VoIP Now

Yahoo Messenger 8 IM - Text + VoIP Features

Yahoo! might just have come up with the ultimate text/ VoIP IM client around with Yahoo! Messenger 8. This IM is seriously tricked out with loads of plugins (180) that create a very entertaining experience. The problem is, you don't want to use this if you're trying to work, as your productivity might go down. Or up, depending on what kind of work you do.

There was an earlier version this year, but Messenger 8 has even more features. In addition to regular text IM and VoIP (with built-in video calling, etc.), you can add plugins for Yahoo! finance, news, weather, movie trailers, Music LAUNCHcast (streaming music with lots of choice), and much more. Not enough for you? The NewsGator plugin lets you browse RSS/Atom audio and video podcasts. There's an obligatory web search feature at the very bottom of the window, and loads more plugins that you can install with a click or two. You can also send email from your Yahoo account with the click of a menu item. (But oddly enough, because the MS Internet Explorer browser is fired up, you have to sign in with an MSN passport id such as your Hotmail account name.)

What a brilliant concept for an Internet command center. Stick in as many sources of content as possible, in collapsible sections, into a single IM client, and you ensure that anyone who has bothered to download this version is now more likely to use it than a competitor's IM, if only for the convenience. There's no need to use anything else. Or that's what you'd think.

With all these great features, they might've tried to obscure the fact that their call-in and call-out features still need to compete with other VoIP IMs. A Phone-In number is only US$2.49 per month and up, but only available in three countries: US, UK, and France. Come on. And a quick look shows that there are only phone numbers available for just a few cities in each country. Even New York is unavailable. Miami, L.A., and San Fran are, though.

Phone Out rates seem to be comparable or better than Skype and Talqer, but I have not done an item by item comparison. Phone Out credit has to be purchased in US$10 or $25 amounts, and there's an option for auto-refills of credit.

Voicemail appears to be free, and there's a nifty little popout control panel to check voicemail, missed calls, and call history. You can also distinguish between incoming and outgoing calls.

Yahoo is obviously interested in VoIP. Last year, they bought California-based Dialpad Communications, a VoIP service provider. (This year, Skype bought two VoIP companies, Sonorit Holding AS and its US subsidiary, Camino Networks.) But overall, Yahoo Messenger 8 has a ways to go to compete with Skype or Gizmo Project in terms of VoIP offerings (that is, in terms of country-to-country calling offers).

I'm having a blast using Messenger 8 as a sort of Internet command center. But all the extra fun, cool features/ plugins come at a price: this IM takes up a lot of memory. On my laptop, with Yahoo! News, Finance, Movie trailers and LAUNCHcast plugins installed, it takes between 50-100 mb of RAM, depending on which plugins are actually running. I really think I need to get some more RAM.

Nevertheless, Yahoo Messenger 8 has set the bar for other IM clients, whether just text or with VoIP/ WoIP features. Bravo. Now I just have to find someone who has it so that I can really test the audio and video calling quality.

P.S. The streaming radio sound quality is so impressive that I've been listening for hours. I've encountered no glitches in the past 16 hours.

VoIP Roundup #4

Skype will be getting SMS text messaging services courtesy of Mobile 365. The latter company already delivers 2 billion messages monthly. [via Biz Journals] Skype had already added a free SMS service in early 2005.

The Inquirer (British) thinks that Microsoft's real threat is Skype.

With all the inexpensive means of publishing content, citizen journalism is on the rise. People are recording war footage in the Middle East with their cell phones and posting the content to websites, including YouTube.com, as a way to share what the "camera person" is experiencing. Some even write a description, to express all the feelings. [via SF Gate]

New Zealand's Woosh wireless has broadcast rights from Sky TV to provide Internet TV using its WiMax network. [via NZ Herald] IPTV (Internet Protocol TV) is the next frontier in multimedia content over the Internet, with tests being conducted worldwide, including the US, India, China, and elsewhere, supposedly causing fear in cable TV companies.

Market Clarity, a telecom research firm in Australia, has a free online directory listing VoIP providers in that country. [via IT Wire]

Batelco in Bahrain has expanded VoIP calling from five destinations to over 200. They've also reduced rates for their international VoIP-based calling cards. These cards are valid for calls from PCs, PSTN lines, and cell phones. [via Trade Arabia]

IM Text/VoIP Lowdown

Last week was a busy one in the IM industry, for both regular text and VoIP IM clients, with loads of announcements.

Gizmo Project, a hopeful competitor to Skype, announced permanent free calling to 60 countries, for registered members. Skype couldn't beat that, but they did come out with a new Mac version and a Skype toolbar that integrates with Office products, including Word, Excel, and PowerPoint. Clicking on a number within one of the apps triggers SkypeOut. iSkoot offers Skype-based mobile-to-PC (and vice versa) calling.

I haven't counted how many plugins Skype has, but if it doesn't have at least 180, then they'd better move over for Yahoo Messenger 8, which does have that many plugins. Once purely a text IM, it now has even more VoIP features than the new MSN Live Messenger (which it is also compatible with).

Yahoo also recently opened their IM to developers. Could it really be? Well, don't get too excited, as they're still not compatible with open source IMs such as Google Talk, Gaim, Trillian, Gizmo Project andothers. [I'll have a review of Yahoo Messenger 8 later on today.]

Not to be completely outdone, Google Talk added a couple of new features including file transfers, voicemail, and sharing info about the music you're listening to. As Michael Arrington of Techcrunch points out, Google Talk is only available for Windows computers.

And if the IM member emails I've been getting are any indication, several other IMs will be releasing upgrades. Services to support these IMs for mobile devices are being revamped as well. More details when Ifind out more.

Fastlinks for Mon Jul 24 - Fri Jul 28, 2006

For convenience, here is a list of links to VoIP-related articles posted this past week, in order of oldest to newest.

1. Creating A Real Global Village
2. Your VoIP Says Yes But Your Body Says No
3. Gizmo Project vs Skype?
4. Crystal Gazing - VoIP Voice-from+to-Text Applications
5. Network Inter-compatibility - A VoIP Holy Grail?
6. For Better Or For Worse - Is VoIP Quality Decreasing?
7. VoIP Roundup #1
8. Vonage Is Still #1 In VoIP Market Share
9. Dual-Mode Skype Phones To Come
10. VoIP Roundup #2
11. SayNow's Voice Services
12. SOHO Owners Most Interested In VoIP
13. Unlimited Cell Phone Data Plan - Mmm, Not So Much
14. Gizmo Project Soft VoIP Client Overview
15. VoIP Roundup #3

VoIP Roundup #3

Michael Kanellos sums up the value of using RebTel's VoIP service very nicely: instead of losing your unused monthly cell phone minutes, use them in international or other long-distance calls using RebTel. They create a bridge service by creating a dedicated local number that saves the caller long distance charges. For $1/week, that's not bad if you tend to put off long-distance calls because of cost.

BT (British Telecom) has been laying out plans to get into the internet telephony business (i.e., VoIP). They're looking to have one million internet phone customers in the next year. The company was formerly a monopoly and originally concerned about VoIP, but has changed its stance.

A Taiwanese government web page says that Taiwan is preparing for a VoIP explosion. The output value of VoIP-related products rose to US$460+ million in 2005, up from about US$370 mln and US$262 mln in the previous two years. A government-funded research institute has set up the ViTA (VoIP Taiwan) Forum to set up VoIP product certification standards in that country.

Arcosoft is offering VONaLink SoloRecord recording software for SIP-based VoIP phone systems, including Vonage. Either soft or hard VoIP services are supported. Calls are recorded in .WAV or .MP3 format, and an audio watermark can be audio to prove non-tampering.

Robert Poe of VoIP News shows why IP PBXs are going to replace their TDM counterparts in the enterprise.

Gizmo Project Soft VoIP Client Overview

This morning, an email from Gizmo Project arrived, focusing on their new "free VoIP calls to 60 countries" feature. Odd that this email came today, after websites have been writing about the announcement for several days. So I had a deeper look at the Gizmo Project website, in case there were some new VoIP features lurking.

At first glance, Gizmo Project seems like Skype. However, there are differences, some mentioned here before. One is an invisble feature, namely that Gizmo is SIP-based and therefore open sourced. So not only can you call other Gizmo members (PC, PSTN) but also members of other SIP-based networks. In fact, you can now at least IM Google Talk users, with actual softVoIP calling to come. (This I'm looking forward to.)

With the recent announcement, you can also call to PSTN phones in 60 countries for free - a potential market of 2 billion phones - provided the person you're calling is a registered member of Gizmo. If they're not, Gizmo CallOut (similar to SkypeOut) offers low per-minute rates. The free calling to 60 countries is a permanent feature, not a promo. (There is a noticeable absence of China and India on this list.)

Gizmo Call In gives you a free US-, UK-, France- or Spain-based phone number for US$3/m, payable in 3- or 12-month increments. Interesting that Canada is not part of that, especially considering Skype's 2006 promo for free calls between the US and Canada. (I.e., there's a VoIP market in Canada.) Over all, you can have a phone number from over 50 cities. (How cool would it be to have, say, an L.A. phone number yet live on the East Coast. East meets West.)

Essentially it means that if you live in one of the cities represented, you can travel and still receive calls as if you're local. Less cost for your friends. It's also ideal for people who've moved - or relocated temporarily - and want friends and family to be able to contact them without long distance charges.

One other call option is an US-based Area775 number, although in the same breath it's described as being both free and costing a small monthly fee. (Don't know how that's possible.) When other people dial your Area775 number, it can call both your computer or regular phone. Calls can be screened, transferred, or shuttled to voicemail. The latter has the option of generating SMS messages. (Having your regular phone called costs $2/call.)

For those of you that get calls from strangers - like I occasionally do - Gizmo Project has a Google map that shows you their call location. This is ideal for for flagging potential Vishers who tell you that they're from somewhere else.

If you have need of conference calling, Gizmo Project has FreeConferenceCallTM, which allows calls between landlines, cell phones, and Gizmo softVoIP users. Gizmo users initiate the call with a free conferencing number. Other phones have to dial a (non-toll-free) number, then the conference room #. Of course, if other callers are using Gizmo, there's no long distance cost.

There's also support for Asterisk PBX, an open source PBX designed for enterprise VoIP, and a host of other features. Or if you want to make outbound calls from a PSTN phone, you can buy Gizmo-compatible SIP adapters.

Finally, if you're a developer and want to build VoIP applications, they have an API (Application Programmer Interface) and SDK (Software Development Kit) for both Windows and Mac OS X, with a Linux SDK coming soon. The SDKs are unfortunately only in C++, but a lot of Java and other object-oriented programmers do not have too much trouble with C++.

At the most basic level, the API and SDK allow you to create your own branded SIP-based softVoIP phone, so businesses could have a soft client with their logo.

Gizmo Project is available for Windows 2000 + XP, Mac OS X, Linux, and the Nokia 770 Internet Tablet. They're a member of the IM Federation, an organization promoting IM network intercompatibility.

Unlimited Cell Phone Data Plan? - Mmm, Not So Much

Nate Anderson has a great overview of how unlimited "unlimited" 1xEV-DO (=EVDO = Evolution-Data Optimized) wireless data plans on cellular phones really are. He mentions Verizon, but what he says holds true with a lot of providers.

EVDO is the wireless data network that some CDMA-based cell phones use, in a number of countries in Europe, Asia-Pacific, and Canada and the US. (The Wikipedia link above has a fairly comprehensive list of carriers, phones and laptop data cards which use EVDO.)

If you have a smartphone or PDA that uses CDMA, the wireless data plan available is likely to be EVDO-based. If you've purchased, or are thinking of purchasing, an "unlimited" monthly data/ wireless plan, check your provider's fine print. More than likely, there's a bit of text that says you cannot use the service for VoIP, streaming music or video, and several other purposes.

When I called my service provider recently to upgrade to the "unlimited" plan, he told me that not only was that plan grandfathered, it had only ever been available on the laptop data card, not my Palm Treo 650. I insisted that the sales rep had said otherwise, but the rep wouldn't budge. So I ended up witha plan offering only 250 Mb/mth bandwidth, for something like $100/m. Ouch.

Consider that one day, when I had trouble with my regular Internet connection, I used my Palm Treo 650's EVDO connection, via a Bluetooth USB adapter (different from a Bluetooth headset) as a modem, from my laptop. In a regular half-day's web browsing for researching my daily articles, I used nearly 90 Megabytes. In a half day. No streaming music or video. Just one test of VoIP, because I was writing about a service.

Note: CDMA phones cannot use the phone and the wireless connection simultaneously, which usually means not being able to use most VoIP software directly on the device.

Obviously cell phone data plans are not for power web surfers like myself, but it sure would be nice to have options for a bigger bandwidth plan at a better.

SOHO Owners Most Interested In VoIP

A new survey by IDC [via Info Week] suggests that SOHO (Small Office Home Office) owners will be the people driving the consumer adoption of VoIP for next year, in the United States.

According to the survey home offices have typically been early adopters of advanced technology, and are doubly likely to be currently using, or soon adopting, VoIP than other US households. At present, nearly 40% of corporate home offices and almost 24% of home-based businesses have in interest in VoIP - at present or in the near future.

This makes a great deal of sense, considering the potential savings from implementing VoIP either in the home office or on a laptop during business trips. Any business owner who has travelled knows the cost of cell phone roaming charges or even hotel phone bills.

SOHO-based businesses typically have to bootstrap, especially in the early lean years. It just goes with the territory. So the bottom line is that costs have to be cut wherever possible. Since SOHO offices are more likely to be connected to the Internet on a broadband line than a regular household, owners are more likely to be aware of the advantages of VoIP.

However, as mentioned previously, a lot of free soft VoIP clients are not enterprise ready. A business owner who may want to set up a voice menu or some other sophisticated phone interface likely has to go with pure-play VoIP services instead of something like Skype. Though that's likely to change in the next couple of years.

SayNow's Voice Services

In a previous post, I speculated that VoIPing for profit might be something musicians could consider, and that fans would love. This speculation was based on a successful promo that ColdPlay and Skype offered recently, where band members spoke via Skype to the two young women who won the contest.

If you've followed some of the goings on of top popstars and actors, just a couple of years ago, fans were paying for daily voice messages from stars. The voicemails were accessible through a pay-per-minute phone number, and contained the daily goings-on of the star, as well as goofy messages telling the fans how much they were loved.

Well, someone got smart and realized the both the value and the (potential) profit in having musicians be in touch with their fans using voice services and the Internet. SayNow is a free service that lets musicians record voice messages, and for fans to respond to them. SMS messages are used as alerts to indicate new messages from a musician. Fan and musician phone numbers remain private.

The real killer feature, at least for musicians, is a map and head count of where fans are calling from, presumably based on their cell phone number (or possibly their IP address). Imagine the marketing tool that this could be turned into, if a few more layers of web service were added in - surveys, friendly VoIP chats, pre-purchase of tickets, CDs/ DVDs, merch, etc. While SayNow seems to be aimed at Myspace musicians, there seems to be no restriction in that regard, and no reason why only musicians can take advantage of this service.

Odeo is not the same thing, but combining it with twttr (SMS) and Hellodeo (video mail) gives you similar basic functionality. (Warning: Hellodeo displays recently recorded videos, and someone's already put prawn videomail up there.)

Still, none of this is true VoIP, yet I think SayNow shows that there's a  potential market for VoIP calls between celebrities and fans, provided that various safeguards are put in place to protect privacy or other situations. I mean, I'd really hate to have Carmen Electra Skyping me every hour, telling me that Dave Navarro finally succumbed to Rockstar Supernova's charming host Brooke Burke. Yeah, right.

VoIP Roundup #2

TechCrunch reports that SightSpeed 5.0 launched. Yet when I checked the Sightspeed site (10 PM Pacific time), there's a message saying you should return at 9 PM Pacific time. The new version apparently includes place-shifted TV, a new video codec, PSTN out- and in-calling, and more. The beta was available a couple of months ago. Sightspeed is a competitor to Skype, but went one step further by incorporating native call recording as well as video calling and free voice and videomail. [Update: 5.0 is now available for both Mac OS X and Win XP. Unlike Skype, Sightspeed is keeping version numbers for both platforms in line.]

GigaOm points to a post on Andy Abramson's VoIPWatch about a new deal between SixApart and Gizmo Project. The new service would let LiveJournal webloggers VoIP and text IM site visitors. This is in addition to the recently announced Jabber-based text IM that LiveJournal would be adding. These kinds of integration of web services are going to appear a lot more often, as innovative companies like SixApart see the value to the end users.

Benjamin Higginbotham presents a compelling argument for why Skype has not won the VoIP battle yet, saying that while it's great in the C2C (consumer- to- consumer) market, it falls down in the B2B (business- to- business) and B2C markets. Skype did announce late last year, and again recently, that they were going after the enterprise VoIP market. That is despite saying their software was not enterprise grade. Nevertheless, I think I have to agree with Benjamin, as Skype (and most other softVoIP clients) support neither VoiceXML nor CCXML, which would really make a difference for businesses.

Dual-Mode Skype Phones To Come

Not satisfied with the Skype WiFi VoIP phones already announced by four companies (SMC, Belkin, Netgear, Edge-Core), Skype is working with other manufacturers to produce dual-mode phones for later this year.

Current parnters for these GSM/ WiFi dual-mode phones include Nokia and Motorola. Surprisingly, I didn't see this announced on Skype's website. One of the issues still to be worked out is whether the dual-mode phones will be released SIM-free, or whether they'll be able to work out deals with cellular providers. I hope it's the latter, as this sort of Skype experience would be more seamless than some of the current efforts to run Skype on smart phones, including PDAs such as Palm.

While GSM isn't going to be to everyone's liking, this is the kind of step forward that is likely to catapult Skype to the top of the VoIP market share, regardless of service category, and help them earn their keep. (Remember that eBay purchased Skype for US$2.6 billion.) Hopefully they'll be following up with similar announcements for other types of cellular networks.

Sources: [via Silicon.com]

Vonage Is Still #1 In VoIP Market Share

Despite the beating that Vonage (NYSE: VG) has taken in the stock market, they are still #1 in terms of pure VoIP service popularity, according to a survey by Telephia.

The survey (PDF, 3 pgs) shows that of all US households subscribing to "pure-play" VoIP services, Vonage currently has nearly 54% of the market. They're followed by Verizon VoiceWing and AT&T CallVantage, each with a distant 5.5%. The remaining providers in the top nine each hold between 0.9-4% of the market share, with tenth place being an aggregate of providers holding 20%. (Given that Vonage supposedly spends $20 million per month in advertising, it's only fitting that they're in first place.)

These numbers only include services categorized as Internet telephony providers, and thus excludes "digital phone" services offered by some cable and telecom companies. Soft VoIP services such as Skype are also excluded. Still, with Vonage so far ahead of at least a dozen companies, there's enough motive to want to bring them down. (What me? Sound like a conspiracy theorist?) I still maintain that Vonage needs to ally themselves with some big player, to save themselves, at least in terms of market valuation.

Telephia conducts performance measurements of both the converging communications and mobile industries. Their survey shows that of the reasons that customers might switch VoIP providers, call quality ranked highest (27.4%), followed by customer service (14.7%) and then plan price (13.4%).

A survey earlier this year by Telephia showed that residential VoIP increased to 3.1% of households compared to June 2005. That number is now 4.1% for Q2 2006.

via PC World, VoIP News

VoIP Roundup #1

This is a roundup of recent VoIP-related news from various sources.

Skype has just released V1.5 for the Mac OS X platform. New features include a new interface and ability to import addresses. Video support requires a plugin, and call recording is still non-native. [via Pocket Lint, Tech Crunch] Unfortunately, great VoIP recording tools like HotRecorder only run on Windows, at present.

Not sure if they'll be as hot as other cute monster novelties, but Verballs double as a USB-enabled hands-free Skype phones. [via Engadget] Apparently they wave their arms and move their lips. Scary.

The previously announced WiFi Skype phone from SMC is now available for US$199. It'll work over any WiFi connection that does not require browser authentication. [via Market News] SMC is one of four companies that recently announced WiFi Skype phones. Others companies include Belkin, Netgear, and Edge-Core.

A report by Telephia says that pure-play VoIP subscriptions are up but network call quality still needs improvement.

Newsday reports that there are over 1100 providers in the US that offer Internet-based phone services, but other than that, Internet phone service could be the future. Which is what I said the other day - all the more reason for softVoIP network compatibility.

For Better Or For Worse - Is VoIP Quality Decreasing?

Brix Networks, a company who makes monitoring tools to test VoIP networks, says that data collected on their TestYourVoIP website indicates that users are rating 20 percent of nearly a million calls tested as being of poor quality. This data spans 18 months.

My own experience is not substantial, but I say quality is getting better, at least in newer softVoIP clients. Over a year ago, I VoIPed a friend using MSN Messenger, which he was also using. The call quality was terrible. Since then, I've either used or briefly tested Jajah, Skype, and Talqer, all on the same laptop, headphones, and cheapo $1 microphone. Talqer had the best call quality. And I'm using a wireless connection. Direct broadband connections would probably offer the best quality.

It is of course to Brix' advantage to publish such disappointing findings. And if I've understood the BusinessWire press release correctly, the TestYourVoIP service is really measuring broadband quality, not actual calls. So the data might in fact be misleading, considering that there are a lot of other factors to consider in VoIP call quality testing.

What's your experience? Are you finding better quality? If you want to test your VoIP, try Brix Network's Google Gadget, which requires you to have Google Desktop Version 4 or higher.

Sources: ComputerWorld, BusinessWire [via FierceVoIP]

Network Inter-compatibility - A VoIP Holy Grail?

According to comScore [via TechCrunch and others], it appears that the Google  Talk IM does not have all that many users. Google Talk is a distant fourth in the list of IM clients. The top three spots are taken by MSN Messenger, Yahoo Messenger, and AIM. We're not talking total number of downloads, just number of users.

These numbers indicate that, as of May 2006, there are only just over 339 million IM users of all flavours, out of over 900 million Internet users worldwide. MSN is at the top with about 60% of the market and Google Talk has only 1%.

The numbers appear to be for text IMs only. Consider that for Skype, I've been numbers like 250 million (PDF, 1 page) and 280 million downloads, and 100 million registered users (which was passed in early May 2006). Google is nowhere close to neither Skype nor the top text IM clients. Note: the TechCrunch article points out that the comScore numbers do not include the embedded version of GTalk within GMail. Some GMail users apparently prefer to use the native IM.

Some of the above IMs (in fact, possibly all - I don't know much about AIM) have direct VoIP (PC-to-PC) capability. Windows Live Messenger and the latest Yahoo! Messenger now have VoIP ability as well.

Regardless, the numbers suggest that Skype has to be able to keep up, especially with the announced IM alliance between Microsoft and Yahoo! When their respective IM's become compatible, together they'll have over 83% of the IM market (using current numbers).

With that kind of market share, don't have to swallow their pride and use the open source Jabber/XMPP, but it sure would be nice. That's what Google, Trillian, and several other lesser-known IMs use. Can you imagine an Internet where you can choose your fave IM/ VoIP soft client and connect to anyone? Skype, MSN, Yahoo, AIM, Google Talk.... Nice.

As for Michael Arrington's suggestion (at TechCrunch) that Google come up with a strategy to grab more market share, I recommend they buy Vozin Communications. Their Talqer soft client turns Google Talk into a true VoIP client.

From my point of view, once all the technical kinks are worked out of VoIP services, including e911 and improved call quality, every person on Earth who uses a phone will be using a straight or hybrid VoIP phone or soft client. If they were to all become intercompatible, then these usage numbers might be perceived as meaningless - especially by the marketing engines of the larger companies. This would be a reason for them not to work towards compatibility. Too bad, because we could use more IM/VoIP network intercompatibility.

Aside: If you do a Google Search for "how many Skype users worldwide", you can see how fast Skype downloads increased in 2005. Or you could read Jean Mercier's post at SkypeJournal (about downloads in the US and Canada), which suggests that the number of downloads needs to be filtered for previous users who were upgrading one or more times since they first downloaded Skype.

Crystal Gazing - VoIP Voice-from+to-Text Applications

Marshall Sponder at WebMetricsGuru talked about a colleague of his, Bill Tancer, who injured himself in a cycling accident, temporarily being unable to write for his website. Tancer turned to Dragon Naturally Speaking software as an alternative, which worked out fine. Now of course, this isn't VoIP software, but it got me to thinking. If voice recognition software has come along far enough, it could be harnessed into VoIP-to-text applications. The same goes for voice translation software to create text-to-VoIP applications.

For example, Asterisk is offering MailCall, a free email-to-VoIP application. It reads your email to you over Asterisk-based VoIP phone, and works POP3 and IMAP accounts for numerous web-based and standalone email clients. Imagine the fun listening to your spam email. Psychologists will have a field day studying the effects. On the positive side, text-to-voice could be coupled with voice-to-text to build a VoIP system for users who are hearing-impaired. Such a VoIP-based system would replace the expensive human-generated voice-to-text systems that piggyback PSTN phones.

So far, these examples are for human-to-human interaction. VoIP applications could be used to control the ubiquitous VoIP-controlled SEDs (Service Enabled Devices) that'll be appearing any time now. If you in fact did have a wired home, you could potentially VoIP home to your private web server and control SED appliances, such as the sprinkler. I've said that before, but I didn't think about voice recognition software as part of the bridge for being able to talk to appliances and control them.

Of course, you'd have to use a fairly limited grammar, and have a suitable processor. There are already markup language grammars such as VoiceXML for telephone system menus, but as far as I know, there's nothing for ordering around SEDs. If someone devised a command language wrapped up in XML and made it open source and extensible, in a few years, we might all be talking to our appliances with ease. Dare I say, the same language could be used to ask robot maids to make scrambled eggs in the morning?

Failing a George Jetson existence, if you're interested in building Skype apps, check out the Skype API Intro page, complete with a video. Be an early adapter and be one of the first to start building VoIP-controlled web services. I think voiceWeb/ VoIPWeb will form the next wave after web 2.0.

Gizmo Project vs Skype?

Last week, SIPphone announced that Gizmo Project softVoIP users would be able to talk free to other Gizmo users in up to 60 countries. It's interesting that Michael Pollock of Solostream was asking, back in July 2005, is Gizmo is really a Skype-killer?

What's more interesting to me is that Pollock stated back then that one of Gizmo's advantages is built-in VoIP recording, but that Skype should be able to do the same thing natively. Well, one year later, Skype still has not done that, resorting to third party plugins and standalone software (e.g., HotRecorder). While there's nothing wrong with that per se, Skype users do have to resort to downloading an extra piece of software.

Service-wise, when the free North American Skype calling (specifically PC-to-PSTN to numbers in Canada and the US) ends just before New Year's Day 2007, I'm wondering if there'll be a surge of VoIP users transferring to the open source SIP-based Gizmo Project. However, with less than a million Gizmo users and over 100 million Skype users (or 280 mln, depending on who you believe), Skype does not have much to worry about. Yet.

Your VoIP Says Yes But Your Body Says No

Thousand-person VoIP conferences might not be my thing, but 4- to 8-person video conferencing seems like a manageable sort of meeting. However, despite being impressed by Sightspeed's 4-person video conferencing ability, I'm not entirely sure yet that I really look forward to videophones, VoIP/ WoIP-based or otherwise.

As I've more than hinted at, I work from home, and that means being scruffy and unkempt for most of the week. Regardless of my own preferences, WoIP (Video and Voice over IP, aka video-VoIP) will probably become commonplace when more people have broadband connections (and more RAM on their laptops).

When that does happen, there'll be some etiquette rules to follow. Nuno at 21 Talks has a screenshot of a Japanese poster showing recommended body posture and body language for video conference calls.

Here are my own 5 rules of appearance for home VoIP video conference attendees:

(1) Shave, if you're a guy, and have three or four days of stubble. (Unless you're growing your beard, of course)

(2) Brush your teeth. We may not have SoIP (Scent over IP) yet - thank goodness, you don't have to bathe - but no one wants to see you repeatedly running your tongue over your teeth because they feel furry. And your hand over your mouth isn't fooling anyone.

(3) Comb your hair, for crying out loud. Didn't your mother teach you anything?

(4) Don't get caught with your pants down. Clothe yourself and spare us the view of your ripped wife-beater undershirt and the boxers with something stupid on them - or for women, torn bra and granny panties.

(5) But seriously, make the area of your home that you're working from at least somewhat presentable. What will the neighbors think?

I'm praying that VoIP video calls are not common practice for a while. (At least until I have time to clean my place up.)

Creating A Real Global Village

eWeek's Paula Musich recently wrote about TalkShoe, an American company that's created a web service that enables VoIP conferences involving thousands of participants.

While in theory that sounds like a great idea, and the technological accomplishment is to be applauded, I'm not so sure I'd want to be one of those participants, unless there were some "rules of VoIP conference order" established.

Roberts Rules of Order and Parliamentery Procedure were established for in-person meetings, to make sure that participants wouldn't all try to speak at once, an activity that sometimes causes VoIP calls to cut out. But even armchair anthropologists should have noticed that in the past 12 years in particular, our attention spans have shortened. Many people can't carry on a  polite conversation with just one other person.

Even someone like myself, who was once long ago a diehard "manners" person, can't have a text IM conversation without interrupting the other person, let alone an in-person or VoIP/ PSTN conversation.

Some people blame the Internet for this reduced attention span; others blame video games. Regardless, given poor conversational abilities and the still-developing call quality of VoIP, try imagining a thousand-person VoIP conference. I shudder to think.

Soft VoIP For Your Mobile Devices

The other day, I reflected on SoonR, a relatively new application that integrates with Skype to supposedly let you Skype from your cell phone, PDA, or other mobile device, provided it has both a phone number as well as a wireless data plan.

I didn't have much luck getting SoonR to work on my Palm Treo 650, as I pointed out in that post, where someone supposedly named Keith Richards left a comment. "Keith" openly left his email as being on the rock.com domain,  where I'm currently listening to the screamingly funny Dave Navarro live streaming Spread Radio show - music + (uncensored) talk. Dave is of course married to the ultra-heavenly Carmen Electra, and is a producer of the Rockstar Supernova TV show, where the unbelievably revolting Tommy Lee is a judge. While I seemingly digress, Dave was actually talking about IMing one of his DJ friends, but didn't mention what software he used. Anyway, on to "Keith Richard's" question:

What about installing softphone software on your mobile device? Could this be used for VoIP mobile conference calls on Skype or is this PC only software?

Well, Keith, if it's really you, you and Mick and the boys should drop by some time for some of my Curry Elvis' special curry chicken, seasoned with Brown Sugar. I could explain it to you then; just leave the syringes elsewhere.

Otherwise, I'll say that most PC-based softVoIP clients simply cannot be installed on PDAs or other smartphones. There are text IM clients designed for Palm OS such as Chatopus, which is built on the open Jabber/XMPP, and thus compatible with your Google Talk account. However, that's just for text, not VoIP.

As for VoIPing from a mobile device, there are various solutions that work for Microsoft Mobile OS-based as well as for people running Skype on Mac OS X devices. For Palm OS, there are fewer solutions, and most do not work on Treo 650, or suffer from some other technical issue - at least in my experience.

I've also tried EQO for Palm OS, but my mobile carrier isn't supported, and my support question has gone unanswered. The problem is that Palm Treos, and some other PDAs, seem to have a problem, especially if they are running the Palm OS operating system, of handling simultaneous data and cell usage. Which is why SoonR, because of the way it works, simply will not work for some Palm OS devices. (Palm devices running Microsoft apparently do not have this problem.)

To answer the last part of your question, Keith, SoonR actually sets up a conference call between your cell phone and the party you're calling, using your computer's Skype to initiate the VoIP conference. They also claim on their website to be able to handle conference calling, so presumably you'd be able to have mobile VoIP conference calls. Just not on Palm devices running Palm OS.

TalQer Enhances VoIP For Google Talk

Someone was commiserating on their blog the other day that Google Talk had not had a great deal of success in the VoIP arena - it might have been Charlie Paglee of VoIPWiki blog, and head of Vozin Communications, but I can't remember. So why no full VoIP capabilities from Google Talk?

Fact is, I use Google Talk several times daily to text-talk with friends and clients via the IM. Surprisingly or not, most of these people do not have a mic/ headset; some have no Internet, computer or even cell phone. (My name is not Fred Flintstone.)

That means I have to call my neanderthal friends on their landline. But at present, Google Talk's VoIP capabilities are limited only to other Google Talk users, or those of any compatible softVoIP clients. So Vozin Communications, big fans of Google Talk and its open source code, decided to change that with their Talqer soft client.

Talqer (pronounced "Talker") is a downloadable client that either integrates into Google Talk or can run on its own. If you choose to run it from Google Talk, that client will now have a button to launch the Talqer dialpad.

Talqer keeps a history of your calls and has a mini-phonebook. It's also integrated with MS Internet Explorer, in that you can highlight a number on a web page, right-click your mouse, and select "Call with Talqer". Pretty cool. So why not with other browsers? Firefox integration is coming, they say.

So I downloaded Talqer and installed it to run with Google Talk, then called myself twice from PC to home landline. The quality was amazingly clear, even with my cheapo $1 microphone. But Talqer didn't tell me how much I owed for the call. So I Skyped Charlie Paglee, head of Vozin Communications. The Talqer call had been relatively clear; the Skype call was crackly. (That was actually my first VoIP call on Skype; I've only used the text mode previously.)

Charlie very kindly filled me in on a few details, indicating that new Talqer members get a few minutes free - hence the reason I could make the call without seeing a charge. After a few minutes use, you'll need to buy TalqOut credit, which is similar to SkypeOut, to call someone's landline or cell phone from your PC. Rates are better than Skype's, the Talqer site claims.

Or there's TalqIn, with free voicemail, which lets people call your PC as if you had a regular phone number. For US$3/mth, that's comparable to SkypeIn. A special, time-limited promo gives you a number in over thirty area codes  in Canada and the US for 20% off the annual rate = US$2/m. Two bucks a month for a number? Not bad, I say.

If you're a Chatty Kathy like me, you can opt for UnTalq, which is their unlimited calling plan for calls to Canada (excluding area code 867) and the continental USA (excluding Alaska, Hawaii, Puerto Rico, and the US Virgin Islands). The rate is US$12/mth or $120/yr, exlcuding any applicable taxes. This plan also applies to someone living outside of the valid calling areas but who wants to call those areas.

Just my opinion, but with a seemingly better VoIP call quality and rates that are comparable to or better than Skype's, Talqer could potentially give Skype and other softVoIP providers a run for their money.

Charlie Paglee, by the way, is also the blogger who not only broke the story about the Chinese Skype clone, but got the call from the clone in the first place. He hinted to me during our conversation that Talqer will be announcing some very interesting services later this year. As a fan of Google Talk myself, I'll be watching.

VoIP Providers' Business Model Makes Sense

On VoIPWiki, Charlie Paglee talks about how Skype's business model seems counterintuitive to traditional business models, but is actually working for them. In fact, most softVoIP providers are following the same model.

Their model of giving away the software as well as some of the calls makes a great deal of sense. But in traditional bricks and mortar business it probably wouldn't work. It'd almost be equivalent to car makers giving cars away for free (although even that may not help Ford Motor Co right now) and charging for the gas - provided they had a monopoly on the gas.

Jajah, Babble and lately Gizmo Project are some of the softVoIP providers following along in the same model, allowing not just free PC-to-PC calls, but some other combinations involving PSTN phones/ mobile phones. The model works, I'm thinking, because the Internet, although vast, is essentially a closed system, and any softVoIP provider is satisfying the needs of a different user than hardVoIP providers.

On-The-Fly VoIP Call Language Translation - Sort Of

Language translation on-the-fly is one of those killer apps that there is a demand for, given that free or inexpensive VoIP services have made the world into a virtual global village. Also, VoIP providers are encouraging international communication with their very low calling rates.

Bilingual skills are rare - at least amongst North Americans and others in officially English-speaking countries - so those doing business with customers/ vendors/ partners from other countries often find they need a conversation to be translated. A universal translator may be unachievable, but it's likely to be unnecessary.

What's much more likely is that two people need someone to translate for them. Nuno at 21Talks wrote about a new dual-handset phone from Language Line that facilitates not a machine translation but an on-the-fly human translation of a conversation.

Language Line is a company that has been offering language translation services for 20 years. They were founded originally as a volunteer organization in San Jose, California, by a policeman and a language instructor. They were later incorporated and ownership has changed hands a few times, including AT & T.

Their dual handset phone can be used in a number of ways, although Language Line's intent is that the two people requiring translation are in the same room Each person uses one of the handsets, and the translator is at the other end of the call. Alternately, a non-Language Line translator could be with one person physically and they would use the dual-handset phone to call a person elsewhere.

Customers of Language Line's translation services get the dual-handset phones free of charge, except for a $3.00/mth fee per phone (unlimited phones). Even if you do not need/ want the dual-handset phone, you can use Language Line's services via conference calling - whether VoIP-based or otherwise - at a per minute rate, and for 150 languages - probably the most of any global translation service I've heard of.

Use a relatively inexpensive, potentially free VoIP  conferencing service such as Skype's, and the savings probably pay for the translation services.

SoonR Lets You Skype From A Mobile Phone

SoonR is one of the new breed of web 2.0 applications that integrates another web application. In this case, SoonR has a number of applications that synchronize your PC and mobile phone, one of which lets you make VoIP calls from your mobile phone (to PC or PSTN) using Skype's conferencing feature.

To start with, you must have Skype and SoonR Desktop installed on your computer (with Internet access). Your cell phone or PDA must have a (wireless) data plan, as you have to access the SoonR site from a mobile web browser. There is no PDA software to install.

From the SoonR site, you click on a Skype "buddy" (auto-retrieved) or enter a phone number. SoonR Talk triggers Skype on your computer and sets up a conference call to the person you want to talk to.

Unfortunately, this a complicated way to do things, and you have to leave your computer on, despite their claims that you no longer have to be tied to your PC. I gave SoonR my "gee-whiz not-too-techy" acid test by downloading, installing and following obvious instructions, but without digging into details.  Upon setup of the SoonR Desktop app, it asked me to provide my cell phone number and to create a SoonR account. Did all that, and SoonR sent an SMS text message to my phone. A link from the text msg fired up my mobile browser pointed at the SoonR site, which automatically logged me in.

From the web page on my PDA, I could see my laptop's "My Documents" folder, but for some reason was not able to "get" a simple text file. Also, the VoIP calling isn't quite right - at least not for my Palm Treo 650. Entering the number I'm calling requires holding down my shift key and entering the digits. Except if keep the shift key down, the entry gets messed up. So I have to press down and release the shift key with every digit I enter. Going back to my laptop's Skype and adding the number to my contat list there helps, because a link shows up on my mobile browser. (So make sure you've added the most common PSTN numbers you call to your contact list beforehand.)

But the VoIP calling they've set up seems odd. What's strange is that SoonR first calls my cell phone and then the party I'm calling, via a Skype conference call. Except that I'm using the data access, so Skype gets my voicemail. (This is symptomatic of Palm Treo and certain other makes and models of PDAs and smartphones. They have a problem in that they cannot handle a phone call at the same time that the wireless modem is being used.)

I'm just wondering, though, why the heck SoonR tries to act like it's Jajah? Isn't the point is to save me my cell phone minutes? Depending on what country you're in, you may also have to spend SkypeOut minutes calling your own cell phone, which would not be the case were you calling from Skype on your computer.

Still, I tried calling my buddy with SoonR, and when he answered his phone, he heard only silence, and then some woman's recorded voice with instructions about his message. Effectively, the call was equivalent to my friend calling my voicemail. (Because of the Treo problem.)

So for some PDA users at least, VoIP that functions correctly is still a fable. (I've made other attempts at  VoIP calling from my Pam Treo 650, without success.)

Had this worked for me, it would have been great, during those times of day that I have free minutes on my cell. Still, some people will benefit from SoonR. Unfortunately it's not me.

Jajah Phone Buddy Desktop Dialing Software

Jajah Phone Buddy is a little software application that touts itself as being able to add "automatic telephone dialing to almost any [Windows] application" via Jajah's VoIP software.

Jajah, a recent competitor to Skype, already has a plugin for Microsoft Outlook, and there's a Mac OS X Address Book Plugin as well. Phone Buddy gives you similar abilities in virtually all Windows programs. By clicking your mouse on a phone number in your Windows app, you can then press a Hot Key that scans the phone number and triggers Jajah. Voila, you can make your VoIP call.

You'll need a Jajah account (free), and Phone Buddy will tell you the cost of the call per minute, and the currency (based on what you selected when setting up your Jajah account). However, Jajah does give you a few dollars free (it was US$3.00 for me). Jajah is free between users.

I randomly tested Jajah Phone Buddy from a number of applications running in Windows XP, including Skype's "contact edit" window, and everything seemed to work fine. The assumption is that the number you've clicked on is a valid phone number; there is no parsing done to validate numbers.

Additional sources: [Jajah Phone Buddy]

VoIP Security Issues: Skype and Asterisk

By now you've likely heard that a clone of the ultra-popular Skype VoIP client was supposedly created by reverse engineering. Charlie Paglee, a blogger and head of VoIP provider Vozin Communications stirred up the Internet recently when he claimed a friend called him from China with the supposed clone, a screenshot of which is posted at his VoIPWikiBlog.

Skype has denied the claim. Because Skype's system is proprietary, there is nothing officially compatible with their soft client. Skype must have been sure that no one would crack their code, though, because apparently, they never patented their protocol.

Art Reisman thinks the Skype clone is unlikely and gives a great explanation of why (via a discussion of encryption), and why it doesn't matter. Even if a clone did exist, for Skype, a large-scale migration to clones would crash their network, but would not otherwise be a security risk.

Security issues are more likely to occur in other components of VoIP systems, such as the hardware or software switching mechanisms, particularly in PBXes (Private Branch eXchanges).

In fact, two flaws have just been patched in Asterisk, an open source VoIP PBX package. The flaws, were they not patched, could lead to DOS (denial-of-service) attacks, thus bringing down a business's VoIP phone system.

DOS attacks have been used in the recent past to bring down websites for a variety of reasons, including attempts to take the site over, or just have mischievous fun. In the case of enterprise VoIP phone systems, the purpose would be to inhibit a business' telephony functions. For some businesses, that obviously means a temporary shutdown of operations.

A DOS attack is usually accomplished by overloading a web server or, in this case, a VoIP PBX. Version 1.2.10 of Asterisk PBX has fixed the flaws in the IAX protocol that would have allowed DOS attacks.

Additional sources: [ZD Net UK, CIO Tech Informer]

Microsoft + Nortel Unified Communications Project Not A Big Deal?

ZDNet writer Russell Shaw thinks that the recently announced Microsoft/ Nortel "unified communications" alliance is destined for failure, stating that Cisco is already doing the "Internet phone hardware-software integration thing."

In a similar vein, CNBC TV's Mad Money host Jim Cramer pooh-poohed Nortel when a caller asked about their shares during a "Lightning Round". Cramer felt that the alliance with Microsoft was not going to make much difference to Nortel stock, but did not elaborate.

Cramer also said nothing about Microsoft. Shaw on the other hand said that they "don't have a clue what to do with enterprise VoIP, and even less of an idea how to get into the consumer VoIP business."

That made me chuckle, because that's exactly what I'd been thinking. At least until Nortel CEO Mike Zafirovski announced that teamup with Microsoft would generate $1 billion in extra revenues just for Nortel alone. And surely Microsoft's other announcement, an alliance with Yahoo! to make their respective VoIP-enabled IM (Instant Messaging) clients compatible would address the consumer VoIP issue, at least in part.

Sorry Russell. I agree that Microsoft has been directionless in VoIP, as you put it, but I think they're at least trying. And Cramer, who I love immensely as a TV host that fires up small investors and big alike, has been to shown to be about 50-50 with his predictions. Surely a stock that's currently trading around $2 is going to benefit from a billion in extra revenue?

Do VoIP Services Need Real Phone Numbers?

If you're using VoIP and do not have a "real" phone number to go with it, it may affect your ability to conduct banking or carry on the way you would with a regular phone or cellphone. That's according to Nuno from 21 Talks, who is quoting Brian Youngblood.

Youngblood's experience was that he called customer support at his bank using SkypeOut, and because that person could not tell what number he was calling from, they flagged his account. Unwittingly, he tried unsuccessfuly to pay for lunch the next day with his ATM/ debit card. That's obviously a good thing in terms of banking security, but also an unexpected convenience. Not displaying a real phone number might become a problem for some VoIP services.

Interestingly, I used Skype last night to call my own cellphone and the display said the caller was "0123456". Then I used Skype to call a buddy (one who has no voice mail and no cell phone and never intends to get either) and his display said "long distance - unknown caller". He's probably an extreme case, but seeing "unknown caller", he would not have answered his phone. That's just the way he is. In fact, the only reason he did answer was because I'd called him from my cell a few minutes previous to let him know what I was trying.

I had another experience yesterday with Skype, that may or may not have been because of the "unknown caller" issue. I called one of my website hosting providers - a very large, very well-known hosting provider - to fix a tech issue in trying to sync an existing web domain of mine with a newly purchased hosting plan.

The guy who answered didn't say anything about the audio quality of the call, but he was unusually rude and short-tempered. I'm not big on their atrociously confusing website or their customer service in general, and I only called once before. That was from my cell phone, and it cost me big because they do not have a 1-800 number (they are a budget host after all).

The result was that I didn't get my issue resolved, and cannot do it via email. What could have been a good experience in customer support most definitely was not. (Although I suppose it didn't help that I didn't know the 4-digit pin on my account, which someone else normally manages.) For now, though, I'll stick to email support and filling out annoying, hard-to-find web forms with some companies, or use a regular phone in situations like these.

Microsoft + Nortel Teamup Expected To Generate $1 Billion In Revenue

Microsoft's and Nortel's announced teamup for unified communications (e-mail, instant messaging, telephony, and multimedia conferencing), which includes VoIP, is expected to be a financial boon.

Mike Zafirovski, president and CEO of Nortel, says that they feel that moving their voice technology into software, and teaming up with Microsoft, is going to bring Nortel an extra billion in new revenue.

Nortel's stock (NYSE: NT) is currently around $2 and has seen a steady decline this year - way off the high of $100+/share of late 2000 - early 2001. Microsoft's stock (NYSE:  MSFT) has been relatively flat for the last 5 years, hovering around the $20-25/share range.

Unified communications can be expected to include both video and voice over IP. This move into the VoIP market for both Nortel and Microsoft might mark a postive step for share prices, as well as for customers who would rather put trust in these two companies than some upstart unknown VoIP provider.

Source: [Microsoft]

Microsoft's Showing Strong Interest In VoIP

Microsoft is showing its intense interest in VoIP lately by partnering up with not just Nortel but Yahoo as well.

Microsoft and Nortel are working on a new project focusing on unified communications, which the MS press release says includes e-mail, IM (Instant Messaging), telephony, and multimedia conferencing. Take the latter to mean WoIP - Video as well as Voice over IP.

Nortel has proven itself to be an innovator in telephony hardware and software in the past. This is also a great step forward for Microsoft in the VoIP market. Can they do the unthinkable and make this unified communications thing open? You never know.

They're at least trying to unify MSN Messenger IM with Yahoo! Messenger - both of which now have VoIP capabilities - in a new alliance. Between the two IMs, that's about 350 million users. Now what's the chances that they'll switch to SIP, thus making themselves compatible with true VoIP IMs such as Gizmo Project and Sightspeed? [Note: despite an earlier post about finding VoIP plans, Sightspeed is in fact SIP-based.]

Additional sources: Microsoft [via FierceVoIP].

Improving VoIP Audio Quality

The consumer market for VoIP grew by over 250 percent in 2005. This refers to people who actually subscribed to a VoIP service, which amounts to over 3 million people. That number is expected to nearly triple in 2006, and be nearly ten times in 2009. [C|Net News] Call audio quality is going to be an issue sooner or later, if it has not become one already.

Besides hardware-based VoIP, many more people are using soft clients such as Skype, including some PDA users, without any subscription plan. Some may even be using the voice capabilities of IM (Instant Messaging) clients such as Google Talk or MSN Messenger. For Skype alone, there are an estimated 100 million users worldwide.

Up till now, people may be putting up with poor call quality, simple because for soft client users, VoIP calls are very cheap or even free. My own experience suggests poor audio quality is fairly common. If you're a VoIP soft client user, here are a few things to consider, to improve your audio quality:

(1) Don't use a $1 microphone if you intend to record VoIP calls, particularly for podcasts. You mic doesn't have to be expensive either. You're not recording vocal tracks for a music CD. For standard calls that will not be rebroadcast, you can probably use a sub-$30 mic or headphone + mic headset combo. (My $1 mic works just fine, if my laptop RAM is free.)

(2) Make sure the RAM on your computer isn't maxed out. For my daily work, my RAM is constantly topped out and it affects my audio (and especially my video when I use a WoIP soft client such as Sightspeed). If you notice poor audio quality, you could try closing some other programs on your computer. Sometimes it's the program itself. I noticed that the free Babble.net client is unfortunately a memory hog.

(3) Expect poor audio quality if you have a slow Internet connection. If you're using a Wi-Fi setup, it might be a matter of positioning. Try moving around.

If any of the above problems arise, you'll probably get audio artefacts including warbling, echo, or buzz. Electrical interference can cause your microphone to generate hum as well.

As for the audio quality of calls over VoIP hardware or networks, that's something manufacturers and providers have to work on. As the C|Net article says, PSTN phones use dedicated networks, thus providing high quality calls. Early VoIP adopters are putting up with issues of poor audio quality and reliability. However, as VoIP usage spreads, newer customers are less likely to put up with poor service. Someone also has to come up with a reliable e911 emergency calling solution.

Net Neutrality Hypocrisy In The Korean VoIP Scandal

The issue of members of the US Military not being allowed to use their VoIP services at a base in South Korea has been temporarily resolved, but it took the US government to step in.

Interestingly enough, as VoIP News points out, the reason for the whole kerfuffle has to do with several Korean telecos feeling as if the military base members were not paying for the bandwidth they were using. Gee, where have we heard that * cough * net neutrality * cough * before?

So it's okay that the US government can interfere when another country's telcos feel they're not being compensated, whether rightly or wrongly. But when interested parties here feel that the American telcos are doing the same thing in the United States, why is the government turning a deaf ear? Do private US citizens not matter as much? Isn't this called hypocrisy?

I've been using the Internet since 1991 or 92, when it was the "web", and consisted of only a few services such as FTP and limited email. The one thing that I was regularly reminded of was that the Internet was free and open - it was the purpose for its creation: to share information. Sure, commerce took over. But anyone who thinks the telcos were not compensated for their services forgets that a T1 line cost about $1000/month in 1996, and prices went up exponentially from there.

I maintain that it's still just bully boy politics, with telcos seeing their bottom line disintegrate to cheaper VoIP service. Indications are that the number of VoIP subscribers will more than quadruple in just four more years. Telcos, your tactics are transparent. So, if you can't beat'em, VoIP'em and strike up alliances.

Who's Making Money In VoIP?

Om Malik paints an interesting VoIP application scenario with an in-beta service called Jangl. Jangl deals with issues of VoIP presence as well as security using a unique bidirectional phone number that allows two parties to communicate without revealing their own phone numbers.

The example Om gives is one applying to the dating scene. Considering that there are online dating services like Verbdate, which integrate Skype's VoIP software to allow people to talk to each other for free, there's obviously a market for VoIP dating applications. But with the way the world is, partial anonymity, or at least security from having to reveal personal info, is a boon. Jangl does this by assigning a phone number between two parties, which acts as a bridge, regardless of the numbers they are using to make the call.

Jangl joins the growing list of new companies that are opting for private financing instead of going IPO. However, history shows that when a VC firm pumps in money, they want to not only make their money back but get a return on it. That's kind of why VCs exist, right?

Jangl is only in beta, so it's yet to be seen whether they can make money from their model. Still, with all the free VoIP options available these days, the ones taking advantage of the Long Tail phenomena will be most likely to succeed. That is, give away parts of your service/ product offerings for free, and hope that a large number of people will use your paid services once in a while. Or if you're lucky, frequently. (Which is why I think that Skype's plan to enter the enterprise VoIP market is a bad idea, besides the fact that their Skype is not enterprise grade.)

But since so much VoIP service is free, it's the companies that give good value-added services at a reasonable price who are candidates for business success.

Here's my jaded prediction: new tech (and web 2.0) companies will continue to stay private for the next year or two, followed by a large number of IPO offerings in the very late 00s, capped by a market crash in 2010. History (i.e., market data and news archives) shows a recession at the beginning of every decade since at least 1970, which inevitably means tech stocks crash and burn. Only those VoIP companies who develop a stable footing in the next year or two are likely to survive, and that means having private funding, instead of suffering the vagaries of the stock market and suddenly finding that cash is low.

Finding The Best VoIP Plans

With all the choices for VoIP service now available, it's probably confusing for newbies to figure out what service is best for them. The questions you have to ask yourself, in finding a good rate and service, includes how you'll use VoIP.

Do you plan to call from your computer to another person's computer (PC-to-PC), to their phone (PC-to-PSTN), from your phone to their computer (PSTN-to-PC), or from phone to phone (PSTN-to-PSTN)? (Note: PSTN = Public Switched Telephone Network.)

The cheapest choice, obviously, is free, which PC-to-PC calls tend to be. Your choices at present include Skype, Sightspeed, and Gizmo Project. The latter uses the SIP standard, which means that users of other VoIP SIP-based soft clients can talk to each other across their networks. Clients such as Skype and Sightspeed cannot do that because they use proprietary systems. There are many more choices than those three, but they are the common ones.

For PC-to-PSTN calls, there are services like Babble.net, who have 3-month promo of up to 30 minutes free for calls to certain countries. Skype has this for Canadians and Americans until the end of 2006. For PSTN-to-PC calls, the target person needs to have something like SkypeIn service, which essentially provides a worldwide phone number.

Then there's RebTel, who've made international PSTN-to-PSTN calls very affordable, especially for mobile-to-mobile phone calls. Jajah also offers a combination of free call options, including PSTN-to-PSTN, and is based on the SIP open standard. Possibly to compete with providers such as Babble and RebTel, Skype is currently offering free weekends in July for calls to certain countries.

You can also use the free VoIP capabilities of some IM (Instant Messaging) soft clients such as Google Talk, MSN Messenger, etc., but they are strictly PC-to-PC and are client-specific.

These are just some options available right now. Keep in mind that most of them currently have poor to no support for emergency calling.

additional sources: Times Onilne UK.

CORRECTION: Despite my incorrect comment above, I have previously correctly stated that Sightspeed is SIP-based. Thanks to Peter Csathy and Andy Abramson for pointing out the error.

Could RFID Transponders Be Used For VoIP e911 Caller Verification?

If you've been following our sister publication, RFID Gazette, you'll know about a new type of RFID (Radio Frequency IDentification) tag called RuBee with IP addressing capabilities. This means that if an SED (Service-Enabled Device) is equipped with a RuBee tag, it could be accessed via the Internet. This could be a potential solution for the VoIP e911 problem.

SEDs could be any networked device, including a digital camera, digital toaster, digital lighting system, etc., which can communicate with each other, based on predefined roles. What this also means is that if a transponder with a RuBee tag were devised, it could potentially be used as a means of directing and responding to VoIP-based e911 emergency calls.

Now this is pure speculation, and there are still a lot of technical issues that have to be solved. For example, RuBee-based transponders would have to be stationary and thus not attached to VoIP phones or to any mobile device such as a laptop or PDA (Personal Digital Assistant). However, any device used to make a VoIP call would have a RuBee tag to transmit emergency status to the nearest transponder. The transponder would be designed to route the call appropriately.

This means that each transponder would have to be geocoded, possibly in sync to a postal/ zip code grid. Alternately, in cities with Municipal Wi-Fi, e911 transponders could be integrated wherever signal boosters are installed. That at least helps narrow down where a call is coming from, even from a VoWiFi phone. Finally, household or neighborhood transponders could also be made available, for those interested. Of course, in the latter case, you wouldn't want the transponder accessible to just anyone over the Internet. Just speculating.

Your Privacy - More About CALEA and VoIP

As mentioned in the previous post, CALEA and Sarbox regulations are reasons you should record corporate VoIP. The problem is, VoIP does not lend itself well to wiretapping. Fortunately, VoIP carriers have until May 2007 to comply, which provides the industry nearly a year to work out a solution.

While Sarbox is aimed at publicly-traded businesses, CALEA applies to any business or private citizen. Even people that do not use VoIP could be affected by this act.

Some of the drawbacks of eavesdropping on VoIP data for CALEA is that more than just voice traffic has to be captured. Thus, a significant amount of irrelevant data has to be filtered out, including other VoIP users calls. What it amounts to, from a privacy perspective, is that some law enforcement official could then know a private citizen's every activity online. This goes beyond the objective to wiretap calls "of interest" and moves towards something potentially more sinister.

There are also other technical issues such as firewalls, and even Wi-Fi access that is not secured. For example, if you have a Wi-Fi network at home but have left it as open access, either because you don't care or don't know how to secure it, you might have a problem. What if your scruffy-looking neighbour across the street conducts questionable phone calls from his VoWiFi (VoIP over Wi-Fi) handset using your Wi-Fi?

Similar issues will probably suuround calls over Municipal Wi-Fi. For example, a project in Taipei City, Taiwan, expects to have 200,000 VoIP phones in use, by year's end, by administrative and public school workers. After that, they hope that private citizens will use the network for VoWiFi calls. How do you wiretap VoWiFi calls that could be made anywhere in the city, outdoors or indoors?

Another question people are asking: should CALEA extend to soft clients such as Skype? Truth is, I wouldn't be surprised if text IM clients such as Google Talk or any of the Messenger-type of software are already "monitored". But VoIP clients are another issue.

Sources: Network World [via FierceVoIP]

Why Your Company Should Record VoIP Calls

The other day, I gave a lengthy rundown on how you could record VoIP calls from Skype using HotRecorder, as well as links to other articles and methods. What was not mentioned was why your company just might want to make VoIP call recording a standard practice.

In a nutshell, businesses using VoIP should consider recording calls to comply with portions of both Sarbox (Sarbanes-Oxley) and CALEA (Communications Assistance for Law Enforcement Act) regulations. Sarbox is an US SEC securities regulation, and was signed into law by President Bush in 2002. CALEA is a 1994 act that gives law enforcement agencies the right to conduct surveillance on any new communications networks.

The EFF (Electronic Frontier Foundation), has a fairly comprehensive explanation of what CALEA means to the average person and business. A government site, AskCALEA, also provides information.

Both Sarbox and CALEA supposedly operate on the principle that your data (in this case your VoIP recordings) are safe and are only required in case an investigation is necessary. Since this means long-term archival of conversation recordings, there will be VoIP audio file storage issues to consider. VON magazine has an article about recording corporate VoIP and some available solutions. [via FierceVoIP]

Skype for the Mobile Warrior

Earlier this week, Skype and SanDisk announced a couple of Skype-certified SanDisk smartdrives  preloaded with Skype: the Cruzer Micro and Cruzer Titanium with U3. In addition to saving users the need to download software, this also makes it easy to use a friend's computer to make the call. Skype also says that this reduces the need to change settings/ preferences on other computers, such as in hotels, Internet cafes, etc., and is suited to anyone using multiple computers.

Interestingly, Skype mention student use because the latter tend to use multiple computers. However, at my local university, they've disabled all of the USB ports for security and virus protection reasons. [To wit: about 2 yrs ago, when I set up an alumni email account, there were over 500 spam messages waiting for me, the first time I signed on.] I'm not sure whether other colleges and universities disable USB ports as well, so this may not be a solution for all students.

Still, this move towards installing software on USB memory sticks/ cards is a growing trend, having mostly started with web servers, then web browsers, and now VoIP clients. With web-based word processors and spreadsheets like ZohoWriter and ZohoSheet (and other Zoho stuff) available online, and Wi-Fi access more widely available, you could conceivably leave your computer and your PDA (Personal Digital Assistant) smartphone behind.

However, if you love your PDA, Skype has been available for Windows-based devices for a while but has been surprisingly unavailable for Palm OS-based devices. At least until EQO announced EQO Mobile for Skype, supporting Palm Treo 650 and Motorola ROKR, SLVR, and RAZR mobile phones.

EQO currently has a free beta program, but you should read EQO's how it works page to get an understanding of the software, as it doesn't seem all that straightforward. What's more, during signup, you have to specify your cell carrier. Mine - a large carrier - isn't listed, so I can't try it out to give you a rundown. (Get with, EQO.)

While EQO is available for Mac OS X, the SanDisk Cruzer drives are not, as Mac does not support U3 (Windows 2000 and XP only). The Cruzer drives come in four models ranging in price from US$39.99-$119.99.

Time-Limited Skype Freebies for Canadians + Americans

Skype just announced that US and Canadian Skypers can make free international "SkypeOut" calls for three weekends starting July 15th. Call destinations include the U.K., Mexico, and Japan, and the duration is 48 hours on each weekend.

I'm wondering if they're starting to feel the effects from competitors such as Jajah, Sightspeed, Babble, and Gizmo Project, not to mention VoIP-enhanced IM clients such as MSN Messenger, Yahoo! Messenger, and Google Talk.

The press release did say that 70% of their users, of those surveyed, use Skype to keep in touch with friends and family overseas. In fact, 25% of users use Skype for 100% of their international calls.

So why those countries? Did they do some research and find that there are more, say, Japanese Canadians than, say, Jamaican Canadians? Not exactly, but they say that according to the 2000 US census, the total count of people in the US from those countries exceeds 10 million (less than 4%). In Canada, the count is 650,000 (2%).

Given that these percentages are pretty small, can North Americans with roots in other countries expect similar upcoming promos? The release didn't say, but I wouldn't be surprised, given that Skype is currently available in 27 languages.

Microsoft and VOIP

With European Union giving Microsoft a slap upside the head, they've got more to worry about than their share price. Their shares have been fairly level over the past five years, and some people think it's because they have stopped become innovators, with few forays into the newest technologies on and off the web. For example, when you think VoIP, do you think Microsoft?

Back last fall, when they acquired Teleo, it was expected that Microsoft was making a big leap into the VoIP market. What have they done with VoIP since? If past history is any evidence, they'll buy a company with wide presence - often with a free product - and embed their offerings into enterprise applications. That's their thing, their forte. But the web hasn't been about enterprise. If they want to dominate the Internet, Microsoft should take advice from the Red Hot Chili Peppers and give it away, give it away, give it away, now.

I shouldn't be too harsh, though. They did release Windows Live Messenger, with the expectation of upstaging Skype. But early in February, we asked is Microsoft serious about VoIP? Then late that month, they announced a free VoIP app allowing Office users to make free calls on Wi-Fi phones - preferably with the Windows Live Messenger-compatible VoIP cordless phone they teamed up with Philips to launch in January. In March, we were sure Microsoft's serious about VoIP.

So they're obviously trying. Personally, I'm glad they didn't buy Skype (did they even make an offer?) or Sightspeed, else the products might have been buried deep in other offerings. I think they need to consider offering products purely on their own merits, which don't need other MS apps installed to run on.

Recording Your VoIP Calls

With all the recent free VoIP services available, like Babble.net, Skype, Sightspeed, and Jajah, there are obviously a growing number of VoIP users, and thus an increased interest call recording. In fact, it's a common question on various VoIP forum websites.

Enterprise audio file storage issues aside, there are some relatively simple methods to record VoIP calls. The method to use does depend on whether your VoIP is hardware- or software-based, as well as which service you're using. Some software clients have recording built in; others require a plugin or even a separate standalone program. For example, IPcelerate has a product called IPstudio for recording VoIP calls, but it must be integrated into their IPsession platform. [via FierceVoIP]

Tom Keating of TMC has written frequently about recording VoIP calls, including using HotRecorder, and also provides links to forum discussions and other articles. HotRecorder has a free trial for software that supposedly works with all VoIP soft clients (according to Tom's article), and they push the podcasting, online journalism, and business angles on their website.

I tried out the free version of HotRecorder, and it's a compact little setup that latches on to your Skype window. If you move the window around, HotRecorder does too. I tried out a call to my father, who had never heard of VoIP or Skype before yesterday, and who I've been trying to get to install it. He hasn't yet, so I just used Skype's current free PC-to-PSTN calling promo (in Canada and the US) and rang him up, just after activating HotRecorder. [Apparently, this is wrong: activate recording after establishing a VoIP connection.]

While HotRecorder appears to work fine, my cheapo $1 mic might be causing my voice to be "weak" and "unclear", according to my father. After saving the conversation in HotRecorder, I played it back. The freebie version has an annoying feature: one person's voice is on the left channel of playback, and the other person is on the right. But other than that, it worked like a charm.

Extrapolating my experience, if I had a better microphone, real broadband access (instead of my cellular Wi-Fi), and the inexpensive paid version of HotRecorder, this would definitely be a tool I'd use for podcasts. So I went ahead and bought a copy. (See below.)

Their website says HotRecorder works with Skype, Google Talk, AIM, Net2Phone, Yahoo! Messenger, Firefly and other VoIP apps. I'll have to try it out with Gizmo Project. (Sightspeed already has audio and video recording capability builtin.) See Tom's article or the HotRecorder website for more details.

The freebie version has ads, and you cannot change the call quality or other options. Recordings are also only 2 minutes max. But you can take advantage of the goofy array of "emotisounds", including cheering crowds, wolf whistles, and more.

All conversations are stored in their proprietary .ELP-format recordings. (Fans of Emerson, Lake and Palmer, maybe?) There's a separate audio converter program, in beta, for conversion to a variety of audio file formats, which are currently just WAV, MP3 and the open standard OGG/ Vorbis. You get this converter when you pay for a full version of Hotrecorder, so freebie users are stuck with .ELP files, which appear to take up half the space of MP3.

The features that I think will be the most beneficial to podcasters who do a lot of VoIP interviews, and anyone who does a lot of business calling, is the ability to tag conversations with keywords and later search for them. (I wonder how long it'll be before The Jerky Boys or someone else uses Skype and HotRecorder to create a searchable crank-call podcast.)

Being pumped about this tool, I actually just went and paid for a serial number via Paypal. But after changing some of the options around and trying to re-play the conversation with my father, I got an access violation error message. Hmm. Will have to look into this.

An alternative to HotRecorder is Callcorder, although I don't know much about it. Other discussions about VoIP recording are available at the Vonage-Forum. And since HotRecorder does not currently work with Mac (or Unix), Ted Wallingford has an article at MacVoIP about a piece of recording software called Cain and Abel.

For enterprise solutions, there's CallRex Professional from TelRex. Although at "as low as $259 per phone", it seems a bit costly, but I could be mistaken. There's also the Unix-based PBXpress Call Recording VoIP PBX (which by the way supports e-911 through a backup PSTN connection).

For homegrown hardware-based methods, Chris Pirillo of Lockergnome suggests routing microphones and PC audio output through channel mixers, and back into the PC. In fact, that's the way I would have done it, until I came across software solutions. Chris also links up to a similar VoIP recording article by Jake Luddington.

Babble - More Free VoIP Services

Whoever said there was no free lunch probably didn't expect anything like VoIP. Joining the ranks of free VoIP services like Skype, Sightspeed, Jajah, and Gizmo Project is Babble.net.

As with Yahoo and Google when they first started, people are probably wondering how these VoIP companies are going to make any money. Well, Skype got bought up by eBay and makes some revenue from their per minute plans for calls not qualifying as free (typically between PC-to-PSTN calls, or vice versa). Some are also offering extras for sale, such as VoIP handsets.

Whereas Skype has made any combo of PC and PSTN calls free in Canada and the US, at least until the end of 2006, Babble has a slightly different approach. The first 30 minutes of a call are free, and only during their promotion.

Like Gizmo Project, Babble is using the open SIP standard. Which means members of the Gizmo Project network, and others, should be able to communicate with Babble users. According to Babble's getting started page, not only can you communicate free with other Babble users, you get free voicemail, a "real" phone number (at a cost), and you can watch free Internet TV stations, as well as other features.

The signup page does require you to provide your phone number, as well as some promotional code. Seeing none anywhere, I just entered 1111 and downloaded the Babbled softphone. Unfortunately, it's a RAM hog. And as I write this, I'm connected to the Internet via my cellular data plan (max 250 Mb/m), so I'll try to give a comparison of Babble's softphone against Skype, and other VoIP soft clients at a later date.

Additional sources: TechPlanet Asia [via The VoIP Weblog]

Large Enterprise VoIP Projects Catching On

More companies are realizing the value of VoIP in the enterprise, striking up ever larger deals. Rolls-Royce, the distinguished carmaker, is incorporating VoIP into their operations. Canada's Nortel, a long-time veteran in telephony equipment, was given the $20 mln deal, which spans seven years.

Rolls-Royce's network of users spans countries in Europe and North America, adding up to over 26,000 users. This is one the largest enterprise VoIP projects to date. However, consumer goods manufacturer Kimberly-Clark will be implementing VoIP for over 200 sites consisting of over 57,000 employees.

Also, if you use the term enterprise loosely, Taipei City government in Taiwan recently started rolling out their VoIP network over Municipal Wi-Fi project, aiming at 200,000 wireless VoIP phones by the end of 2006. The initial project covers only administrative offices and public schools - a sort of enterprise, albeit government.

With so many users on one subnet, there are issues of audio file storage for voice mail, etc, just as there would be for PSTN systems. However, VoIP being relatively new, and being accessible via soft clients such as Skype and Sightspeed, there may be a tendency for employees to replace modes like IM (Instant Messaging) with VoIP, thus potentially making audio file storage a more critical issue sooner.

It's interesting that the Nortel project is expected to last seven years, although no reasons were given for that length of time. I'd like to how long other large corporations give themselves for similiar projects. Small enterprises, however, could probably roll out projects in short time period, provided they plan appropriately.

[via VoIPendium, Silicon.com, NewsFactor]

PSTN Phones Pull A Monty Python: We're Not Dead Yet

You may find it hard to believe, but I actually know quite a few people, mostly over 50 or 60, who neither have a computer nor want one. In fact, some of these people have never had an answering machine and have no intention of ever getting one. Think they have a cell phone? Some don't. What are the chances, then, that these people are going to rush out and buy VoIP handsets? Nil, of course. For them, VoIP has to be transparent.

Converged Wi-Fi/ cellular handsets might be the next big thing, VoIP hardware-wise, but good old PSTN (Public Switched Telephone Network)  phones might not be dead just yet. Making VoIP simple for consumers will go a long way towards wider acceptance of VoIP, especially from customers reluctant to make unnecessary hardware purchases.

While VoWiFi (VoIP over Wi-Fi) may be relatively simple to set up for those comfortable with technology, and VoIP over Municipal Wi-Fi very easy to use, esecially if you have something like DLink's new VoWiFi phone, there'll be some resistance.

What could be easier, then, than VoIP that incorporates PSTN-to-PSTN connections via  VoIP gateway in the network. From the customer point of view, it's transparent and requires no new hardware or handsets. Here's a diagram showing how such connections work, and also support PSTN-to-VoIP, VoIP-to-PSTN, and VoIP-to-VoIP.

Vonage + More VoIP Lawsuits - When Will The Brutality End

BusinessWeek, and many others, reported yesterday that Vonage is now being sued by Klausner Technologies for patent infringement that has to do with Internet voicemail - to the tune of $180 million dollars. Give me a break. All this bullying of Vonage and kicking them when they're down suggests to me that many people smell the profit in VoIP and are siccing their lawyers on the fall guy.

In some cases, these patent infringement suits feel as if one caveman claimed the color red for his exclusive use just because he claimed it first, and not because he actually created it. Part of the fault lies with the USPTO. They and their equivalents around the world need to get their act together. Please hire hire patent officers who actually know technology, or this kind of absurd lawsuit nonsense is going to kill innovation in all industries that use patents. (Can you imagine if someone had patented fire? Has anyone? Hmm.)

But Vonage has arisen bloodied from their multiple beatings and are fighting with intelligence. Instead of handing over all their milk money to the VoIP school bullies, they've paid Digital Packet Licensing Inc. for three patents. This move, according Tom Keating, is a response to recent lawsuits initiated by Sprint and Verizon upon Vonage.

Me thinks, though, that this isn't the end of the patent infringment parade. Vonage needs somebody, a big buddy. Now I know that Microsoft is suddenly interested in VoIP and that they are working with Philips on a VoWiFi phone. But couldn't they maybe just, oh, I don't know... scoop up Vonage? I'd never have suggested this ten years ago, but it might be just what Vonage needs. And it might actually boost Microsoft's cred in new technologies - something they need given their flat stock (NYSE: MSFT) performance for the past five years.

Then again, Apple is interested in VoIP, and maybe a VoIPod wouldn't be such a bad thing, although Koncept USA may want to change the name of their VoIPod. Although Apple's (NYSE: AAPL) shares are doing fine over the past five years.

Other companies should take note though, if they have applications that generate Internet voicemail. You might just be getting VoIPed soon from Klausner Technologies' lawyers.

Is VoIP-Based On-The-Fly Language Translation Possible?

Any sort of voice-based application is eventually going to beg the question of whether there is more than one language in use, and whether languages can be used interchangeably. In countries such as Canada and the United States, that have a sizable immigrant population, and where VoIP applications like Skype have really taken hold, this is an important question.

While many countries in Europe, Asia and Africa are officially bilingual, Canadians and Americans (and probably citizens of Australia, New Zealand and the U.K.), are for the most part unilingual, speaking primarily English. Some do speak French or Spanish as a first or second language. But there is a sizable portion of recent immigrants - particularly the young - or 1st- or 2nd-generation born, who may lose fluency with their mother/ heritage tongue, or never gain it in the first place.

It's often the latter citizens who while trying to uphold their culture and keep up contact with any family back home, often find a language gap. (Sociologists claim that clothing and then language are often the first characteristics of immigrants to change.) They'll speak in broken English blended with their mother/ heritage tongue, instead of fully in the latter. Technology such as VoIP-based language translation may be able to help them, or anyone else who wants or needs to communicate with people in another language.

For example, I can understand 95% of what is spoken to me in my mother tongue, but when I try to speak it, my words are often garbled. So if I want to converse over the phone with my grandmother, my words have to be translated to her. Or my grandmother has to do most of the talking and questioning. I respond to her in fragments, with poor tense and possessive nouns. But being the quiet woman my grandmother is, she won't do that. That means I rarely speak to her, beyond a hello.

No doubt I'm not the only North American to lament my lack of fluency in another language. There's a problem desiring a solution. So consider: what if you could simply speak English, or some other widely-spoken language, and your call would be translated on the fly? There already are voice-to-text and text-to-voice translators in several languages, as well as language-to-language text translators. The next step is to efficiently translate voice-to-voice in two or more languages. Universal translators anyone?

While universal translators to cover every Earth language may be improbable, natural language processing and speech recognition could foreseeably be combined to offer on-the-fly translation between two to five languages simultaneously - especially between languages that are closely related to each other. In a nutshell, language translation works on grammar trees. Once the grammar trees of two languages are properly paired, it's easier to write software to do the translation.

True, there are translation issues such as the difference between colloquial language and literal meaning to be worked out. That is not an easy or even short-term process. Also, processing power and grammar tree storage space are factors. But VoIP-based systems are far more likely to achieve speech translation than PSTN (Public Switched Telephone Network) ever could.

Seems to me like there's an application opportunity just waiting to happen. And not just once - over and over in different pairings of languages. All someone has to come up with as a starting point is some VoIP- and XML-based protocol that everyone else can follow, hopefully in an open-standard that can be shared.

The Phisher Kings - Phishing Crime Comes To VoIP

Phishing is defined as the act of sending targeted, unwanted emails to people in the hopes of tricking them into giving up their financial details, be it credit card numbers, banking codes, or even Paypal or eBay account information. This is usually accomplished by getting the victims to click on a fraudulent website link, using the graphics and text copied directly from a legitimate service-based website. Phishing is related to spam but is typically more targeted to small groups of people at a time. Unfortunately, people are falling prey to phishing, and because of past successes via email, it didn't phishers long to apply their wiles to VoIP.

Vishing, or VoIP-based phishing, is already becoming a problem, according to a couple of very recent reports. With the proliferation of free VoIP software and services such as Skype, Sightspeed and Gizmo Project, it's also easy when the software often has SDKs (Software Development Kits) that can be used to build vishing applications right into fraudulent websites.

PC World reports that such fraudulent websites sometimes appear to offer financial services. Such sites offer a "Skype me" type of button, which legitimate sites also offer. But when you call the fraudulent site's Skype phone number, they ask you via recorded message to leave credit card details. Another new scam is getting auto-dialed calls via VoIP telling you that there are problems with your credit card. An IT Observer article elaborates further.

It goes without saying that vishing is going to be a big problem if there isn't a concerted effort in the VoIP industry to come up with solutions now.

Additional sources: Business Week.

Digital Audio Voice Signatures for Payment Authorization Via VoIP

VoIP ubiquity in software and hardware [1, 2, 3] is just around the corner, and it's likely to come in (now) familiar packages. Some of these VoIP voice applications are already here, some just arrived, and countless others are on their way. Imagine being able to initiate a VoIP call via Microsoft Outlook, just by clicking on a contact's name in your address book. Your familiar email client becomes a VoIP client. Or maybe you want to send a Paypal payment via Skype, or track and buy something from an eBay auction via Skype.

Of course, you can already do all of those activities, and many people have. I don't have sales figures for Skype-based Paypal payments, but it's pretty obvious that electronic payments in general are increasing. That's true whether via the Internet, through RFID-enabled smartcards or smartphones, or with biometric devices that incorporate RFID. In fact, it's said that India will have the largest market for contactless electronic payments via cell phones, with possibly up to 100 million users.

While I have a bit more faith in the security of hybrid biometric-RFID contactless payment systems, I'm not so sure I'd want my cell phone, or Skype or Outlook software, to be able to make a payment without my explicit authorization. So it made me wonder if there could be some way to authorize e-payments via VoIP, in terms of a digital audio voice signature.

The theory's long been put forth that each human voice is unique (notwithstanding comedian and impersonator Rich Little). While that theory has had a bit of difficulty in courts of law in the past, newer research suggests that it's true. It wouldn't be all that difficult, then, to take a voice scan for authorizations as an alternative to fingerprints.

It's my feeling that such an alternate will be more welcome than biometric scans. The reason for this may be purely psychological. Human beings have been familiar with voice recordings for decades. So recording their own voice does not make them uncomfortable. Biometrics, on the other hand, is a new science and the general populace does not have first-hand familiarity with it, unless they work in secure-access offices, military bases, or laboratories.

Of course, biometrics could be combined with VoIP technology for secure authorizations. However, my feeling is that such a combination would be unnecessary and more costly when digital audio voice signatures could be used reliably instead, and would probably have wider acceptance.

Sources: Owl Investigations - Aural Spectrographic, TC-Helicon - Voice Modelling Parameters.

VoIP Dating Becomes Reality

A few posts back, I made a prediction that VoIP with video (WoIP) could be used to set up a new type of online dating. It's actually a prediction that pretty much anyone with an understanding of VoIP or Skype could have made. Verbdate, however, has made it come true (at least for audio VoIP), vying for a piece of the billion-dollar online dating business. [via GigaOm]

Verbdate works pretty much like any other online dating service, except that they've mashed up quite the variety of "web 2.0" Internet services. They've used AJAX (Asynchronous Javascript and XML) coding to speed up the search process. As  well, provided a member has approved it, you can VoIP them for free via Skype. If you prefer to just IM chat, you can specify that in your profile. You can decide whether or not to display your Skype status - online or offline - and even allow people to Skype you directly from your Verbdate profile.

They've also coupled verbdate with Flickr, so that you can post photos of interest. Then there's the Google Maps, whereby you can specify your location. I'm not so sure that it's necessarily a good idea to be too specific. Fortunately, it only goes down to the city level. Surprisingly, despite Verbdate being a Canadian startup, they were unable to display my own city in their list. To top it all off, after you enter your search criteria, you can subscribe to the results using its custom RSS feed.

Verbdate is a fascinating idea that appears to be rather well thought out. Other web 2.0-ish features not commonly found in older online dating services includes a "tag cloud", which gives you a visual weighted list of keywords from a member's profile. For example, one member's tag cloud shows "dancing" to be of importance to her.

In all, an interesting mashup of existing online services, but the navigation could be improved somewhat. If you've been lamenting, like I have, that none of your friends or relatives will download tools like Skype, or even understand it, Verbdate might interest you. It takes chat rooms to the next level, allowing actual chatting. It'll be interesting to see how long it is before someone offers a similar service for Sightspeed, incorporating video VoIP as well.

You're Afraid To Call It VoIP - Making Internet Telephony Simple

In my research of VoIP (Video and Voice versions) and IP telephony in general,  it becomes obvious that there are a number of different terms now being used to refer to VoIP. Some are technical, others are pure marketing, some are playful.

For example, Bell Canada has a new service called Digital Voice, which their web page admits uses VoIP and clearly explains how the service works, what kind of calls can be made, and provides a link to their long distance calling plans. While their basic monthly charge for local calling is pretty steep (Cdn$40/m), their long distance plans start at Cdn$10/m. Not particularly competitive for 1200 minutes per month. Their overseas per minute rate also seem rather high, considering Skype offers more competitive rates and no monthly charges.

But Bell Canada has been around forever. Their marketing approach to the problem of enticing customers to VoIP is more likely to win over technophobes and those resistant to change. At least more so than the annoying semi-animated TV commercials that Vonage showed in Canada. Those commercials actually pushed me away from trying VoIP, until they stopped airing every ten minutes.

Tesco in Britain has taken a similar approach, advertising their Tesco Internet Phone, with no mention of VoIP. In their TV commercial, they've apparently focused on how simple it is to set up, so that people with low exposure to technology are not scared off. What's more, customers get assigned an actual phone number for their area code, something that is maybe necessary psychologically rather than technically.

Similarly, the service that Sightspeed's Skype-killer IM (Instant Messaging) client provides is referred to as "video and voice calling". Not a mention of VoIP anywhere on the homepage. In fact, if you click on their Features or Plans web pages, you will not find the word VoIP at all. It's not until you click on their About Us page that you not only see the term VoIP, but WoIP.

WoIP is kind of a visual and verbal play on the V and V from "Voice and Video over IP", since the letter "W" is pronounced approximately "doob-luh-veh" (double-V) in French. I've previously referred to WoIP as V²oIP, unaware of the term WoIP. While either term is probably fine in print, neither is easy to say without confusing people. I mean, how do you say V²oIP? And how easy is it distinguish WoIP from VoIP in conversation?

WoIP aside, I think Bell Canada, Tesco and Sightspeed have made wise marketing moves, given the drubbing that Vonage has taken going IPO, and where others now fear to tread.

VoIP Over Municipal Wi-Fi

Telecom companies these days have VoIP to contend with from not one but two fronts. VoIP is already disrupting both landline and cell phone revenues, causing telcos to reduce their prices.

Now, with numerous cities and even countries pushing for either paid or free Municipal Wi-Fi, telcos also have to contend with the potential loss of revenues from their Internet Service Provider divisions. This isn't just an American problem, it's widespread, worldwide issue, even reaching the Pacific islands, which include Fiji, Micronesia, etc.

What's more, telcos now have to deal with the loss of revenues that will result from the use of VoIP over Muni WiFi. In fact, several cities are pushing for wireless VoIP services, including Taipei, Taiwan. American telcos could learn a thing or two from the Taipei WiFly/ EasyCall project. It's the collaboration of the city government and the Taipei Computer Association (TCA), and is overseen by several ITSPs (Internet Telephony Service Providers).

Traditional telcos should be thinking about modifying their offerings to become ITSPs and even collaborating with or buying out existing VoIP providers. Especially if other cities start thinking like the Taipei government, who are using wireless VoIP to replace their PSTN (Public Switched Telephone Network) for administrative offices and public schools. Their aim is to have 200,000 wireless VoIP phones by year's end.

Obviously, if Taipei pulls this off, and figure out how to handle e911 calls, especially when there are school children at risk, other cities are going to follow suit. And if telcos don't find a way to participate, there's going to be some explaining to do to shareholders. In fact, I'm a strong believer that telcos could play an important role in solving e911 technical issues. If you can't beat ITSPs, join'em.

Rumpelstiltskin and the Level of VoIP Security

Unless you've been sleeping under a mushroom, you probably know that North Korea's leader, Kim Jong-il, stirred from his dormancy and fired off not one but seven missiles, even after several countries cautioned strongly against it. Warnings of this may or may not have been this reason why South Korea suddenly backed off, a few days previous, against blocking VoIP calls by U.S. Forces Korea members.

South Korea had originally planned to block out U.S. calls due to non-compliance to their Telecommunications Business Act. However, at the request of US Forces Korea, they agreed to suspend the deadline.

It all begs the question, however, of how secure VoIP really is that the US Military would allow its individual members to use it. Or why they wouldn't set up Internet access, say, via satellite.

VoIP may generally be considered insecure, but it doesn't have to be. Calls could be encrypted and decrypted on the fly, by caller and receiver, respectively. However, to reduce the lag time on such encryption, the process would have to be done on small packets of sound, possible a few seconds at a time, else non-computer VoIP phones would have an extra processing burden.

Now, without delving into the inner workings of existing VoIP services, I'll hazard a guess that there already is some level of encryption conducted on VoIP calls. However, with encryption laws in the US and Canada being fairly strict (against exportation of algorithms), the level of encryption might actually be quite low.

Of course, the real issue in South Korea is over the ISPs that regular officers use to access the Internet and make VoIP calls. The service provider(s) they use allow unlimited VoIP calling, which the three South Korean ISPs who requested the US military block are upset about.

I seriously doubt, however, that the US Military's necessarily secure communications are being conducted via the same ISPs that individual members of the military are using.

On a related issue, Skype was recently told by South Korea to stop signing up new SkypeOut customers, until Skype adheres to telecom laws - in particular, two e-business codes. In fact, Skype's Korean Market Manager recently issued a statement that Skype was not currently doing business in South Korea.

It's interesting to note that South Korea has been a center of a considerably number of technology trials in both VoIP and RFID technology. Part of the aforementioned restrictions have to do with protecting the interests of South Korean companies.

Sources: Stars & Stripes, ZD Net Korea [via Skype Journal].

Sightspeed - Free Video VoIP Calling Is Here

Aside from The Jetsons cartoon TV show, does anyone remember how long it's been since the public was promised video phones? (1964 World's Fair) I know I've wished for a way to communicate live with my grandmother, thousands of miles away, for a very long time. Well hello grandma, Sightspeed VoIP video calling is here, and it's free.

Sightspeed is a competitor to Skype, who enabled video calling last year, in their 2.0 beta version. Like Skype, Sightspeed has free PC-to-PC calling for both audio and video, and low rates for PC-to-phone calls. Now this is different than Vodafone's video calling, which is done on cell phones over their 3G network.

Sightspeed also lets you create free video mail, publish to a video blog, and have video conference calls with up to three other people. What a fantastic idea. I can't wait to try this out.

To be fair, Skype might also have this feature, but they haven't made any effort to make this obvious on their home page. Am I going to dig through the website looking for these features? Well, I used their search and still didn't see a "summary" page touting similar features.

I already have Skype, and it requires Skype-certified webcams. While my Palm Treo 650 camera shows up in my Skype list, it doesn't appear to work. My dedicated webcam just requires too much RAM for me to bother using it on my laptop. (Actually, I just tested it, and Skype doesn't seem to pick it up either.)

Anyway, Sightspeed's plans look enticing. Their "free" plan includes an unlimited number of voicemails of 30 seconds in length, and stores each for 30 days. The paid plan (US$4.95/m, 49.95/yr) allows unlimited 60 sec videomail for unlimited durations. Not bad, certainly affordable. The free plan does not allow unlimited multi-party video conferencing. Other than that and the support, there isn't a lot of difference between the free and paid plans. But if I can convince any of my friends or family to get something like Skype or Sightspeed, let alone a videocam or a microphone, it might be worthwhile paying for the service.

The only annoying thing about trying to download Sightspeed is that, besides requiring to you register (which is fair enough), they try to sell you a camera along the way. I just want to try the damn software already. One interesting sentence in their terms states that minors must get permission from parents to use video conferencing. Bravo for that. (Maybe Skype has that too; I may have missed it.)

After downloading and installing a copy of Sightpeed, and running through the fairly easy configuration, I find that my webcam works fine, even with my laptop's RAM usage maxed out. Cool. However, my Palm Treo 650 camera did not work, so either it's not support, or I don't have it configured right.

Now if could only get my friends and family to realize the value of VoIP, I'm all set to gab online. But if Video VoIP will be as popular as text messaging, I guess it means I'm going to have start shaving everyday again :)

Sightspeed runs on Win 2000, Win XP, and Mac OSX 10.3.9 or higher.

Sources: 21Talks [via Andy Abramson]

Are VoIP IPOs The Way To Go?

Clearwire, a WiMax wireless broadband provider, may not be involved directly in VoIP, per se, but their value to the VoIP and IP telephony market is evidenced by the names of  some of the investors that have pumped in cash. The company had originally filed with the SEC to go IPO, but nixed the IPO at the last moment.

Maybe they took a hard look at what Vonage has gone through these past couple of months and decided the market's too shaky to follow suit. Which makes me wonder if IPOs are the way for companies in fledgling technologies to go right now.

Wooing private investors might be the better alternative initially, especially if they have the best interests of the technology at heart. (And by "they", I mean both parties.) In the case of Clearwire, they did better financially by dropping the IPO, exceeding by 50% the amount of capital they had wanted to raise.

Now they have the committed capital they need to pursue their WiMax projects. (Is it surprising that Intel Capital is one of the investors, considering WiMax is an Intel creation?)

Had they gone public and the IPO tanked after a few days, given the current edgy marketplace, they would have had to hold back on several projects.

As I've mentioned, they are not in the VoIP market per se. However, VoIP over WiMax or WiBro is not a far-fetched concept, and would provide an infrastructure that might help push the use of VoIP. The fact that Bell Canada is an investor from an earlier round of financing suggests the importance of WiMax to telephony in general.

A look at Clearwire's USA coverage map shows pretty spotty coverage. So the recent private cash infusions are just what they need to expand their coverage area. If they could score some municipal Wi-Fi deals, the incoming revenue would push their expansion even faster.

Maybe, after a couple of years, when they actually have a positive balance sheet, they could consider going IPO - something VoIP providers and equipment makers may want to make note of. And maybe by then, Intel will team up with Samsung and scale WiMax up to WiBro.

Skyping and VoIPing With Music Fans

Alt-Rock band Coldplay, in a brilliant marketing move, embraced VoIP via a promotion launched by Skype and chatted a few minutes with a couple of  adoring fans. Could this be the music promotional tool of the future? Want to watch a bit of a live show, anyone? Throw in video to get V²oIP, and fans will be going crazy, maybe to the point of wanting to pay for a few minutes of access.

Talking with musicians was something I did quite extensively in the early 90s, sometimes in person, often on the telephone, for all the interviews and profiles for my now dead print rag. And while musicians usually called me, on the record company's dime, sometimes I had to call. And it was costly back then. VoIP could have save me a bundle, had it existed.

A common problem, though, was that bands sometimes had to cancel calls because they were on the road and they'd lost their calling code. Or it was nasty cold outside and standing in a phone booth wasn't an option. Or insert any reason here. VoIP means not having to stand in a phone booth. Unless you want to.

Now, with an application like Skype, bands can do meet + greets with journalists/ bloggers, participate in interviews, run CD promotions, and generally communicate with fans and other interested parties. Having multi-person chats with bloggers - bloggasm anyone? - could reduce or even replace the mass interview sessions musicians sometimes have to do, and typically detest, on a daily basis during a tour.

Keeping in touch with fans, in particular, is more than possible with VoIP applications, and it might just be a way for record companies to revitalize the industry and deflect attention from music downloading.

Heck, I'd pay a few bucks to talk a few minutes with some musicians. And now that eBay owns Skype, I wouldn't be surprised if musicians started auctioning off a few minutes to play a custom tune over Skype for some lucky bidder.

Let's Make An eDeal - Online Gaming Gets VoIP

With online poker, especially Texas Hold'em, being so popular these days, it's not surprising that one of the first online gaming applications of VoIP is for poker.

Playwize's PokerWize will online players not only see their 3D avatars - like many online games - but they'll also be able to talk to each other.

This is probably just the beginning in a string of VoIP-enabled game applications. Take things one step further and imagine being able to play word games with someone across the world, or have a chess game where VoIP enables you to control the pieces.

While Video over IP (also VoIP) is not something online poker players will want, it's a possibility as a proxy for live games. Maybe it's a stretch, but I can also see several frivolous V²oIP (Voice + Video over IP) applications, such as online game/ quiz shows.

Can you imagine shows like Jeopardy or The Dating Game in online form. All-time Jeopardy champion Ken Jennings wouldn't have had to worry about running out of clothes. Although an eDating Game might need something like telepresence suits to make it worthwhile.

Sources: PocketLint.

VoIP Deployment Takes Off In Asia and Africa

While VoIP is a technology that is beneficial to people worldwide, it's deployment appears to be gaining the greatest growth in Asian, Middle Eastern, and North African countries.

These are countries typically associated with average incomes that are much lower than those of European or North American countries. With the reduced cost of telephony provided by VoIP systems, it's not surprising that several countries in these regions have made deployment of IP telephony a priority.

In fact, Avaya's survey of decision makers in the Middle East and North African countries shows that over 70% have plans to deploy IP telephony. Some already have converged voice and data networks.

The financial benefits are realized not only in initial implementation of IP telephony, but also in the ease and cost of being able to later add VoIP applications. The drawback for telephony solutions providers based in English-speaking countries is that there is a need for other-language solutions, which could conceivably increase project costs.

While VoIP deployment in Africa and the Middle East is strong, it is growing rapidly in Asia-Pacific countries in particular, surpassing most other regions in the world, with a 60+% increase in VoIP equipment purchases.

A primary cost benefit of deploying IP Telephony comes from regions where telephone lines or cellular networks are currently at a minimum. Instead of the cost of having to install separate voice and data networks, the convergence afforded by IP telephony results in an overall savings.

Sources: VoIP News; Avaya - South Africa, Middle East + North Africa; Mena Report [via VoIPendium]

Vocera and the Road to VoIP Application Ubiquity

The road to VoIP application ubiquity has already started.

First, Vonage came out with their USB memory stick VoIP phone, aka V-Phone. Then Vocera came out with their Call Badge. While the V-Phone has its place, it's the latter that really excites me. (Although I suspect that maybe the Badge came before the V-Phone.)

The Vocera Call Badge is a wearable mobile VoIP phone. It can hang around your neck with a piece of cord, like a necklace, or be attached to clothing with its clip. With the Call Badge, you can communicate over WiFi with anyone else carrying one of these, within range of a supporting WLAN (Wireless Local Area Network).

The best part? Besides a button or two, it's a hands-free device, controlled by voice commands. You can ask for a certain person or station, and your communication will be routed to the appropriate badge.

Currently, the device has a native speaker, so your conversation can be overheard. However, since the Call Badge was designed for enterprise use (hospitals, labs, offices, stores, etc.), that's not surprising. But I don't see why they couldn't be made compatible with Bluetooth for future versions, where some privacy is a necessity.

Either way, I see incredible VoIP applications here, if a
supporting WLAN can handle the VoIP traffic. Consider EMS workers, such as firefighters. Equipped with Bluetooth headsets in their helmets, and these Call Badges attached to their jacket. (Of course, that either means high-capacity Municipal Wi-Fi networks, or porting around a WiFi-enabled computer server system on fire engines, ambulances, etc.)

I was unable to find any information about whether Vocera is publicly-traded, but I suspect not. However, if they go public, I'm considering buying shares. They have been successfully installing their VoIP communications system in numerous locations, including several hospitals, and their overall concept is pretty sound. Check out their sample videos for a clear explanation of how the system works. It's too bad that the existing system does not work with Skype.

Sources: Wi-Fi Planet, Vocera, Vonage V-Phone.

Ubiquitous VoIP Communications - Audio File Storage Issues

Assuming that VoIP communication becomes ubiquitous, with or without SEDs (Service-Enabled Devices), recordings of VoIP communications are likely to become compulsory for businesses, for a variety of reasons. Email communications are currently  archived, and it's likely VoIP conversations will be, too. The result is a need for ever larger storage devices.

Consider for a second that a one-minute recording in .WAV format at CD stereo quality (44.1 Kilohertz = 44,100 cycles per second) takes about 10.1 Megabytes. One employee that communicates by voice for at least half a regular work day thus spends 4 hrs/d x 60 min/h = 240 min/d, give or take. In a 5-day work week, that's 1,020 minutes x 10 Mb = 10 Gb/wk = 40 Gb/month. Five employees doing the same thing amounts to 200 Gb/month. [Note: MP3 format at the same quality takes exactly the same amount of space.]

Of course, not every company is going to have the same amount of VoIP audio storage requirements. But any company that intends to use VoIP for live support - say a call center or an online sales department - is going to need much more than that.

Say a call center operates 24 hrs/d and has 50 employees on at all times, 7 days a week. Their storage needs (at 44.1 Khz WAV) amount to 50 e x 24 h/d x 60 min/h x 7 d/wk x 10 Mb/min = 50 e x 10,080 min/wk x 10 Mb/min = 5,040,000 Mb/wk = 5.04 Terabytes/ wk, or about 20 Tb/mth = 1/4 Petabytes per year.

You can see that if VoIP recordings need to be kept "live" for several months, there is a considerable requirement in storage space. While archival could still be done on CDs/ DVDs, space is still an issue, as more companies adopt VoIP for applications. Some businesses may actually need to keep recordings live, instead of archiving them.

Not only will a demand for high-capacity SANs (Storage Area Networks) increase (consider buy company shares :), but so will the demand for more efficient audio file compression techniques.

I won't get into it much here, but one such technique is Wavelet Compression, which is suitable for some audio and video recordings. Wavelet theory was devised by quantum physicists in the early 1970s, and but was only applied recently to file compression techniques, sometimes resulting in space savings of up to 75%. Wavelet compression outperforms the slightly older fractal compression techniques.

Both techniques are "lossy"; that is, a slight loss in quality is sacrificed for the larger compression ratios. Unfortunately, not all audio and video compresses well with this method. But with ubiquitous VoIP, and possibly ubiquitous Video over IP, on the way, optimum compression techniques and massive storage units are going to be in high demand.

Ubiquitous VoIP Communication and SED Service-Enabled Devices

Imagine for a second an "Internet of devices". These are devices that can communicate with each other over the Internet Protocol. IPv6, that is. IPv6, the next version of the Internet Protocol, has been touted by some as the next version of the Internet (or maybe Web 3.0, depending on how you look at it.) IPv6 will allow SEDs, Service-Enabled Devices, to be interconnected, thus allowing consumer electronics gadgets and appliances to talk to each other.

SEDs know their role and how they need to interact with specific other devices. Besides computers, the list of future SEDs is reputed to include digital cameras, stereo systems, toasters, stoves, refrigerators, lawn sprinklers, your lighting system... Well, you get the idea.

An example of an SED-to-SED interaction might be as follows. At the press of a button, a digital camera sends a packet of photos, via WiFi, to a laptop running software that then publishes the pics to a pre-configured website gallery. The laptop, of course, can be connected to the Internet either directly through a local network, or even via a Cellular WiFi data card.

Another example would be to log on to your home's hypothetical web server and turn on your lawn sprinkler or even the air conditioning. (In this situation, you would be overriding scheduled activities.) Sure, this sounds like something that media mentioned, oh, in the 1980s, 1990s, and so on. But it's now possible.

Where's the VoIP in all that, you're asking. Well, what if you could do the same as described above, but by just speaking a few commands into a VoIP-enabled SED, which would then communicate to your sprinkler or whatever?

There's a very real possibility that VoIP capability will become ubiquitous. Thus, all kinds of consumer electronics will be SEDs and VoIP-enabled. You'll be able to talk to your gadgets, order them around a little with a few voice commands. When that happens, you'll also be able to give authorization for various transactions  [VoIP Lowdown] via any VoIP-enabled device in an office, home, store, or wherever. Alternately, gadgets will be able to VoIP you.

Of course, we'll have to work on voice-recognition software as well as language translation, but there's a lot of work already going on in those areas as well audio-search, audio-to-text, and text-to-audio.

We're not quite yet at a state of communications as on TV's Star Trek Enterprise, but we're not far off. When that happens, however, you just might want to be careful what you say out loud.

Dear Cellular Companies, Stop Bitching About VoIP

Dear Cellular Provider,

Dare I say it? Quit yer whining about not allowing VoIP services on your cellular wireless data networks. If I'm paying you for bandwidth, it's none of your business how I use it. You claim that VoIP is a bandwidth hog and that it's costing you extra to allow such content. But you're more than happy to allow TV/ video and music to be downloaded across the exact same network. And why am I paying ridiculous amounts of money monthly for a measly 250 Megabytes of bandwidth - which you have the balls to call unlimited service. What gives?

Why not just come clean and admit that you're peeved because you didn't think of VoIP first, and that you're now losing money on your outrageous roaming charges and bizarre cellular minute plans that just never seem to quite be what a consumer needs?

Is that the reason you're pulling this nonsense? You know - about not allowing your customers to run VoIP on your WiFi data networks. And is VoIP the reason your old-school telco buddies/ parent companies are against Net Neutrality? Then you're just being big babies. Wa wa wa. Despite your claims, you've already been paid many times over for Internet service. And now you want us to pay again?

Isn't it odd how Net Neutrality only crept up when VoIP started becoming popular? Tsk tsk.

Why not either buy up the VoIP providers or form solid alliances? Didn't you guys ever watch Sesame Street? In the long run, alliances will be good for everyone. Consumers already have a long history of despising "the phone company". Your latest behaviour towards VoIP doesn't help your public relations. Seriously. Think about it rationally.

signed,

sir gab-a-lot

Why Hack VoIP Service? Or Recognizing Consulting Opportunities

New technologies have always had their naysayers and VoIP is no exception. It's the target of a lot of misconceptions, and it'll take some time before consumers understand as well as they do regular phone systems.

Some people have actually openly stated, in comments on websites, that VoIP is a passing fad and that it'll go away. There is also a perceived jealousy towards VoIP from the perspective of old school telecom, which might be a motive for bringing down recently-IPO'd Vonage (NYSE: VG). Bring down the stock price, then either buy them out or bury them. However, there is no way VoIP is going away. Vonage was just unfortunate to be the first VoIP provider to become a publicly traded company.

Unfortunately, the criminal element will always find a way to abuse technology. But this pair strikes me as very odd. Two American men were recently charged with telecom fraud after they re-routed about a half-million VoIP calls through at least 15 VoIP providers' routers, around the world. The descriptions I've read about how these guys did it made me wonder just one thing: what were they thinking?

It appears that these guys had to have the brains to pull off what they did. It took a fair bit of technical skill and networking knowledge to reroute their customers' calls through other providers services. The technical description of their activity proves that.

But it's such a shame that they employed their obvious skills in such a manner. Instead, had they just thought a little bit more about the situation, instead of committing fraud, they could very likely have turned their knowledge into VoIP security consulting and made a nice living. And they would have stayed out of jail and not given VoIP publicity a black eye. A missed opportunity for sure.

VoIP Can Save A Small Business

Back in the 1990s, while going through my second round of college to get a Master's, I started a print magazine. At the peak of this short-lived but popular monthly rag, there were over 100 contributors, most of whom lived out of town, or even across the country. My phone bill was usually a whopping $500-800/ month, for a small regional magazine with a max circulation of 8,000.

This was just before the time of phone deregulation in the US and Canada, and new companies were just starting to offer bulk minutes in "regional" calling packages: 500 minutes across North America for $29.99, or somesuch.

But until I got myself one of these phone plans, near the end of my magazine, I barely squeaked by on my operating costs, being a student and all. Even after I got a phone plan, I had one talkative out-of-town friend/ editor who I'd call up daily to talk business with, and who would literally talk for up to 45 minutes without stopping. Back then, I wasn't the kind of person to tell people to shut up, and ultimately, this editor/ friend cost me a fortune, using up a lot of my minutes.

Primarily because of this person, to cut back on phone costs, I started visiting my out-of-town contributors. (Gas was less than half the current price, and I had an energy-efficient stick-shift Suzuki Swift at the time.) Unfortunately, these visits took time and chewed into my distribution and ad sales time. Ultimately, my overall costs outweighed my incoming ad revenue, and I had to fold operations.

Now most small mags are doomed to failure anyways, but I can't help thinking that had VoIP been available back then, my magazine might have survived. Of course, that's just wishful thinking, because the Internet had barely gone public then.

My recent experience using VoIP and IM clients is not only a huge savings in cost, but because I can multi-task on my laptop while having a VoIP conversation (or an IM - Instant Messaging - text session), I also save a lot of time overall. VoIP is an inexpensive way to communicate with customers and team members, especially virtual teams. Skype is an efficient way to VoIP.

My current favorites are Skype and Gizmo Project for VoIP. (I mostly use Google Talk for IM, but have been evaluating Trillian and Gaim.) I find I have to run a variety of programs for now, mainly because of what my business contacts have. Skype is not "open" and thus cannot currently communicate with Gizmo. So I need both. Now, I only wish I could convince my friends to by microphones and headsets instead of wasting my cell phone minutes.

VoIP/ Skype-Driven Webinars And Customer Support

Up until recently, my VoIP voice conversations have been very limited, beyond the "test" calls of various Skype-like services. Most of my friends do not have microphones; some don't understand VoIP and will not even download Skype, despite having IM clients such as (older versions of) MSN or Yahoo! Messenger. As a result, I'm still paying for a lot of my calls, from home line and cell phone.

So when I registered for a webinar recently and found out that I had to call a long-distance number to listen to the audio portion, I almost didn't bother. In fact, it's the reason I haven't signed for numerous other webinars that required voice participation.

But I remembered that Skype recently opened up their service to allow free calls in North America between PSTN (Publicly-Switched Telephone Network) and VoIP phones. At least for a limited time. (Cell phones might be excluded.)

So I took a chance anyway, and found very quickly that I could dial up the conference via Skype, even though there was a conference code to enter. No problem. Not only was the quality of audio very clear, beyond a couple of audio artefacts, but I saved myself several dollars on a 45-minute voice conference. There was no noticeable lag between the webinar screens (displayed via a Citrix remote desktop application) and the VoIP audio.

Those of you that have already worked extensively with VoIP as part of your daily activities might be snickering and saying, I knew that. But the experience stirred up the old customer support person in me. Think what incredible customer support applications could be cooked up by marrying remote desktop, VoIP (Voice) and the other VoIP (Video).

Customer support is soon to be forever changed. And I wouldn't doubt that someone is going to come up with a way to combine the two VoIPs (Voice and Video) to come up with a true "video dating" service.