Source: goebel.net

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Om Malik has asked "Is Nokia Turning Its Back on MobileVoIP?", pinpointing to the fact that the new Nseries devices N78 and N96 lack an own SIP client, while Nokia before embraced mobile VoIP on it’s Nseries and Eseries devices. Charlie Schick of Nokia Conversations says the report of the death of VoIP has been "grossly exaggerated" and people like Phoneboy, Gizmo5’s Michael Robertson or the company Truphone are buying that argumentation, although it has its flaws. Truphone, Gizmo5 and Fring must have realized immediately that they are winning from Nokia’s move. That’s why they are holding back their horses.

Nokia says that it’s no problem that they have removed the native SIP client from their latest handsets, since companies can develop their own VoIP software based on great APIs. But it’s not as easy as Nokia is trying to say: There are hundreds or thousands of companies without an own software for mobile VoIP. They just rely on the SIP standard. In Germany it’s GMX, 1&1, Sipgate and the several Betamax daughters. Together they have millions of customers, I am one of them. These people cannot use VoIP on the new Nokia phones. I have always ten or more VoIP providers installed on my Nokia E61i’s SIP client. This way I can always use the cheapest route and leverage free on net calls.

It would be nasty if had to install ten or more pieces of software for that purpose. It’s already annoying that Truphone requires a special software because they don’t give me my SIP password. That’s a perversion of the idea of standards. If I need a special software for every company’s offer why is there a standard called SIP?

So as a VoIP tinkerer I have to stay with the older Nokia devices, or at most I can change to the E71. But Nokia’s new Symbian release, S60 3.2, is no option for me - as long as it has no own SIP client. It’s obvious why companies like Fring, Truphone, Gizmo5, Vyke and others are applauding the Nokia move. It ties their customer to them and makes it more difficult to use other companies’ offers. With a native SIP client, which allows to be connected to several different SIP services at the same time, I can be promiscuous. Even the most disruptive mobile VoIP companies prefer to lock me in their walled garden, but I don’t want that.

I still believe that pressure from mobile operators has caused this move of Nokia. HSDPA and HSUPA have brought great bandwith to the latest handsets, enough to use it for Voice over 3G. With the right voice codec you can talk about 15 minutes and use only 1 Megabyte of data. Filtering for VoIP packets slows down the mobile data networks and therefore it’s not very common. If you combine that with the right VoIP provider, like Betamax, this means free mobile phone calls to more than 30 countries. Only data prices apply.

Source: goebel.net

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The British phone company easyMobile is back, 18 months after it had to shut down. But this time the brand name doesn’t stand for a mobile virtual network operator (MVNO). The Greek serial entrepreneur Stelios Haji-Ioannou, also founder of the airline easyJet and other successful low cost product ventures, has changed the business model entirely and doesn’t comply with his former announcement about the future of easyMobile.

Exactly one year ago Stelios told me that he wanted to resuscitate the company as MVNO with free phone calls, sponsored by advertising. A similar business was already in the making under the name of Blyk, a UK based start-up by the former president of Nokia Corporation, Pekka Ala-Pietil. It launched some months later but it seems that Blyk hasn’t conviced Stelios, because the new easyMobile is nothing more than a new face for the Swedish VoIP company Rebtel. The press release says:

Rebtel, the people’s global communications company, today announced a brand licensing agreement with easyGroup that will allow Rebtel to increase its presence in the UK and reach new markets for its mobile VoIP services.

easyGroup is the business of easyJet founder and serial entrepreneur Sir Stelios Haji-Ioannou.

Under the agreement, Rebtel-powered services for making low cost international phone calls from any mobile phone, over any UK network, will be sold and marketed on easyGroup’s http://www.easyMobile.com web site.

Rebtel’s CEO Hjalmar Windbladh sounds very enthusiastic. "Sir Stelios and easyGroup are our kind of partners", he says. "They want to make a difference in people’s lives. They offer services for the many, not the few. They take on the big boys in the market and treasure relentless innovation. And most importantly they’re open and honest. Those are all values that Rebtel was built on."

Hopefully his cooperation lasts longer than the former easyMobile. Stelios is a genius in lending his brand name, but he also tends to end franchising very fast. The first easyMobile was planned as pan European MVNO in 12 countries. The Danish operator TDC licensed the brand from Stelios’ easyGroup but things didn’t turn out so well. TDC got bought and changed their business strategy which made Stelios retract the brandname. In just 48 hours the German branch had to change its name into callmobile. You always have to be cautious that the franchisees don’t damage your established brand name, Stelios said in our interview.

Hjalmar be careful!

Source: alanweinkrantz.typepad.com

AT&T will donate more than 30,000 prepaid phone cards in 2008, with a retail value of more than $200,000, to be distributed to military personnel stationed overseas with the help of the USO. This donation builds on more than 85 years of AT&T support for U.S. military families and a 20-year partnership with the USO. The company also recently provided a $315,000 sponsorship to support USO events and entertainment tours in 2008.

The donation program will begin with the first 10,000 prepaid cards distributed on overseas military bases and during USO entertainment tours slated for the weeks surrounding Mother’s Day. According to AT&T, this donation is in honor of U.S. military moms, whether they are on active duty or whether they have a son, daughter, husband or loved one who is actively serving.

In the coming weeks, the USO will help AT&T distribute the first 10,000 phone cards to troops throughout Iraq, Kuwait, Afghanistan, South Korea, Japan, Spain, Italy and Germany, including personally handing cards to wounded military members at Landsthul Regional Medical Center. Each donated phone card will provide military members with 20 minutes of free talk time from Iraq to the U.S.

The donation builds on AT&T’s commitment to help keep military families connected: In the past two years, AT&T has donated prepaid phone cards with a retail value of over $4 million to help support U.S. military members and their families. In the past 20 years, AT&T has contributed tens of millions of dollars to the USO in support of the Operation USO Care Package and USO Operation Phone Home® programs as well as USO entertainment tours; and has helped the USO boost troop morale through funding regional operations in Europe, Southwest Asia and the Pacific.

Since 1941, the USO has provided morale, welfare and recreation-type programs and services to enhance the quality of life for military personnel and their families around the world. The USO currently operates more than 130 centers, including 10 mobile canteens, offering free Internet and e-mail access, prepaid international phone cards, entertainment and lounge areas, libraries, travel assistance and refreshments. USO entertainment tours bring celebrity volunteers to entertain and lift the morale of troops and to express the gratitude and support of the American people.

For more than 85 years, AT&T has remained dedicated to supporting active military personnel, their families and veterans through charitable contributions, sponsorships, the hiring of military veterans and maintaining policies that support reservists who are called to duty. Since 2000, AT&T has donated free prepaid phone cards with a retail value of nearly $8 million to military members and has provided nearly $6 million in grants that support military members and related nonprofit organizations. The company has also built 70 calling centers for military members stationed in Iraq, Kuwait and Afghanistan, so that they may stay in touch with their families.

Source: goebel.net

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Do you remember my blog post "A SIP address for Skype? Better the other way around!"? This mission has now been accomplished. As of yesterday you can call me on Skype and I will answer this call on my desk phone or cell phone using SIP VoIP telephony. As I always try to achieve, this is a totally free solution.

I have joined Voxeo’s developer program for their Evolution application, a visual design tool for interactive voice response (IVR) systems. Part of the deal is that you get a strange phone number with a +990 country code. There is no country associated with this code and Skype users can call these numbers for free. My Skype account is now being forwarded over Voxeo to a SIP address from Gizmo Project which I manage on Voxalot to make use of it’s call connection rules and voice mail.

Have a peek on my settings:

A better explanation can be found at the Voxeo support forum. I wonder what VOIPSA’s Dan York would say. In January he started a discussion with his blog post "Skype says "No" to VoIP interoperability - *because customers aren’t asking for it!* - Well, I am!". He is, by the way, working for Voxeo and this partly solution for his problem comes from his own company. So I guess he was always aware of this trick.

I am happy now that people can call me with Skype and I don’t have to keep me computer running or buy a special Skype phone for this purpose. That’s the reason why I nearly never used Skype. I don’t like applications which keep me tied to my computer in order to receive messages or phone calls, like Skype or the MagicJack normally do. Let’s see which other solutions I can develop with Voxeo. Their visual tool makes the design of VoiceXML fairly easy.

Source: snapvoip.blogspot.com

I have discussed and tested ooVoo Free Phone Calls and video services. I have been very happy with the quality of the video calls and the voice calls. I have tested it with many other services I am using and except in one application, which I am unable to disclose due to NDA I signed, worked flawlessly.
The original post about free phone calls we mentioned that it was 120 minutes. But ooVoo has since then increased the number of minutes to 500.
We will soon have a video call composing of three continents. Some will join us on Phone. One video will be transmitted from a farm where we will be inspecting the condition of seed production for a clients in Europe and Japan. Originally there were team of about 10 from each country would visit to inspect the farm. Seed production has very strict guide lines.
Thanks to video conferencing, those ten people and even 10 more now can visit the farms virtually. Just imagine the green house gases saved and money for the companies. If this test goes right, they will setup the lines so that clients would be able to watch farms 24 hours a day. But by then we will need to sign up for a paying service.
Enough of seeds and 500 free minutes is a very good thing for any one, because everyone, one way or another will dial a number. ooVoo

Source: goebel.net

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I have to admit that I was wrong in my last blog post about "Truphone’s new pricing". I had bet that Truphone would offer free calls for another two months, as they always did when their free offer supposedly ended. But now they came up with a new pricing, called Tru Zone, that in the words of Stuart Henshall’s blog "fails to motivate". Here is an example:

You can call any of the 40 countries in the Tru Zone for a tiny 6c to landlines and 30c to mobiles. Some countries such as the USA, Canada and China are double special. Calls to both landlines and mobiles are a flat 6c! Calls to much of the rest of the world are flat and simple too just 10c to landlines and 30c to mobiles.

That makes Truphone now one of the most expensive VoIP services I know. But at least I was partly right with my bet: "as a big thank you for being one of our early supporters, you can continue to enjoy your existing Launch Offer pricing (that means free calls to 40 countries) until June 1st", says the email I got last week from Truphone.

So early adopters can still enjoy free calls. I guess that Truphone was afraid of a big wave of signoffs and criticism in VoIP blogs. New customers have to be attracted by Tru Zone’s easy pricing and new features which you can’t find at cheaper VoIP services. If you meet James Body or other members of Truphone’s staff sneak a peek on their handsets! They always have much more advanced Truphone versions installed than normal users. The last lab version I saw in Barcelona was quite promising and solved a problem I was always nagging about.

Source: goebel.net

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Will the free lunch finally be over? That’s what most Truphone users are wondering. The company has extended it’s introductory offer several times. Some people are enjoying free Truphone calls to the landlines of 40 countries for an entire year already. Today is one of these days that the party is supposedly over. The Truphone press website still says:

Thursday, December 20, 2007
Truphone freezes call charges until the end of February 2008

Truphone today announced that all Truphone call charges have been frozen at their current rates until February 29th 2008. For the next two months, Truphone calls will be free to landlines in 40 countries, and to mobiles in the USA, Canada and elsewhere. Using Truphone to call EU mobiles costs just 15 pence per minute or less.

In Truphone’s Mobile VoIP Forum users get nervous and say things like: "It is a bit lame though now being the 29th and no prices given on the website. How are people supposed to take a company like this seriously." They are right. February 29th is nearly over now, but still there is no new pricing. Truphone team member JackieG says in the same thread:

Yep, Feb 29th has long been marked in our calendars. We’ve been putting the finishing touches to a spruced-up website and a new price offer.

Check out truphone.com tomorrow afternoon (Sat 1st March) to get full details. We will also be sending good news to existing customers by email and SMS…

So this time it’s just a relaunch of the website? That makes me guess that the new price offer will be the same like before: Free calls for another two months. Later we will see much more technical advancements from Truphone, as Research Director James Body showed me in Barcelona.

Source: goebel.net

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I got a tip about four free phone gateways in a European country. They let you call almost every fixed or mobile phone number in the world at no charge. "The gateways haven’t a pin authentication, so the minimum security rules aren’t respected", says the tipster. "If you test it will you see also caller ID is forwarded. A real good service." Oh yes, I understand the guy’s enthusiasm. People love free phone calls.

So these four numbers could be the ultimate callthrough solution, the new Yak4ever. If it only wasn’t illegal. That’s why I don’t publish them. The tipster even sent detailed instructions on how to use these numbers. You just need free calls to that country, which you get for instance from Truphone or several Betamax companies. After the tone you type in the callee’s number with international prefix, followed by the hash key (#), to be connected.

A poor company must have forgotten to take the most basic security measures. This security breach is said to be open for more than one year already, since December 2006. Which makes me wonder whether it’s a bug or a feature. If a study from Stealth Communications is right then phreakers steal a staggering two hundred million minutes per month valuing around $26 million. No wonder if some companies make it so easy.

UPDATE:

Just minutes after posting this blog entry I had a reader from Sindh, Karachi, Pakistan. I looked him up in my log files after getting his message: "Sir I am the regular reader of your forum, I want to make a free call to my relatives outside the country, Actually I am from a very poor family, Sir can you give me that 4 gateways number where i can call free to my relatives. plz".

Unfortunately that is not possible, although I still feel the giving spirit of Christmas. What’s illegal is illegal. There is a not so thin red line between free phone calls from companies with loads of venture capital and plain theft.

Source: goebel.net

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Wifimobile quits their flatrate model and goes prepay like Truphone. The move is said to be inspired by a blog post from iotum’s Alec Saunders from Canada who managed to spend just $4.16 on mobile calls and roaming at the IP industry event Fall 2007 VON in Boston. Calls were handled by either TruPhone (if in a Wifi zone) or Mobivox (if not).

Wifimobile users can now set up accounts to make very cheap calls over Wi-Fi as per Truphone, and GSM Call through access as per Mobivox. The rates are competitive, such as under $0.10 per minute to India. You can find them here. The move was necessary because Wifimobile’s previous flatrate model could not offer calls to many countries like India and the Middle East as it looked like this:

Only 15.99 11.99 7.99 Per Month

The oneFone service from WiFiMobile allows you to make unlimited* free calls to landlines in over 40 countries as well as mobile phones in certain countries including the USA. For a list of countries that you can call for free click here.

All calls to landline and mobile numbers to countries not listed here are automatically routed through your normal GSM provider. This allows us to guarantee that customers are never charged more than the set monthly line rental.

*The unlimited free calls are subject to a fair usage policy.

In the last months Wifimobile had to walk in the shadow of Truphone, because they offered calls to the same countries for free in a limited offer that always got extended. Calls to destinations outside these 40 countries could at least be completed as paid calls with Truphone, while Wifimobile just couldn’t offer them.

As Truphone’s free calls should have finished at the end of the year, Wifimobile hoped to compete on the same level with them and beat them with more VoIP features. An added enhancement is that people can register not only their cell phone but also the home or office landline for the use with Wifimobile’s callthrough numbers. That brings more calls onto Wifimobile’s VoIP network and makes their service usable outside of Wifi areas.

Truphone lacks such a nice callthrough feature and I am missing it, as I told in my blog post "Packet8 MobileTalk could be done much better". Wifimobile also offers real time call records, which can be viewed in a secure customer portal, and they are also currently working on an inbound solution.

But will this be enough to step out of Truphone’s shadow?

It must have been a strong blow that Truphone has just announced the extension of their free calling to landlines (and some cellphones) in 40 countries until the end of February 2008, only one week after Wifimobile changed their business model. Free phone calls are still the strongest argument for the VoIP customer. Read both companies’ press releases! I am quite convinced that Truphone will never charge for these calls. We can already prepare for the next extensions in March, July and December. That’s how it worked in 2007.

WiFiMobile goes global with prepay VoIP and dial through service

Los Angeles California December 13th 2007 - Leading mobile VoIP provider WiFiMobile today announced that their VoIP service has changed to prepay with very competitive costs.

The company had previously charged a monthly subscription which allowed free calls to landlines in certain countries, however calls to all other worldwide destinations were barred. The introduction of a top up system now presents a global platform.

WiFiMobiles new tariff rate has been completely revised and users can now take advantage of calls such as to India at under 10 US cents per minute. Calls to other online WiFiMobile customers are free regardless of location.

Their unique local access numbers remain in place where cheap calls can be made when no Wi-Fi access point is in range. These numbers are available in twelve countries at present with more to follow shortly. Customers can also register other numbers such as their home landline to utilise these access numbers. This combines Internet and dial through calling into just one account.

The service is available at the companys website where their VoIP client oneFone can be downloaded instantly to any compatible Nokia E or N Series smartphone. A free $1 credit is applied to all new accounts to test the technology. Customers are also able to securely access the log in portal to view account balance, top up history and real time CDRs.

The companys VoIP client oneFone fully supports Presence enabling users to see who is online at any time with other business features such as Call Conferencing, Call Transfer and VCC (Voice Call Continuity) coming soon.

WiFiMobile CEO says "This stretches out our potential market to places that we couldnt touch previously. Countries such as India have over 200 million mobile users and have a huge overseas based population. Our rates are very competitive and we have the most robust VoIP client".

For further information please visit www.wifimobile.com or email pr@wifimobile.com.

WiFiMobile

Head Office:
3250 Wilshire Boulevard
9th Floor
Los Angeles
California
CA 90010

Tel: +1 310 459 3000 Ext 2

Email: pr@wifimobile.com

ABOUT WIFIMOBILE

WiFiMobile were founded in 2002 and have offices in the US and UK. In 2004 the company achieved status of a Forum Nokia S60 3rd Edition Featured Developer, one of only 23 recognized worldwide.

VoIP client oneFone is a self developed and wholly owned application and provides cheap or free long distance calls as well as converting select Nokia devices into extensions of corporate IP IBX systems. The company is poised to achieve phenomenal growth in the next year in this rapidly evolving market.

Thursday, December 20, 2007
Truphone freezes call charges until the end of February 2008

Truphone today announced that all Truphone call charges have been frozen at their current rates until February 29th 2008. For the next two months, Truphone calls will be free to landlines in 40 countries, and to mobiles in the USA, Canada and elsewhere. Using Truphone to call EU mobiles costs just 15 pence per minute or less.

Truphone call charges summary

• Free calls to landlines in 40 countries
• Free calls to cellphones USA, Canada, China, Hong Kong and Singapore
• Pay 15 pence or less to EU mobiles - and no connection charge
• Free mobile calls to other online Truphone customers
• No roaming fees: Truphone calls costs the same wherever you are
• No download cost, no monthly charge and no inbound fees
• These rates are guaranteed until February 29th 2008. Rates quoted are exclusive of VAT
• Anyone with a suitable handset can get Truphone by sending an SMS with the word ‘Tru’ to +44 7624 000000

Source: goebel.net

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Since my last post "Call me for free with Tringme!" I get funny calls from Senegal and other far away countries. They go through Tringme, but also my click to call widgets from Voxalot and Sitfono. Somebody must have spread the word that I give support on certain VoIP services and devices. No wonder that people call me, since it’s for free.

I am OK with such calls, but please understand that I can only answer during working hours in my time zone. The rest of the calls goes to the voice mail box. The yesterday’s caller didn’t even understand that he was talking to an answering machine. He thought that I was on the phone with him but refusing to answer, so he got a little upset. Also I had serious problems to understand his Englisch and the e-mail address he left.

I think for such purposes it’s still the best option to contact me over the contact form on my website. The last caller who came through caught me on my cell phone in a department store when I couldn’t help him at all.

Source: goebel.net

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Much has been said about startups like Ribbit, Tringme or Flashphone which use the Flash browser plugin for click to call widgets. Aswath Rao even declares 2008 the Year of Flash based VoIP Clients. I can only say that you don’t have to wait till next year to call me for free using Flash. I love my Tringme call widget:

These calls are entirely free to you, because the caller speaks into the Flash widget on my website using a headset or the laptop’s built in phone and speaker. On Linux the sound is a little bit weird. The automatic voice, which says "please wait while we connect your call" before every connection, sounds like a 45 rpm record played on 33. The phone call itself sounds like Mickey Mouse, but still the the words are understandable. On Windows everything works just perfect.

Also to me these calls are entirely free. Other than my widgets from Sitfono and Voxalot where I have to pay to call the person who wants to contact me.

I achieve this by using FWD as SIP provider to power the Tringme widget. The Tringme account website says "Connect my phone and voicemail widget to Phone number or extension". Unfortunately it accepts only numbers and no SIP addresses in this input mask, but as a workaround I have simply put my FWD number there. In the "TringPhone SIP Settings" part of the account configuration I left my FWD login data. Which means that every Tringme call is in fact a free FWD on net call. You can probably do the same with Gizmo Project’s SIP account data and phone numbers, as well as with many other VoIP providers.

Also there is another widget for people who don’t want to talk to me, but just leave a voicemail.

Only seconds later I get a call and a voice says "You have a Tringme" before it plays the message. The Tringme widgets are much better than Gizmocall which also allows free calls from a website.

You could call me for free by simply typing http://www.gizmocall.com/mgoebel in your browser’s address bar. This website also uses Flash, but additionally you have to install a plugin for Windows or Mac. For ten months yet Gizmo owes us a Linux plugin. Although the company’s CEO, Michael Robertson, even has his own Linux distribution, Linspire.

But why bother? The Flash browser plugin gets more and more versatile and works on all platforms. It’s a new way to disrupt the telco industry, circumventing the PSTN and offering a new option for free phone calls that so many people appreciate.

So, if you want, please give me a Tringme call!

And, before you ask: No, I couldn’t get Truphone’s Facebook application running, which should basically do the same like Tringme, only that it uses Java. After one week of tinkering I gave up. But congratulations for winning the "Red Herring 100 Global" Award.

Source: goebel.net

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Does anybody know the new VoIP startup Dringg? They make me very courious with their announcements. The Facebook site of Jeff Heubo, CEO and Co-Founder, says;

Keep your cell/landline device(s) & phone number(s).
Our ambition is to build a "Free Call Network" so that anyone could use his or her cell/landline phone to reach worldwide cells & landlines at zero cost.
No download - No Pin - No Wifi or 3G - No Java.

"Dringg is a fast, free and easy way to call family & friends’ cells / landlines from yours, no matter where they’re physically located", says the company’s website. But so far that’s the only useful information. Sounds quite interesting, but I have no idea what’s behind it. The company seems to be located now in San Francisco, CA. But the founders are from France.

Dring project was fully initiated by Jeff Heubo & Stephane Orey, both friends and co-workers in La Defense, the biggest European Business Center.

Jeff and Stephane studied Business & Telecom Engineering. After a few years un Spain & the US, idea came to build a free alternative to paid calls so that people could just Dringg themselves from their existing landlines and cells.

Obviously they are paving the way for a launch and seed pieces of information to create interest. Jeff Heubo invited me to be one of the first Alpha testers and says that it deals with free calls. But he doesn’t tell more and hopes I understand that. A hint could be his Twitter page which says at the top:

Never be first to market, make something good Greater
Steve Chazin

So what kind of business is Dringg improving? Jajah? Pudding Media? Yak4ever? Maybe Jeff Pulver shouldn’t have headed to Israel to hunt for talents, but better contacted these two French guys.