Source: www.voip-news.com
Love this! VoIP and Gadgets Blog traces rudimentary computer technology that the writer used as a kid to the VoIP service that he now bases his career writing about.
The VoIP Weblog explores Sipgate in its competition with Skype.
Truphone 3.0 has launched for the iPod Touch. Read about it on VoIP News of the UK.
Source: www.voip-news.com
Android-enabled handsets now have a new option in voice over Wi-Fi. Truphone announced that Truphone Anywhere is now available for Android phones including the G1 phone, which will be available in March 2009.
According to Truphone:
To coincide with T-Mobile’s announcement earlier this week of the availability of the G1 mobile phone in March 2009, a German version of Truphone Anywhere for Android is available and will be the first native language multi-communications application in the Android Market in Germany and Austria when it launches at CeBIT 2009.
“We want to make it as easy as possible for people to have conversations with their communities around the world in whatever form they choose,” said Truphone CEO Geraldine Wilson. “We passionately believe in devices like the Android and iPhone which offer easy user access to applications through the Android Market and the App Store in Apple’s iTunes. The G1 and the entire Android platform is an obvious and important distribution channel for us.”
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Source: www.voip-news.com
Fring has been awarded Windows Mobile Certification. Read about it on VoIP News of the UK.
Andy Abramson at VoIP Watch has some dish about Truphone from Macworld.
Smith on VoIP is doing something impressive: trying to help people who’ve been laid off in the VoIP sector find work by creating a Peter Shankman/Help a Reporter-esk list. So check it out and opt-in if you are job hunting.
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Source: www.voip-news.com
Truphone Anywhere for the Blackberry won the 2008 Gadgetfest Gadget award at CommNexus’s Gadgetfest, held recently in San Diego. The application won both the judges’ vote and the overall crowd vote.
According to Truphone:
Truphone Anywhere provides reduced price International and Long Distance via a very intuitive user interface on the Blackberry. By capturing the GadgetFest Gadget crown Truphone joins a list of champions that includes recent titlists Google’s GrandCentral, Direct TV’s SlingBox and the Motorola Q phone amongst others.
“All the companies showed off what’s new and next in the world of mobile communications, demonstrating that innovation, imagination and new ideas are still coming from the mobile industry every day,” said CommNexus CEO Rory Moore.
Judges included SipPhone founder Michael Robertson, San Diego TV 6 technology reporter Steve Kovsky, San Diego Daily Transcript gadget writer Phil Baker, and Qualcomm’s former Senior Vice President of Strategy Jeff Belk.
“Capturing the GadgetFest crown is really a credit to our entire engineering and product team that have worked tirelessly to get the application ready for launch,” said Tom Carter, Truphone’s president, The Americas who handled both award winning demonstrations.
Source: voip-tech.blogspot.com
Even the new born in Apple house, the well-known multimedia portable player iPod, available on the App Store and very similar to his brother iPhone, will have its VoIP functionality, thanks to the new earphones with microphone it will be possible to make VoIP calls by the TruPhone application and the integrated Wi-Fi LAN (802.11b/g), TruPhone is available for free on the App Store.
Source: goebel.net
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A commentator to my last post "Why Truphone and Gizmo5 applaud that Nokia turns it’s back on mobile VoIP" doubts my argumentation by asking:
I thought Truphone is based on the built-in SIP client? Then it would seem unlikely that Truphone applauds Nokia dropping the mobile VoIP stack from certain models.
My answer is the following:
Yes, Truphone until now works on top of the built-in SIP client. But the Truphone software develops more and more into a standalone application: with the inclusion of SMS, callthrough where no Wifi is available, presence information and so forth. They aren’t afraid of building their own SIP app since it ties the customer even more to them. Therefore Gigaom wrote:
Truphone isnt waiting around for Nokia to do something. A company spokesman told us: From Truphones perspective Nokia has removed the VoIP client from all the N-Series phones for the planned future. We are putting in a replacement client functionality so that existing customers are not orphaned.
Don’t forget that Truphone has a very high pricing for Wifi calls! Their software is convenient to install, but many other VoIP companies are three times cheaper. That’s why they would be very happy to be your only mobile VoIP provider. Vyke already launched their own client, as you can read here, and Gizmo5’s CEO Michael Robertson officially applauded Nokia’s move in a FierceVoIP article.
The only losers are the cellphone users, since these 3rd party apps are much more difficult to use than the native SIP client. Read this insightful comment, posted at Phoneyboy’s blog:
"Im using VOIP on Nokias phone via my own asterisk server. How can Nokia expect me to develop my own Internet telephony application so that I can continue to use it? There are simply thousands of small users out there for whom this is beyond what they could do. This will leave them out in cold.And further comment. Any third party application will have hard time to match the comfort of integrated symbian UI, where normal and internet calls are integrated together and one push of a button decides which one to make. Just compare this with Fring whose UI is just terrible."
We tinkerers who use Asterisk, Voxalot, Voipstunt, PBXes and Iptel.org are out of the game for the new Nseries devices. I am afraid that the Nokia E71 is the last cool device for a VoIP aficionado like me. Hopefully the Android devices will have more to give. Phoneboy calls us, who use 10 VoIP providers on our Nokia devices, a "minority". Nevertheless he "understands the frustration". Thank you!
But still I think that he is wrong, or maybe just blue-eyed, when he says: "It sounds like the problem is only limited to these two handsets". The problem affects all Symbian Series 60 3rd generation Feature Pack 2 (S60 3.2)! This means: All new handsets from now on are affected. Nokia’s VoIP isn’t revolutionary disruptive anymore, but has changed to a big boys’ only business.
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: gigaom.com
Business Week today has a good summary of various mobile VoIP services that allow you to make phone calls from your cellphone over the Wi-Fi network. These apps are incredibly popular amongst people who use iPhones, thanks to services such as Truphone and Gorilla Mobile, while others like iCall will soon join the party. And that is just the beginning.
By 2011 the number of mobile VoIP users around the world may rise to 100 million from 7 million in 2007, according to ON World, a consulting firm based in San Diego. ON World estimates that in 2011, mobile VoIP voice services may generate $33.7 billion, up from $516 million in 2006, the most recent year for which the figure is available.
WiFi-based voice calls may not appear to make much sense in this era of $99, flat-rate unlimited plans, but when you have to make a lot of international long distance calls, the cost saving are humongous. I use Truphone on my iPhone and/or my Nokia e71 to make calls to my family and friends in India as well as to my sources, which are spread across the world.
There are times when I have used Skype (via iSkoot) on my mobiles to make calls, but Truphone is my service of choice. I save a lot of money when compared to what calls cost on the AT&T network.
No wonder phone companies don’t have much use for Wi-Fi unless they can use it off-load calls from the precious wireless spectrum to the Wi-Fi network. Others, like T-Mobile USA, have come up with a way to measure calls made via Wi-Fi hotspots and count them against wireless subscriber minutes, unless you sign up for an additional $10-a-month plan, Business Week notes.
So obviously they’ve gone out of their way to neuter VoIP services like Truphone. More recently, Nokia decided to take out VoIP functionality from some of its N-Series devices, like the N78 and the forthcoming N96, in what could very well be called carrier arm-twisting.
I think that if carriers want to compete with mobile VoIP they need to lower their long-distance prices to that of VoIP services. By using their network backbones they can offer convenience and quality to trounce the upstarts. The problem is that wireless companies will not make this logical move — until it’s too late.
Related Stories:
* 7 Ways to VoIP From Your Mobile Phone.
* iSkoot, Not Skype, Launched on Symbian.
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Source: gigaom.com
Nokia, the leading handset maker, has been a favorite of ours for two reasons –- it ruthlessly promoted and added Wi-Fi connectivity to its handsets and added VoIP functionality to its devices.
Carriers did not view these technology developments too kindly since it prevented them from extorting exorbitant amounts of cash for costly long distance connections, leading to the rise of mobile-VoIP players such as Truphone, Fring and Gizmo Project.
But now the Finnish giant seems to have developed cold feet, and some of its new handsets, such as the new N78, are not VoIP compatible anymore. Many of these phones are not on the list of Nokia’s VoIP compatible handsets. A reader tipped us off about this apparent change in the latest N-series phones.
…the N78 (and also to affect the forthcoming N96) which is that Nokia has very quietly and seemingly sneakily redacted their built-in VoIP / SIP implementation in all phones that come with Symbian Series 60 3rd generation Feature Pack 2 (otherwise abbreviated as S60 3.2).
I have a N78 lying around so I decided to test it myself. And lo-and-behold none of the VoIP services I am accustomed to using worked. Truphone and Gizmo are two services I typically use and neither of them work.
Ditto for Fring, a VoIP-IM service as well. However, all three worked on the Nokia E71 smart phone. When I asked Nokia if this was true, the company sent me this response, which pretty much admits that is the case, though it didn’t say why.
Nokia Nseries is committed VoIP services as part of its offering. That is why we have included SIP stack and improved the developer VoIP offering in S60 3rd Edition Feature Pack 2 by enhancing the VoIP APIs to improve the call quality, as an example.
A Nokia VoIP client is not included with the Nokia N78 and the Nokia N96 and VoIP solutions based on this particular client such as Gizmo will not work. However, Forum Nokia will cooperate with third-party developers to support them in porting their applications from S60 3.0/3.1 releases to S60 3.2. One example is Fring, whose popular application will be offered via Nokia’s Download! service for the Nokia N96.
Truphone isn’t waiting around for Nokia to do something. A company spokesman told us: “From Truphone’s perspective Nokia has removed the VoIP client from all the N-Series phones for the planned future. We are putting in a replacement client functionality so that existing customers are not orphaned.”
The theory is that Nokia isn’t mucking with E-series devices because they are more enterprise focused. Since VoWLAN is more popular with the corporations, Nokia can’t afford to remove the VoIP functionality. It is one feature that makes the phones more competitive with say Blackberry.
On the consumer front, however, voice-over-WiFi has become a thorn in the side of carriers, as exemplified by actions of carriers such as T-Mobile against VoWiFi-startups such as Truphone. Furthermore, the emergence of 3G has made it easier to route calls over the 3G network.
Funnily enough, the decision to back away from built-in VoIP comes at a time when fixed mobile convergence is finally beginning to gain traction, especially in Europe and Asia. In the U.S., Nokia launched a handset that works with T-Mobile’s Hotspot@Home service.
Nokia has to be taking a lot of heat from carriers over making VoIP easy on its devices. Whichever way you look at it, I think it is a bone-headed move by the company, which should be trying to out-innovate its competitors and be more open in terms of its features.
The decision also brings into question company’s new mantra of being open and open-source friendly. Being open isn’t about releasing some software in open source, but it is about having an open mind. Shutting down a much loved VoIP feature isn’t exactly the right move.
As our reader very aptly wrote:
….does this move by Nokia really appear to be the type of move that is indicative of a culture shift towards open source per the Symbian Foundation? Google is already culturally rooted in open source (its entire infrastructure runs on Linux clusters). I am not so confident about Nokia’s ability to shift to open source…
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Source: www.voip-news.com
As if answering the popular question: what? you have to buy bandwidth too? VoIP Supply has partnered with bandwidth.com to provider users with both. Read about the partnership on The VoIP Weblog.
Fring is now available on JAVA ME and Linux-based phones. Read about it on VoIP News.
Someone had an awesome experience with Truphone. Read about it on VoIP Watch.
Source: voip-tech.blogspot.com
Truphone, a free application formerly known to make low-cost VoIP calls by the latest Nokia cellphones, it’s ready also for the newest by Apple, the iPhone, just arrived in Italy.
The free download is available on the iTunes App Store website, or surfing directly on the App Store website by your iPhone.
Via Truphone it’s possible to make VoIP calls using WiFi Networks or 3G cellphone network at really low rates, for example, to call Italy from every part of the world the rate is 0,10 USD/minute over landline phones and 0,50 USD/minute over mobile phones.
For more info visit the Truphone official website and the App Store official website.
Source: www.voip-news.com
The VoIP Weblog is clued in to Alltop’s new VoIP blog roundup — a site for those who don’t use RSS readers . . . Check out the post here. (And I agree, they really should add The VoIP Weblog.)
Skype Journal reports on a customer’s problem with HotRecorder and Skype. Read it here.
VoIP Watch has the scoop: Truphone on the iPhone has gone live. Read about it here.
