id spoofing service and have the ability to call any number and appear to the destination with any identity he chooses.

I’d consider this act of doing a phone call with a false caller id an identity theft. Imagine what’s happening if a possible attacker calls your bank disguised like you (by using your bank registered phone number as caller id). Many financial institutions use to authenticate the users based on their caller id. But not only banks are sometimes dependent on caller id, other services is using it in a very heavy way: 911, voice mail systems, business systems, etc.

While some services may not change their operation way, it’s advisable for the others to understand that the caller id doesn’t guaranty the identity of the calling person. In a short run authorities will probably shut down this kind of public spoofing services but in the long run the problem should be addressed at technology level.

Voice mail for web sites

Good news for web hobbyists and pod casters: odeo.com offers an interesting way to get feedback from your visitors. Instead of just typing words in the regular feedback forms, the readers can now send a voice mail message. You can make your first test right now by sending me a voice comment:

IP PBX systems from Linksys and DLink

Linksys and DLink are two well known names to those who setup until now a small network for home or office using routers or access points from one of these two companies. As VoIP is becoming stronger and stronger is no surprise that both DLink and Linksys offer a range of VoIP accessories for both home and small offices.

Linksys (http://www.linksys.com)

The Sipura acquisition accelerated Linksys presence of VoIP market. Now if you are going to company site you may find a quite appealing VoIP solution to any small company.

The Linksys Voice System 9000 composed of SPA9000 IP PBX, a nice range of IP Phones and SPA3000 ATA provides a nice solution to anyone who utilizes more than one Internet telephony service provider or needs the functionality of a full IP PBX (according to: http://voxilla.com/index.php?name=News&file=article&sid=173 )


DLink (http://www.dlink.com)

DLink has also a nice VoIP solution that according to PC Magazine (April 11, 2006) if you are running a small shop, you should put the PBX solution at the top of the shopping list.

Like Linksys, DLink offers also a low cost IP PBX system (DVX-1000) together with other accessories such as DHP-140 phones and DVG-3004S SIP Analog Trunk Gateway.

Cheap calls to Romania (Suna ieftin in Romania)

To better address to Romanians readers, this post will be not in English but in Romanian. Sorry English speaker people for this inconvenience. If by any chance you cannot read Romanian, but you are interested in making cheap phone calls to Romania please leave me a note and I’ll come back to you shortly. Other than this post all the rest will be plain English.

Cititi acest post daca doriti sa

Sunati in Romania cu maxim 2.4 ¢/min in Bucuresti si 4 ¢/min in restul tarii
(taxare la secunda, fara taxa de conectare, mentinere cont sau expirare credit)

Propriul numar de telefon de Bucuresti la care puteti fi sunat de prietenii din tara
(numarul este in formatul: 021.589.xxxx / 021.569.xxxx)

Mesagerie vocala accesibila de oriunde
(mesajele sunt deasemenea trimise pe email ca fisiere .wav atasate)

Caller ID, 3-Way calling, etc.
(si alte servicii marunte specifice VoIP)

Tehnologia este bazata pe VoIP dar nu necesita calculatorul pornit
(puteti vorbi si de calculator cu un software dar recomandarea mea este sa folositi un device special)

Perfect pentru cei care calatoresc mult
(Luand cu voi la hotel deviceul hard sau un software puteti suna ca si cand ati fi acasa.
Daca nu aveti conexiune internet la hotel puteti apela un numar de acces din US si veti fi conectat la contul personal)

Descriere

Solutia consta in inregistrarea la un provider VoIP din Romania care ofera acest serviciu. Daca nu sunteti familiari cu VoIP aceasta este similar cu inscrierea aici la Vonage, Lingo, Packet8, etc.
Oferta de provideri VoIP in Romania este substantiala pentru teritoriul Romaniei…. Cei mai interesanti sunt cei fara abonament, care permit alimentarea unui cont si vorbirea in regim de prepaid.

Am descoperit 3 provideri VoIP prepaid in Romania. Intr-o varianta anterioara a acetui post recomandam pe unul dintre ei bazat pe experienta proprie. Am constatat ca este mai benefic sa prezint lista intreaga astfel fiecare sa aiba posibilitatea de alegere.

De cum va veti face cont la el online veti si primi numar de Bucuresti la care puteti fi sunat imediat. Sunatul in cadrul retelei este deasemenea gratuit. Daca doriti sa sunati pe alte retele (ex Romtelecom) trebuie sa va alimentati contul printr-o metoda simpla ca de ex. PayPal.

Provider VoIP

Vezi lista de mai jos.

Device hardware

In cazul in care nu doriti sa folositi calculatorul (si va recomand sa nu folositi) aveti 2 posibilitati:

cumparati un IP phone - se conecteaza direct la Ethernet
(exista modele simple, modele de office sau modele wireless);


cumparati un adaptor ATA care se conecteaza la Ethernet si scoate iesire de telefon normal ca sa va puteti conecta orice telefon clasic
(adaptorul arata asemanator cu cele distribuite de companii precum Vonage);

Oferta este bogata in astfel de device-uri putand gasi sute de variante pentru fiecare.

Atentie! Nu cumparati adaptorul dintr-un magazin gen BestBuy/CompUsa/CircuitCity/Amazon intrucat acele magazine vand adaptoarele blocate intr-o anumita retea VoIP (ex. Vonage) si nu-l veti putea folosi cu alt provider! Conceptul de blocare este asemanator ca in telefonia mobila.

Un bun magazin online cu telefoane si adaptoare este: http://www.voipsupply.com/

Testati fara sa cumparati

Dupa cum spuneam pentru exploatarea optima a serviciului va recomand unul din device-urile hard de mai sus.
Totusi pentru primele teste folositi un program soft cu care veti testa interconectivitatea si calitatea convorbirilor. Deorece metoda propusa este bazata pe protocolul SIP (care se stie a avea dificultati cu unele firewall-uri) va recomand sa verificati serviciul cu un software free inainte de a face investitii mai mari.

Din pacate acesti provideri nu ofera un soft integrat cu serviciul precum cele de la http://www.teltel.com/ sau http://www.gizmoproject.com. In schimb ei va recomanda X-Lite care este free.
In principal este OK dar daca aveti posibilitatea folositi versiunea comerciala si mai noua a aceluiasi program numita eyeBeam: http://www.xten.com/

Daca software-ul anterior nu va place, un alt programel bun (si deasemenea free) este Express Talk: http://nch.com.au/talk/index.html

Indiferent ce software folositi aveti grija sa setati optiunea “Send silence” (sau echivalent) pentru o calitate marita a convorbirii.
Daca “Send silence” este off software-ul (sau chiar device-ul) va incerca sa nu trimita nimic cand nu vorbiti pentru a economisi banda (nu e cazul cu DSL).

Pentru cei nemultumiti

Daca nu sunteti multumit de providerul pe care l-ati ales dar totusi va place tehnologia, puteti incerca singuri alti provideri VoIP pentru Romania:

http://www.netphone.ro/
http://netphone.smartcall.ro/
http://www.oriunde.com/ (pe baza de abonament)

Concluzii

Va doresc succes in instalarea liniei de telefon cu Romania si astept sa-mi comunicati parerile si concluziile voastre.

Axon Virtual PBX Software

You always wanted to play with Asterisk but Linux scares you? If you are a newcomer into VoIP world or just a Windows lover then you may start your PBX experiences with Axon Virtual PBX Software, a free product from NCH Swift Sound http://www.nch.com.au/

Installation is just 1 minute away from the download. To test the PBX you may also want to install a few SIP clients such as Express Talk from the same company or X-Lite from CounterPath (http://www.xten.net/). If you already have a hard phone or an ATA you may connect those as well to your newly installed software.

Lycos Phone Beta

VoIP is moving fast! Thousand of providers are one the market now. Recently I noted an interesting piece of software coming from Lycos, called “Lycos Phone”. Is still in beta but comes by default with lots of extra and nice to have features for free.


















It is actually ad supported software which tries to put under the same interface a phone, an IM, a music player and IPTV. If you can live with flashing banners, you may download the software for free from http://lycos.globe7.com/ and give it a try.

Extend your walky-talky range using the Internet

DingoTel has an interesting product called DingoTel 2Way ( http://www.dingotel.com/2way/index.asp ). This a hardware and software solution that allows to connect almost any regular 2way radio to a computer and then take its pair and walk anywhere in its range (usually 5 – 10 miles) and make free calls over the Internet.

The software recognition module installed on the base computer allows controlling the VoIP software using vocal commands sent via the mobile radio. You can start and end a phone call using only your voice.

It’s a nice idea but for the moment I don’t see any practical applications. Anyway if you want to experiment there is good news: the product has a very good price tag and you can purchase it from different retailers. DingoTel service looks as well very promising.

Free and unlocked SIP softphones

There are plenty of SIP softphones on the market: some commercial other free. Although free the majority of free softphones are locked in a particular SIP network forcing you to download and install a different SIP client for each network that you are using.

Fortunately 2 nice free and unlocked SIP softphones* are available on the market. Both can be registered with more than 1 proxy making them very useful in some situations.


X-Lite ( http://www.counterpath.com/ )

This software is available from CounterPath (former Xten) as a free download. It is the smaller variant of the Pro version. The latest product in softphones family produced by CounterPath is called “eyeBeam”. The features available in “eyeBeam”, makes the upgrade from X-Lite to the commercial version worth every penny.

There are many versions of X-Lite and eyeBeam available on Internet on different sites. Some of them are customized for certain companies and they cannot be used outside their networks.


Express Talk (http://nch.com.au/talk/index.html )

This is a less known SIP client but with some nice features which may convince you to try it. The interface is windows like but very simple to use.

It has nice features such as recording a call, multiple lines and good sound quality.









Another interesting product it appears to be Cubix from https://www.virbiage.com/cubix.php. Besides SIP, Cubix is able to talk IAX as well. I didn’t do enough testing of this product so I cannot make any recommendation. Feel free to test it and communicate back your results.

* There may be others free and unlocked SIP clients available and not considered in this post. The reader who knows any other SIP client that meets these requirements is encouraged to leave a comment.

MakeZine VoIP

Just discovered recently the VoIP section of Make magazine:

http://www.makezine.com/blog/archive/voip/

They have really nice projects involving Skype, SIP and some hardware. All of them are in a DIY style.

Other thing that worth mentioned here is a very nice video introduction to Asterisk presented by John Todd, a well known, leading Asterisk expert, in a Kevin Rose’s Systm Episode: http://revision3.com/systm/asterisk/

Skype using SIP

Although Skype is good at keeping secrets and not documenting architecture some people on the Internet found some evidence that Skype is using SIP for their PSTN connectivity.

If you’ll take a look in Skype config files you may find a section looking like this:


<sipservers>
<directlyconnected>1</directlyconnected>
</sipservers>


This discovery was commented on a Skype forum. According to some posts on that forum the above configuration may not refer though to the standard SIP protocol: http://forum.skype.com/viewtopic.php?t=26615&sid=dbbc20d59840c2f46b8841e4da82f7a1

Even if Skype client doesn’t connect directly to a SIP server, what is clear is that at a point or other Skype needs to communicate with SIP for PSTN interconnection. “Therefore the Skype gateways for SkypeIn/SkypeOut must translate between Skype Proprietary Protocol and SIP to then interconnect with their various PSTN partners (which require SIP).” – According to a user on the same forum.

A very interesting statement of Niklas Zennstörm, Skype chief executive and co-founder can be read in this article: http://www.vnunet.com/vnunet/news/2126025/skype-prepares-video-internet-service, dated October 2004:
"We may have made the wrong decision. We looked at the whole SIP standard and saw problems with it," said Zennstörm. "We developed proprietary technology to solve these problems."

Now, after more than 1 year, signals of Skype using SIP for PSTN interconnection started to appear all over the Internet.

Make money developing Skype voice services

Skype chose Tellme Networks, Voxpilot and Voxeo to enable voice content services on Skype network.

You can start making money right now by developing a good voice application (eg. Using Tellme Studio). After development you need to submit-it to TellMe and if it is accept it they’ll inform Skype to list it in their voice services directory.

Acording to http://www.tellmeskype.com/, you as a developer define per minute charge for the voice service. The call revenue generated is split three ways:
-Skype keeps 30% for promoting your service and connecting callers.
-Tellme keeps 42% for enabling your service.
-You receive the remainder -- 28% of the per minute charge.

You can download a guide on how to build Skype voice services from: http://www.tellmeskype.com/SkypeTellmeVXML2006-02-17.pdf

What is VoiceXML?

You are a developer who completed tens of projects till now but still no voice application project? You exposed your company legacy application on all modern channels Web, PDA but you’d like to expose it also on the PSTN network? This post may offer you a starting hint:

I will cite from http://www.voicexml.org:

“Voice Extensible Markup Language (VoiceXML) is a markup language for creating voice user interfaces that use automatic speech recognition (ASR) and text-to-speech synthesis (TTS). AT&T, IBM, Lucent and Motorola founded the VoiceXML Forum, a global industry organization, in March, 1999 to promote and to accelerate the adoption of VoiceXML-based applications worldwide.

More than 10,000 commercial VoiceXML-based speech applications have been deployed across a diverse set of industries, including financial services, government, insurance, retail, telecommunications, transportation, travel and hospitality. Millions of calls are answered by VoiceXML applications every day!”

Start something practical or starting hints for developers:

https://studio.tellme.com/
http://www.voxeo.com/
http://www.voxpilot.com/

or

Google-it!

Free VoIP service numbers

A VoIP network (Skype, Yahoo Messenger with Voice, SIP, etc) should be compared to any PSTN network because of its base function to allow phone calls from user to user. Though, the services available on PC-to-PC VoIP networks are scarce compared to services available on regular phone networks.

For instance I don’t know any Skype contact or Gizmo Project number that I can call to listen to a joke. Although limited the services available for VoIP networks are still there:

Skype

echo123 - Test your connection reliability.

For more voice services for Skype try browse their directory at: http://share.skype.com/directory/voice_services_?c36/50/0/title/ASC/


Gizmo Project / SIPPhone

** - Hear your SIPphone number repeated back to you.
*0 - Test your router's SIP compatibility.
411 - The voice-activated Tellme information service.
1-747-474-3246 - Echo Test - Repeats back whatever you say.
1-747-474-5000 - SIPphone welcome recording
1-747-555-2663 - SIPphone Conference.
1-222-000-0000 - SIPphone party line.


TelTel

sip:ej@teltel.com – Listen to media channels of audio entertainment

Conferencing using Skype / Gizmo Project

I was just looking for a good and reliable method of doing an audio conference with a big number of users using a PC application like Skype. Each user will have a modest Internet connection like a DSL line so hosting the conference of one user computer will basically overload his upload connection.

Fortunately solutions are available for the most used IM/Voice clients:

- Gizmo Project. Go to http://freeconferencecall.com/gizmo/ and read the instructions on their page. The service is also available for users with other SIP clients and an account in SIPPhone network;

- Skype. Go to http://www.highspeedconferencing.com/quick.htm from where you’ll learn how to access the conference center using Skype or a regular PSTN phone.

Why Skype is so popular?

Why a company that appeared from nowhere become so popular in so short time? Who dared to think a few years ago that the big VoIP giants will be shaken be obscure software with roots in the disputed P2P world?

Here are a few good things that made Skype one of the most used application for PC-to-PC voice communication:

- it works everywhere. No matter if you are at home, on your corporate network, in an airport or hotel, Skype just works. This capability to traverse NAT and Firewall has roots in the P2P world;
- good sound quality. This doesn’t come from P2P as some believe, but actually from the hi quality codecs produced by Global IP Sound;
- the seamless integration of voice client with an IM client. Phones look cool but to replicate a classic phone interface in software is not always a good idea. More appropriate for PC-to-PC communications may be a IM type interface;
- the ability to make calls to PSTN phones and to receive calls from PSTN directly into Skype;
- EBay acquisition!

Just on time!

It is well know that success on a product highly depends on the time it appears on the market. History has plenty of examples for all situations. Good products that appeared to early on an immature market were basically ignored. In other situations other products faced similar situations only by appearing too late.

The other obstacle besides time is the commercial companies themselves. Commercial interest had and will have always a higher priority in disfavor of end-user convenience.

Just try to imagine how internet would be today if instead of being initially developed in a nonprofit environment was developed by commercial companies.

Imagine 2 big email providers on the Internet offering email services: Yahoo and Microsoft. Each of these two providers will provide email in its own proprietary format that will work only inside the provider network. Sending emails to other Yahoo user is free but sending an email to a Hotmail user is impossible or maybe if it’s possible it will cost you 20cents per sent or received email. To send email to other provider such as a company email server may not be possible due to the fact that the two providers don’t have an agreement. You’ll not be able to choose your own email provider based purely on the features provided, you’ll also need to consider the one where you have most of your friends.

Now under the same supposition imagine nowadays web. To visit the 20 or so sites of yahoo you’ll just need one single application. Just one yahoo browser and you’ll be able to access web mail, games, personal, news, etc. ;-) The reality is that to access the sites of Microsoft again you’ll need to use just one simple application. Now extrapolate for the other sites and you’ll end up having thousands of browsers each one designed specially to support the proprietary binary format of web pages.

Just imagining this seems so impossible. The fact is that the applications that had the chance to appear on Internet before commercial companies to control it have brought the greatest benefits to end users: email, web, ftp, etc.

IM (Instant Massaging) and VoIP are simple Internet applications that because of their late apparition are still under heavy commercial interests. Just how simple the world will be if any user can choose a unique global identifier for IM or VoIP just how you choose for your email address or your home page. Then companies are welcomed to come with nice IMs, nice softphones or hardphones but in the end all will work under the same contract.

Global IP Sound – The premise for an excellent phone call

Skype

According to various sources, Skype is using codecs from Global IP Sound.

Gizmo Project

GSM - fixed bit rate, not loss tolerant, narrow band (8khz sampling rate).
iSAC - variable bit rate, loss tolerant, narrow and wideband (8 to 16khz). Varies based on Bandwidth, packet loss, delay
iLBC - variable bit rate, loss tolerant, narrow
g711U/A - fixed bit rate
EG711 (enhanced g711) - fixed bit rate, loss tolerant, narrowband
iPCM - fixed bit rate, loss tolerant, wide band.

According to Gizmo Project support site, audio is powered by Global IP Sound.

Google Talk

According to: http://www.google.com/talk/developer.html Today, Google Talk supports the following standard voice codecs: PCMA, PCMU, G723, iLBC. We are also evaluating the Speex codec. We also support codecs from Global IP Sound: ISAC, IPCMWB, EG711U, EG711A

For more Global IP Sound customers go to their website.

VoIP (Skype) hardware for the home user

VoIP and PC-to-PC communications are developing rapidly but the majority of users are still using those old speakers and microphone to do voice calls with friends and family. While adequate for music listening or occasional voice recognition software the speakers and microphone combination may not be the best solution for a hassle free voice communication using Skype, Yahoo Messenger or a SIP based software.

VoIP without a computer!

Wow! This will make even computer skeptics to look towards VoIP technologies. Also computer geeks will be able to speak with their friends without feeling like in a call-center with that headset on their head.

SIP is the best in this respect. While alliances are made to push Skype beyond the computer, currently there is no device to allow Skype calls without using a computer or at least a PDA. By contrast for SIP networks there are thousands of devices ranging from adapter to phone sets that allow talking using VoIP but no computer.

Just for beginners: if you are currently using one of the following software to do VoIP calls: GizmoProject, TelTel, pulver.Communicator, Yak Virtual VideoPhone, X-Lite, X-Pro or eyebeam then you can replace it with a hardware device that will stay on and functional even if you turn off your computer.

You have 2 choices:
- an analog telephone adapter (ATA) that will allow to use your regular telephone to perform VoIP calls. Some models allow a PSTN line to pass through the adapter so you can use the same telephone to make or answer regular or VoIP calls. Advance ATA models can be programmed to behave like a gateway between the PSTN like and VoIP line so you can make the following scenario a reality: make cheap international phone calls from your cell phone while driving.
- an IP telephone: looks like a regular telephone but instead of the phone line connector it has an Ethernet connector. Some models are wireless so you can use it with any WiFi network.

The prices for ATA devices ranges in $40-$100 depending on the features provided, while the IP telephone prices ranges in $60 – a few hundreds dollars.

Warning: Some retailers sell you ATA or IP Phones locked in particular networks exactly like cell phones! Be carefully when buying such a device. I recommend purchasing these devices from an online store such as: http://www.voipsupply.com/


Skype with a handset

If you are using Skype but you don’t like to were a headset you can purchase an USB handset for Skype. As mentioned earlier, at least at this moment, Skype devices require a computer connection usually via USB.
You can find good offer of USB handset devices for Skype some starting at $40. Most of them have a screen so you can select the user you want to call directly from the handset. For the ones that you prefer cordless, http://dualphone.net offers an interesting cordless dual phone that can be connected to a normal telephone socket and a USB port on a PC for a 2-in-one Skype device.

For other Skype devices just browse the Skype store.


Echo-free conference calls from a computer

No matter what software you are using (Skype, Yahoo Messenger, etc) if you intend to make a conference from your computer where more than one person need to speak at the same microphone then probably you think that a set of speakers and a microphone is the only solution.

You’re wrong! If you already tried to use a pair of speakers and a mic then probably you are familiar with that annoying echo effect. Some companies started to produce USB speaker phones that solve this issue. They incorporate DSP chips to cancel the noise and echo and allow multiple persons speaking hands free. Just browse on the internet for one of the following devices:

VoSKY Chatterbox
Zonet VoIP USB Conference Speaker for Internet Calls
IOGEAR USB Speaker Phone
MiniVox USB Speakerphone
US Robotics USB Internet Speakerphone

Warning: Usually these kind of devices are optimized for voice and not music listening.


USB Headset

This is a good solution for computer geeks to make echo free private conversations. No much to say about this, since you probably already know the advantages of a headset. These USB headsets incorporate soundcards so the computer doesn’t need any sound capabilities. USB Headsets tend to cost more than analog headsets that you plug in your soundcard jacks.


Analog Headset

This may be a very good choice for many computer enthusiasts. The analog headsets have decent prices and excellent audio quality combined with a good sound card on the computer. You can use them to listen music or movies sound and also for VoIP communications.

If you want to use your headset for VoIP as well then it makes sense to purchase one with mic incorporated. These types of headsets will have two jacks at the other end, one to plug into the soundcard output and one in the mic input.

Now let the fun begin. Usually for the majority of desktop computer the audio jacks are placed on the back of computer tower. This will make your life difficult each time you want to unplug your speakers and desktop mic and connect the headset with its mic. Fortunately you can find 2 nice switch devices that will allow switching between the speakers and headset with the touch of a button. Search for one of the following products:

PLANTRONICS .AUDIO PC HEADSET/SPEAKER SWITCH
RadioShack Computer Headphone Speaker Switch


Desktop speakers and microphone

Consider this as your last option for performing a voice call in good conditions. Of course if you don’t have anything else available this may be a good solution if you are tuning your software settings, especially Echo and Noise Cancellation settings and VAD (Voice Activity Detection).

VMA IVVR (Interactive Voice and Video Response) for Skype

VMA-IVVR it’s an Interactive Voice and Video Response project that I start developing recently. VMA-IVVR is a server product targeting Skype and SIP networks. Basically a provider that implements VMA-IVVR will appear on Skype (or other SIP networks) like a regular contact that any user from inside the network will be able to call it for free. Instead of a person to answer the Skype call, VMA-IVVR will pick up automatically prompting the user with a video menu.

Target networks

- Skype
- SIP Networks

Who will benefit from VMA-IVVR?

Any company that wants to expand their legacy audio only IVR system with video content. Imagine giving a free call to Acme. Corporation using Skype and automatically be prompted by a video menu where in an high-quality video a person will welcome you and invite you to touch a key from 0 – to – 9 to choose one menu option. The person in the video may announce the options with voice and in the same time those options being displayed as an overlay image. By using the touchtone keys of Skype the consumer will be able to browse through all menus provided by Acme Corp. finding the information he needs.

Discount sellers. Sellers will greatly benefit from VMA-IVVR to increase sells and display their products on a new channel more interactive than TV and easier to use than Internet. Using videophone (Skype of SIP based) keys the consumer will browse the entire collection of products of a seller that will take advantage of VMA-IVVR technology.

Multimedia content distributors. Imagine seeing an advertisement on Internet saying something like that: “Call freevideo@acmecorp.com from your Skype application or 232-FREE-VIDEO from your Packet8 network to access thousands of free movies.”. Multimedia content distributors will benefit from the high quality multimedia channel provided by today Skype or SIP networks to offer audio and video content to consumers in an interactive way.

Application service providers. Imagine consulting your bank account in a video way from your Skype applications. You’ll be able to view balances, do transactions and more from your videophone keyboard.

With the expansion of Skype and SIP beyond PC borders the VMA-IVVR application will become more and more valuable. An entire category of people not familiar with computers or Internet will be able to access any VMA-IVVR powered system using an easy to use hardware videophone. Hardware videophones are available currently for SIP protocols and are expected to appear also for Skype network. VoIP networks have currently millions of users who will be able to call for free and VMA-IVVR based provider.


Important: VMA is open to accept any contribution or collaboration for VMA-IVVR system. If required an open-source project will be made available to encourage developers to participate in this product. Just leave a comment or write an email if you are interested in this project.

voipstunt and co.

A new company starts to make waves in VoIP arena, mostly due to its low rates for phone calls. Very interesting is the way of promoting the service. Take a look at the following sites and judge yourself:

http://www.voipbuster.com/en/index.html
http://www.voipstunt.com/en/index.html
http://www.sipdiscount.com/en/freetrial.html
http://www.voipcheap.co.uk/en/index.html
http://www.netappel.fr/fr/index.html
http://www.internetcalls.com/en/index.html


All these sites belong to Finarea SA, a company registered in Switzerland. Their services are offered under many different names by Finarea, its daughter companies and its licensees.

An interesting overview of this company and its products at:
http://doulos.wordpress.com/technical-information/finarea/

Free SIP services

New to VoIP and SIP? Try these free services for start:


Free SIP Networks

http://www.sipphone.com
http://www.freeworlddialup.com
https://www.stanaphone.com
http://www.sipgate.co.uk

Other

http://www.gizmoproject.com (powered by SIPPhone)
http://www.yak.com
http://www.ineen.com
http://www.sonyive.com
http://www.teltel.com
http://www.vbuzzer.com

No description provided – so try them and decide yourself which one satisfy your needs.

VoIP Demystified

It’s almost impossible these days to browse internet or watch TV and not to hear at least one of the following words: VoIP, Skype, Vonage, Lingo. Most people perceive them as alternative ways to make cheap phone calls which is no far from the truth, but for the majority of IT people this statement is not enough. If you are one of those persons that constantly read IT news and blogs about new technologies and gadgets then probably you’ll want to learn more about the technology behind this so popular VoIP concept.

IM times

The majority of you tried at a certain point in time one or other instant messenger program like: ICQ (http://www.icq.com/ ), MSN/Windows Messenger (http://messenger.msn.com/ ), Yahoo Messenger (http://messenger.yahoo.com/ ) or AIM (http://www.aim.com/ ). They all tend to have the same type of user interface that allows adding friends in your list and monitoring their online status. Then the software facilitates communication with either of them via exchanging text messages typed in real time. The competition in this software area determined producers of instant messengers to add more and more functionality besides text communication such as audio and video communication. Because of the fact that computers usually sit behind a NAT or firewall that without proper configuration block certain type of communication and because the audio features of these programs were added as bonus to instant text messaging a limited number of users used these features.

Here it come Skype.

Skype (http://www.skype.com/ ) was developed since the beginning as a PC application having its primary function audio communication. Its user interface resembling a typical IM program and the secondary function of instant text messaging appealed to many heavy IM users. The technology used for audio communications based on the same principle as peer-to-peer networks made others to believe that this may be the solution that brings Skype an advantage that the other IM applications doesn’t have it. In the end the good audio quality definitely promoted Skype as a leader in PC to PC voice communications. Other than this nothing counts for the home user to whom Skype addresses. The typical user is not interested in standards and doesn’t always mind how the application achieves its goal as long as the application looks cool and he is obtaining the wanted results.

The raise of broadband Internet

Not long after a significant percent of homes started to have broadband Internet connection everybody noted the apparition of some new commercials that promote cheap telephony plans with more services than the standard telephone plan offered by local phone companies. Probably you remember those Vonage (http://www.vonage.com/ ) commercials. As opposed to Skype who targeted PC users these companies address their products to residential users without any computer knowledge. As a matter of fact you don’t need to be a computer expert to make a phone call to order a pizza or call a cab. To avoid the usage of PC to make phone calls using a broadband connection all these companies offers end users a telephone adapter that sits between the internet connection and a regular telephone. You, as end user are shielded from the technical aspects of this service: you receive a regular local phone number which friends can use it to call you and you can make local and long distance calls from you old telephone. What can be simpler than that? The only things that you’ll notice are lower monthly bills and sometime less than average audio quality.

What to use on the go?

Although is possible to take your telephone adapter with you when you go in vacation and use the hotel internet connection to make cheap phone calls that will appear on your monthly bill, the majority of mobile users use Skype (or other PC to PC communication software) when they are in vacation and use the VoIP provider only at home. This is because at least 2 factors:

Although the service offered by the residential VoIP provider is in fact more related to computers (or internet communications), than with the classical telephony, they promote the service as a replacement plan for regular phone service. Because of this, end users associate that service with a regular fixed line phone that you cannot take it with you in vacation. In reality this is a very wrong perception! Your VoIP plan (through Vonage for instance) is not much too much different than you’re Skype or Yahoo Messenger account. All you need to have is an internet connection and you have you’re service with you! The connection doesn’t have to be at your home!

The second factor that determines residential users to leave their VoIP provider plan at home and chose Skype while on the go is due to the inconvenience of carrying around the analog telephone adapter (ATA). As I said earlier the residential VoIP plan is more close to computers than to analog telephones so it makes sense to have some sort of software (similar to Skype) that you can install on your laptop and make phone calls charged by the VoIP provider. As a matter of fact this software exists and is called a softphone but the problem is that not all VoIP providers support it and some of those who has it charge you supplementary for such a service.

Knowing this, the decision of using one or other VoIP service while on the go may be clearer. Still they are some things in this article that may change your mind once more. Just have patience and read the rest.


What about the others?

At this point you may think that either Skype or your VoIP provider is the solution of VoIP communications. Still you have some friends that uses obscure services provided by companies such as SIPPhone (http://www.sipphone.com/ ), FWD (http://www.freeworlddialup.com/ ), DialPad (http://www.dialpad.com/ ), etc. and you are wondering why they are pocking around with those not so standard and known services and they don’t go with the standard?

The answer is simple: because those companies are THE STANDARD! How shocking or true is this statement you may find in the next paragraphs.


SIP World

Voice communication is the most powerful way of human communication especially when parties are separated by a long distance. Telephony is the technical infrastructure which makes possible the transmission of voice over long distances. Telephony with all its forms classical, mobile, VoIP, is one of fasted adopted and appreciated technology in human history. Until the crowning of Internet as the most complex interconnected system ever built the telephony systems had that place.

I hope you didn’t believe that such an important topic as VoIP which promotes cheap telephony on top of Internet infrastructure escaped researchers and standardization institutes?

VoIP subjects were in research labs and long before Skype appeared in this world. As this article is not a technical one, I’ll not insist on the multitude of standards and industry terms around this concept with one small exception: SIP which stands for Session Initiation Protocol.

SIP is a signaling protocol developed for a multitude of multimedia application ranging from games, virtual reality to voice and video communications. It is one of the leading protocols for Voice over IP communications. As the name states it is used only for signaling and not transporting media streams. Other mechanisms such as RTP are used for carrying audio data.

Suddenly in a so divided world full of services and applications that offers you free or cheap audio calls SIP comes to unite them under the same umbrella. Doing a quick research on Internet on the technology used by the majority of services that offer telephony calls using VoIP technology (including here residential providers and other sites on Internet) reveals the fact that almost of them are using SIP technology.

With the exception on Skype and other few applications that will not be mentioned here from this point on you’ll see SIP everywhere. For instance, I was not able to find even one residential VoIP provider that is not SIP based. Companies such as Vonage, Lingo, SIPPhone that once looked so different looks now much more alike.

Even they are following the same standards and protocols from commercial reasons they are hiding this to end users. They build SIP networks that theoretically can exchange data between them but actually they are not promoting inter-network communications.

Actually these networks are able to exchange messages but usually through the telephony systems and not always in a direct way. This raises the price of phone calls. Imagine 2 email systems (let’s say Yahoo Mail and Hotmail) allowing sending messages only in their network and all messages sent from one to the other being charged!


Audio quality

The audio quality in VoIP depends on many factors, one of the most important one being the codecs used to encode or decode voice messages. These codecs are much like the codecs used to encode/decode mp3 files but are optimized for voice encoding. Some of these are optimized for narrow band other for wide band. Some popular codecs include: G.723, G.729, G.711, G.726, G.722.

Besides these codecs the systems for VoIP uses also other technologies for noise reduction, echo cancellation, etc. in order to improve the quality of the phone call.

Codecs are the principal factor which makes Skype sound so good. They are using some codecs from Global IP Sound (http://www.globalipsound.com/ ) a well known company in VoIP arena. Other products as well are using codecs from Global IP Sound. One of the other products is Gizmo Project which will be presented later in this article.


DIY VoIP plan.
Introduction.

VoIP is cheap. But how cheap can be? For majority of users who just need telephone line simplicity is everything. The entire process is as simple as ordering a VoIP package from a provider and that’s it. They give you a telephone adapter, a local number and a call-out plan to call other people. From that moment you are all set and they start sending you bills.

Majority of these companies address to residential users who want to replace their regular phone plan with a VoIP plan to cut out the costs and receive more features in about the same amount of money they were used to pay for a local service. The low costs are also due to the fact that the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) doesn’t regulate VoIP like telephone communications.

For majority of residential homes a telephony plan consists basically in:

a real phone number used by other persons to call you;
a certain number of minutes / or unlimited to call other telephone numbers;
a device to allow usage of the VoIP provider without the need of a computer.

If you don’t have a telephony plan yet or you want to replace it altogether or simply your time is more valuable in other areas than I recommend you to go with a major VoIP residential plan such as Vonage (http://www.vonage.com/ ), Lingo (http://www.lingo.com/ ), AT&T CallVantage (http://www.usa.att.com/callvantage ), Packet8 (http://www.packet8.net/ ), SunRocket (http://www.sunrocket.com/ ), etc. which offers complete packages.

Make yourself a little research before decide which to choose. I recently noted NetZero (http://www.netzero.net/ ) offers a VoIP package starting at under $4 per month.

If you already have a plan with your phone company that you’ll just want keep it but you want also to foray into VoIP area and eventually use VoIP for cheaper long distance or international calls, than the next paragraphs are for you.


DIY VoIP plan.
It’s time to choose.

Should I use Skype? This may be the first question that comes into mind under this situation. As you know Skype offers free PC to PC communication inside their network but they have also other services at a certain cost. They allow you to buy Skype-Out minutes to call real phone numbers and they also have in beta stage a new product to allow buying of a Skype-In number that persons without a computer may be able to use it to call you.

What they don’t have is a device to allow usage of Skype without a computer. It’s true that they are plenty of USB based headsets and headphones available for Skype but all of them require a PC or at least a smaller device like a PDA. Since eBay (http://www.ebay.com/ ) acquired Skype we saw a more aggressive advertisement campaign around Skype so it’s possible that soon will appear some devices that will allow you to use the Skype network without a computer. Netgear (http://www.netgear.com/ ) announced such device.

Even if these devices will appear is still a far in the future till Skype will be accepted in a corporate environment. This is mostly because of its proprietary protocol that is not trusted by system administrators. Also the P2P nature of Skype which allow conversations of other users to pass through computer may not be appealing to some persons.

As opposed to Skype, SIP protocols are very well accepted in both corporate and residential environments. This may mean nothing to home users but the fact that it’s an explosion of cheap devices which allows connecting to SIP networks without the use of a computer should not pass unnoticed.

Believe it or not there are also SIP networks which allow you to sign up for free. All of them offers you free in-network calling and they just charge you for call-out minutes or for an incoming phone number (just like Skype). Combine this with the advantage that you can use both a software client (called a softphone), or a classical phone (without the use of a computer) and you may just discovered a very advantageous offer.

There are tens of SIP networks out there on Internet happy to open you a free account. Most of them include basic features such as free in-network communication, voice mail while other features such as call-out or incoming number may cost you. Some of them give you extra things upon opening the account, such as some free credit to test call-out features.

Since opening an account with these networks is free I let you discover as many as you can. It will cost you nothing. It still worth mentioning 2 free SIP networks that captivated my attention: SIPPhone ( http://www.sipphone.com/ ) and FWD ( http://www.freeworlddialup.com/ ).

Interesting enough I find out also that some PC-to-PC VoIP providers that don’t mention on their site anything are still SIP based. VoIPStunt (http://www.voipstunt.com/ ) which offer at this moment free PC-to-Phone calls to US and other countries is also SIP based. You can use it with its own locked client or you may search on the Internet for information of how to use it with any generic SIP compliant phone.


DIY VoIP plan.
Necessary software.

OK. That’s good till now: I have an account with SIPPhone (or any other network) but what software to use? Skype is giving me a free application that I’ll install it in order to use their network, while SIPPhone is not giving me a client like this.

As a meter of fact is better that those SIP networks don’t offer you any client application. And you know why? That is because you can use any SIP compliant softphone (like the ones produces by Counterpath) to make and answer phone calls. Is like when you are using the same web browser even if you are visiting Yahoo or Microsoft or your own web site. Imagine Yahoo offering their browser that you can use to access only their non-standard site!

Counterpath, formerly Xten (http://www.counterpath.com/ ) makes very good SIP compliant softphone. Its user interface resembles a touch tone phone. Although in my opinion this type of interface is not really what I what from a softphone the software qualities makes it a winner.

You may register the same SIP client with many networks to allow doing phone calls through the network that offers the best calling rate for the destination you intend to call. For instance I registered my X-Lite softphone from CounterPath with 2 SIP providers: one that I’m using to do cheap calls in the continental US and one that I’m using to do cheap international calls with a particular country. Choosing between the 2 providers is as easy as typing #1xxxx or #2xxxx where xxxx is the phone number and the first 2 digits allow selection of the provider.

It worth mentioning here a remarkable SIP client that tries to mimic Skype interface bringing also additional functionality such as call recording. Its name is Gizmo Project ( http://www.gizmoproject.com/ ) and as Skype offers an excellent audio quality mostly due to the codes from Global IP Sound. Unfortunately Gizmo Project is locked into SIPPhone network thus is not possible to register it with other network. Although is locked in a particular network this is not as bad as may appear. SIPPhone network is a very good one and because of its standard base nature GizmoProject allows to make free calls not only to people having other instance of GizmoProject but also to people without computer that have their telephone adapters registered with SIPPhone. Some may find the other features of GizmoProject such as free answering machine, free recording capabilities as very important.

A nice surprise is also Windows Messenger (not MSN Messenger) which offers SIP interconnectivity. But because of it’s limited capabilities it restraint me from recommended as a SIP softphone.


DIY VoIP plan.
Necessary hardware.

Unless you want to use the chosen SIP network only with a softphone is time to buy some new hardware. Fortunately the offer is vast in terms of available products and price ranges. A good starting place may be the online retailer voipsupply.com ( http://www.voipsupply.com/ ). Look there for the main two categories IP Phones and VoIP Analog Adapters.

You’ll be pleasant surprised by the existing offer. You can buy from there (or any other retailer) all sorts of adapters or IP Phones. Deciding between an IP Phone and an analog adapter (ATA) is based on your needs:
An IP phone looks like a regular phone the only difference is the input. Instead of the regular phone like input you’ll now find an Ethernet connector so you can plug directly the phone in your network. There are many types of IP Phones some designed for home use others for corporate use. Some requiring an Ethernet connection other are wireless.
An ATA device allows you to reuse your existing phone for doing VoIP calls. This is also what majority of VoIP providers offer you. By connecting a cordless telephone to the ATA device you can do wireless VoIP calls as well. An ATA has basically one Ethernet input and one analog telephone output.

Some adapters have also some nice to have features such as an extra phone line input so you plug an analog line and be able to use your telephone even if the VoIP connection or power are down. Sipura SPA-3000 adapter has also an FXO port allowing the device to behave like a gateway between the VoIP network and a landline network. For instance having this adapter at home you are able to make cheap international phone calls from your mobile phone by calling home and then the device you route your call to the VoIP network. It is also possible to forward the calls that come from the VoIP connection to your mobile phone.

If you are a beginner in this area I recommend you to go with an entry level device such as an IP Phone like Grandstream Budgetone 101 or an ATA device like Linksys - Sipura SPA-1001. You can order any of them online from voipsupply.com .

Warning: If you’ll visit a local computer store such as BestBuy or CompUSA you’ll discover also some VoIP devices: ATA devices or even routers with built-in telephone adapters. Please read carefully the labels on the box since the majority of these devices are locked with a VoIP provider such as Vonage or SunRocket. Don’t buy those devices unless you want to subscribe with respective provider.


Other considerations

The quality of a VoIP phone call is dependent on the available bandwidth. If you are doing heavy downloads while you are on the phone you may experience a deterioration in audio quality. Here come into scene Quality of Service (QoS). If your IP Phone or ATA device is placed after your home router make sure the router has QoS features. Older routers usually don’t have this feature. Having or not QoS is the difference between a chopped conversation and a good one. Skype cannot benefit from the QoS features but traditional SIP phones can.


DIY VoIP plan.
Concrete scenario.

Q: I live in South Florida and I have Bellsouth (http://www.bellsouth.com/ ) as my local phone company. I have a local phone plan and ADSL bundle with them and I’d like to make cheap long distance phone calls using VoIP.

A: The easiest way is to make an account with SIPPhone and buy from them SIP minutes (you can call as low as 2cents / min in US). Then you can buy one ATA eventually having an analog input also for connecting your phone line to be able to do PSTN and SIP calls on one standard phone.

Actually SIPPhone is not the only service that allows you this DIY type approach. There are plenty of services out there which addresses to DIY type people. Just try to search on Google (http://www.google.com/ ) for “DIY VoIP” or “BYOD VoIP” and you’ll see what I’m talking about.



Your own internal phone system

Do you have a big house or a small business? Do you want that each room to have its own phone number interior like those phones from big corporates? If so, or even if you want to dig deeper into VoIP subject than its time to install Asterisk or Asterisk@Home ( http://www.asterisk.org/, http://asteriskathome.sourceforge.net/ ).

It is free and offers you with features found in systems that costs thousands of dollars. Search on internet for Asterisk and you’ll find all sorts of tutorials and documentations. You’ll find stories of people who installed Asterisk in virtual machines, just to play around with it, or people who install it in their basement, built embedded devices containing Asterisk and even people that are using Asterisk in a production environment.


What about video-calls?

Video calls are on the rise. Skype offer them as well as some SIP networks. The nice thing with video calls in SIP networks is the fact that you can find devices that allows to perform this type of calls without the use of a computer. Buy your grandma a videophone from voipsupply or any other retailer and she’ll be able to see it even without a computer.


Disclaimer and further reading

This article was written as a non-technical introduction to VoIP technologies. All companies, products and services mentioned are just for the purpose of exemplification. Users are invited to consult respective companies’ official web sites for up to date information about their products and offers. The author or this article is not affiliated with any of above mentioned companies.