VoIP Now

VoIP Roundup - Thur Mar 08, 2007

Skype Founder Janus Friis: Mile-High Bad Boy
Valleywag reported a couple of days ago that Janus Friis, one of the founders of Kazaa, Skype and Joost, and a millionaire by all accounts, got drunk and frisky with his girlfriend while on a Virgin Airlines flight. Get this: his girlfriend is the daughter of Roger Moore. As in Bond, James Bond.

Clearwire IPO Snags $600M
Intel may have come up with WiMax but Clearwire is the company building the networks in the United States. Doing that cost them $240M last year, but their IPO today generated $600M.

RIM's Balsillie Steps Down
Sort of. Jim Balsillie of RIM, maker of the BlackBerry line of mobile communications devices, has stepped down as a Chair of the Waterloo, Canada, company. This is due in part to an error in earnings reporting that will cost RIM US$250M. [Source: Kitchener-Waterloo local TV] Maybe Balsillie can spend the extra time finding a hockey team.

VoIPing For Profit - Skype Prime?

Skype once more releases a feature, Skype Prime [via], that's in direction competition with their developer community. While it's a very exciting feature - which allows you to bill for a Skype-to-Skype call - Skype is once more suggesting that you shouldn't even bother developing anything because they'll just take the idea or partner with someone else.

Then again, Jyve, Bitwine and other similar Extras are completely safe because Skype is charging an absurd 30% of whatever you charge your callers. As one commenter at the Skype Share blog says, isn't 30% a bit excessive. Someone charging $100/h would end up paying Skype $30/h for a call that is otherwise free.

Someone from the eBay side of things must have a plan to make Skype a laughingstock. I can't see Friis and Zenstrom's original team behaving like this. Something like 5-10% is reasonable. There's also Ether, by the way, which you can use Skype with.

What's With Skype - Reprise

Skype is becoming more of a mystery in the way they do things. I'm still waiting for an answer about why I was sent a mysterious email about my "transaction not being completed". This was nearly two weeks after I purchased their North American SkypeOut promo package for US$14.95 (now $29.95). That's fine. I don't care about the money; it's the principle. But that is piddly in comparison to other things they're doing.

Skype has of late being doing strange things re their Extra partners and Skype community developers. First, they approved Bitwine for Skype partner status, despite it's being in beta, and despite Jyve predating Bitwine and not being in beta. Now they introduce SkypeFind, a business directory where Skypers can rate entries. However, an early Skype developer, KonuSH, had already set up a Skype business directory in 2004.

There are other examples of similar situations in 2006, where Skype introduced a feature in  a new version of their soft client that someone in the developer community had already introduced as an Extra. This is disappointing, to say the least, and sends out a bad message. Personally, I'm still hoping that SightSpeed opens up their developer API and doesn't make the same mistakes Skype seems to be making.

Skype Wants Changes To Mobile Network Access

Skype, whose name is synonymous with VoIP for some people, wants cellular networks operations to change, to be more open. In fact, they're demanding that the US FCC make changes to a legal decision from 1968 related to the AT&T network so that it applies to cell networks. That's because mobile operators limit the traffic on their networks, especially data networks.

Read between the lines and you'll probably conclude what I have: that Skype needs this ruling changed to offer full mobile Skype. Of course, they would also become very competitive with mobile operators as a result.

The irony of course is that while Skype has an open developer API (Application Programmer Interface), their networking protocol is closed - as in private. The general idea behind their request is a good one, but it just seems kind of hypocritical when they won't open their protocol - a decision that has caused companies, universities and countries to ban Skype use. And they're couching as a consumer rights issue.

VoIP Roundup - Sun Feb 25, 2007

Some VoIP Clients Not Approved For Vista
Want some more reasons for why you shouldn't yet switch to Microsoft's new Vista OS? Well if you're a VoIP user, Skype and some other soft clients are not approved for Vista yet. Now that doesn't mean they won't work on Vista, but why take the chance. There are apparently several popular apps that are not approved.

WiMax In India Soon
Intel's WiMax wireless networking protocol will be industry in India soon. A network has already been deployed in Chennai.

Skype Find Competes With The Big Search Engines?
Wondering about the new Skype 3.1 beta for Windows and the SkypeFind feature? Skype Journal thinks that SkypeFind is taking on Google, Microsoft and Yahoo for business listings. That's actually a very accurate assessment. Last year, Google offered click-to-call ability for some American business listings in their Google Maps application. SkypeFind isn't exactly the same, but it's functionality is, and they allow Skypers to rate a business. Not something a business might want though.

New Skype Integrations: Mindmeister

Skype is appearing in more and more web applications. The latest is Mindmeister, and web-based mind mapping tool that goes one step further than bubbl.us. Mindmeister not only allows real-time shared editing with collaborators, but you can use Skype click-to-call buttons to chat with each other during the edit process. [You can read a more focused review at Mashable.]

As a long-time, hard-core mind mapper myself, it's great that VoIP is enabling new forms of collaboration such as this. For example, there are a great many opportunities for VoIP in e-learning, and mind maps are a more intuitive way to brainstorm, teach or tutor. What I'd really like to see mindmapping combined with Learn Without Limits/ Tutors Without Limits, which does use Skype.

Now that said, standalone mind mapping packages like MindJet MindManager and Mindapp are considerably more robust than Mindmeister. And both allow publishing to a hosted web page for sharing with others. However, apps like Mindmeister allow real-time collaboration. It'll be interesting to see if a company such as MindJet who have a fairly mature tool, start offering competitve web-based collaboration tools. In other words, a convergence of functionality would be very, very nice.

What I'm really wondering, though, is when there will be similar SightSpeed integrations. They really need to open up their API.

VoIP Roundup - Fri Feb 23, 2007

Skype 3.1 Windows Beta Released
Skype just announced a 3.1 beta revision for Windows. I haven't even bothered to upgrade to 3.0 because I wasn't sure that the Skype Extras I had installed would all work, and because there weren't enough new features to entice me. This release has one new "major" feature called SkypeFind, which lets the Skype community post or find information about "local businesses you like".

Skype Pro for Europe Launches
Skype announced their new Pro calling plans for Europe earlier in the week. Monthly subscription is 2 Euros, which gives free calls to domestic landlines in 15 European countries, free Skype Voicemail, 30 Euro discount on SkypeIn and a few other goodies.

Sitofono Mobile Click-to-Call
Having fallen behind on my VoIP reading in January and early February, I missed a lot of stories, including that Luca Filigheddu and Sitofono now offer free click-to-call functionality from mobile web browsers. Very cool. Now they can challenge Microsoft's mobile click to call.

Watch Out For Tech IPOs in 2007

Om Mailk writes about Business 2.0's Michael Copeland, who says this year will be a big one for tech companies to go public. I'd have to agree. Last year was iffy for many tech firms, who delayed their IPOs or saw poor returns after going public. A fortunate few, especially in the RFID market, managed to get VC (Venture Capital) funding.

I subscribe to theory that there will be a tech bubble burst in 2010 or 2011. The economy in North America has gone into the tank at the end of a decade, or in the first year of a new one - every decade since 1970, that I'm aware of. I think that not even a Democrat becoming the next President is going to deflect that. However, if the right Democrat wins, I'm speculating that we'll see amazing growth in the stock market over the next 4-8 years. (Though I don't know who that person is, who the voters will accept, but I have a suspicion - someone who hasn't throw their hat in the ring yet.)

That said, I don't think this will be a big IPO year for VoIP IPOs, though things may change in 2008 or 2009. Investors are probably still wary because of Vonage stock's poor performance, and they and Skype are probably the two most well-known VoIP services around the world.

What's With Skype?

Late last week, I received an email from Skype saying the my transaction had not completed. Ten days prior to this message (about Jan 30th), I'd bought the US$14.95 unlimited SkypeOut for Canada and the US. I'd previously sent an email to support, and they replied within three business days that, no, everything was fine and that the $2.21 SkypeOut credit showing was for International calls.

Great, I thought. All clear. Then I get this new email around last Thursday or Friday. I sent a query back, but also said how peeved I was, especially as a VoIP blogger. It's now close to 4 business days and I have yet to hear back. I'm even less happy. Especially since the money WAS withdrawn from my PayPal account on Jan 30th.

What's the dealio, Skype? I'm now absolutely certain that my next telephony purchase (VoIP or otherwise)  will not be from Skype. I'm increasingly disappointed with them.

VoIP Roundup - Tues Feb 20, 2007

The Virtual Assistant - Take Two
Small business owners now have the option of using Skype-based receptionist/ telephonist services of Varras Consulting. But what if you don't use Skype or want to do things on your own? You can use Spinvox's voice-to-text service to manage your voicemail in text form, or even use it as a transcription/ dictation service.

One Billion Skype Users Can't Be Wrong
Well, there aren't that many users yet, but Skype Journal says that at the current daily rate of downloads, there could be a billion Skypers by 2009. Consider the significance of that number: it's about the number of current Internet users.

Linux Phones Aren't Exactly Cheap Either
A Linux-powered keyless phone, dubbed the Neo 1973 and called an Apple iPhone killer, will be available online early next month. The phone, from a company called FIC, will cost about US$350.

VoIP Roundup - Sat Feb 17, 2007

Security and IP Communications
VoIP News has several articles related to VoIP security worth reading: 6 steps to VoIP security, A guide to understanding the VoIP security threat, and 5 ways to secure a wireless VoIP system. The latter is especially timely, what with the expectation of drive-by hacking becoming a threat to unsecured Wi-Fi networks.

Launching A New Generation of Jerky Boys-style VoIP Prank Callers?
I've mentioned the Jerky Boys before, when talking about now-deceased comedienne Lucille Ball doing prank calls. Well Callitfake not only helps budding pranksters, it lets you do it from a browser. What's more, you can type in whatever you want to say and choose the voice it'll be read in. Oh joy. Just what we need.

Now This Is A Really Old School Phone
Not only does Jaht's SkyVogue phone come in classic styling probably dating to around the 1950s, it's a Skype phone with  a USB connection. I can't tell if the rotary dial is functional, but I seriously doubt Skypers with short attention spans have the patience to wait for the darn thing to complete a single turn, let alone add area code and internation calling code.

Skype Gives You The Virtual Human Assistant

Now this is great for small business: an appropriately qualified Skyper somewhere in the world to handle your customer calls. VoIP bloggers have debated VoIP-based telecommuting because the question is one of remote trust: who are you hiring? Who will monitor them? Aside from that, a bit of tweaking and a small but diverse team means the ability to handle client calls in different languages - a truly virtual, VoIP-based team.

A worldwide Skype-based "telephonist" team would essentially act as multiplexers, with each dealing with the customers of more than one client. There is an opportunity here for someone to set up a web services web site to broker VoIP-based business communications services between people to answer calls (telephonists) and companies that need it done. This is exactly the sort of functionality that VoIP/ vVoIP affords that regular telecom cannot.

That said, Varras Consulting is in fact doing exactly that, and the necessary or preferred skills to work from home include being multilingual. Varras is also resolving the trust issue by requiring a non-criminal background and a security check.

Now Varras Consulting is not a VoIP company, so they wouldn't qualify to be in the 25 most interesting VoIP startups, but bravo to them for pushing the edge of IP communications use. Let's hope that Skype call quality is not an issue.

Pondering My Next Telephony Product Purchase

It's been over a week since I splurged the princely sum of $14.95 to get a year of unlimited SkypeOut calls within Canada and the US via Skype. Until yesterday, I hadn't tried it yet to see how the quality of calls was doing. I'm happy to say that unlike mid-December, the call I made to my father yesterday was very clear on both ends.

Now the fact that it's been over a week shows you how little I use a phone these days. My cell phone maybe gets used 4-6 times a week. But as I've said, I'm more than happy to spend less than $1.50/month on unlimited long distance calls in North America for when I move to the big city (Toronto).

I'm still debating what else I want to add from Skype's shop, seeing as what I really want won't be available for a while: a Toronto SkypeIn phone number. But when that does become available, I'm going to be grabbing myself a Skype-certified Wi-Fi phone.

As for a cell phone, my Palm Treo 650 will probably be replaced with a Linux-based phone, if I can find one, and only if it has VoIP capability. I figure, what's the point otherwise? As for an Apple phone, I'd get one only if I didn't have to pay the ridiculous price. But it'd still be supplemental to a Linux phone.

The reason? Besides being an old-school Linux/ Unix shell programmer, it appeals to me. It has, I believe, the greatest potential for useful and semi-useful public sensor network applications, which is what I'm hoping to tinker around with once I can set up a lab. Of course, if someone combines this thin, rollable display into a phone, I'll be buying one of them.

6 Things To Know About Skype VoIP

[newbies] As mentioned the other day, I finally got myself SkypeOut - at least the North American Skype promo plan - for US$14.95 for a full year of unlimited calling. Now that it's February, though, the price is $29.95. I figure, why pay Vonage or someone else $29.95/mth or more when I can get what I need (for now) for less than $1.50 per month.

If you're new to Skype but thinking of getting it to make Internet phone calls, here are a few things to know:

1. You need a computer. Well, there are some hardware solutions that get around that (though I don't know enough to comment), but you at least need a cable connection. That's true of most VoIP services except those that are bridged.
2. Quality of calls varies. Skype QoS (Quality of Service) relies on several factors:
   
   1. Type of call. I.e., whether the call is pc-to-pc or pc-to-phone. The former usually produces better quality. PC means either a computer or a Skype phone.
   2. Available memory. If you've eatesn up a lot of RAM running other processes, shut some programs down before you make/ continue a call.
   3. Network usage. If you're on cable, your Internet connection will suffer at certain times of day. There's no way around this except to wait.
      
   4. Wi-Fi. If you're using a wireless connection, you could suffer additional call quality degradation.
3. Loads of Extras. Skype has an open developer API, so there are a growing number of plugins and addons. Some of them are frivolous and some are truly useful. So you could write your own.
4. Business over Skype. Not Skype for business, but Extras that let you conduct calls for pay, with payment made via PayPal accounts. Example Extras are Bitwine and Jyve. Though if you buy the N. American promo package, there's a note saying you shouldn't be using it for business. Hmm. That means they're planning more business services.
5. Turn it off. If you aren't using Skype, you're best off shutting the program down completely. Note that when you close the client, it minimizes in your toolbar. At least on PCs. I don't have a Mac yet to test that.
6. Bans or blocks. Some countries, companies, and universities ban Skype both because of their closed protocol and their network architecture model. So you may not be able to get or use Skype.

By the way, you can learn a lot more about Skype from VoIP News' Hacking Skype feature, which has a list of interesting plugins as well as tricks for making Skype do more for you.

I Got The SkypeOut

Skype can be confusing in their operations. It's possible that I was too busy to note any message on their end, but after I splurged and spent the princely sum of $14.95 for their promo (unlimited SkypeOut to Canada and the US for one year), my credits only showed a few dollars. I emailed support, and after 3 days (to be fair, they say 24-72 hrs), they clarified that the $14.95 transaction shows as a "delivered" on the final web page after purchase, as well as in a confirmation email.

I guess that makes sense, as the SkypeOut credit displayed in the Skype client applies to International calls. Now that that's cleared up, I'm going to starting testing call forwarding and maybe even some presence options from other companies. I'd like to have a SkypeIn phone number, but there's none for Toronto and area just yet, so I'm contemplating getting a New York City number to use with something like Ether. I can pair that up with SkyNET Tel's toll-free number.

Unfortunately, Even Skype Can't Get PayPal Payments Right

If you don't already know, the online payments processor PayPal is owned by eBay, who also owns the Skype VoIP soft client and service. I finally convinced myself that the N. American Skype promo, which is only US$14.95 for a full year of unlimited calling, is worth buying. Even though I won't use it much until after I move to Toronto later this year, the $14.95 deal ends in a few days and increases to $29.95 after Jan 31st.

So, with PayPal being a sister company, you'd think Skype could get the payment process simplified. I just went through the process, and clicked on the "pre-approved" checkbox (for simplifying later Skype purchases), online to find that instead of taking money out of my PayPal account, the transaction wanted me to add a credit card. I don't use them, plain and simple. So that means I had to start the whole process over, but without the preapproved setting. Which means that if I want any additional services, I have to go through the process again.

Of course, Skype doesn't yet have SkypeIn numbers for my area (soon to be Toronto), and the promo gives me free calling within Canada and the US for a year, so the point is moot. That is, I don't need the preapproved option yet, but I will. And then again, this is a PayPal problem that I repeatedly encounter when I try to buy subscriptions or give pre-approval for something. That means, with my forgetful nature, businesses lose out on sales from me. I just wish they'd display a clear message saying that that such and such an option requires a credit card.

Internet TV: Let There Be Joost

Joost, formerly known as TVP (The Venice Project) is the new P2P (peer-to-peer) Internet TV client from the boys who founded Skype and Kazaa. I got on the private beta test list before the name change and for TOS/ NDA reasons, I haven't written much about software.

Fact is, I didn't really test the old TVP version that I installed during the weeks before Christmas 2006. My cable-based connection in Dec was horribly slow, and my wireless router seems to make slow connections worse (yeah, it's password -protected and uses WPA encryption). So long story short, I tried TVP for a few minutes here and there and never actually saw any video and could only comment on the interface. Well, not really, according to the NDA, I guess.

But now that Joost is into public beta, I figure that I can carefully write a bit about it. Well, it appears that the new version uses a lot smaller executable file size. If I'm not mistaken, TVP was 250 Mb (though I can't remember, and I've wiped the download). Joost is tiny in comparison.

My Internet connection issues must be over as well, as right now, I'm watching the making of the Red Hot Chili Peppers hilarious tribute video Dani California. With the exception of a bit of starting and stopping, I swear I'm watching TV and not Internet TV (aka IPTV). But the stopping and starting is more than likely completely due to my RAM usage being maxed out than any problems with Joost. It also helps that I have a dual processor, I think.

I'm incredibly impressed with the video quality, the simple clean interface, and the variety of content already, including some documentaries and "critical shorts". As a TV junkie since my childhood (anyone remember the TV show Herman's Head? That speaks to me.) Though there's no way I'll be watching the "channel" of the world's stupidest celebrity, Paris Hilton.

Speaking of content, Nettwerk Records, one of my all time fave labels (aside from 4AD) has a channel as well. Nettwerk has always been very forward thinking. Back when the Internet just went public, I found that big labels were very reluctant to even set up a website. I sent Nettwerk an email suggesting they create one, and they responded that they already. Stupid me. I checked it out, and I have to say I'm not surprised they're in the channel list for Joost. Though I am surprised that the David Bowie, who a few years back incorporated himself and sold futures (and even had an ISP for a while), isn't part of this. He and David Byrne are both forward thinkers that I expected here, along with, say, Laurie Anderson.

Now I could write at great length about how groundbreaking I think Joost is, but I have to stop somewhere. Let's wrap up, bad with the good:

• There's no VoIP, though there is Gmail and Jabber text chat.
• The ads are already here and can't be fast-forwarded through. But I assume they pay for the content. T-Mobile and Garnier are some of the ones I saw.
  
• When I shut down my Firefox browser, Joost seemed to grab a huge slice of the newly available RAM. Though when my browser was restarted, it when back to using only between 8-33% of RAM.
• There are loads of plugins, but most don't interest me. (Being able to text chat with others about a channel or video is a cool, web2.0 idea, but I don't have time for it.) I watch content minimize while I research or write articles, so I have to limit my "interaction" time.
   

My external TV tuner card might get less use now, but Joost isn't going to replace my regular viewing of the CSI and Law & Order franchises, not to mention some of the newer comedies, Supernatural, Smallville, and a variety of forensic shows. Will Joost have such content in the future? Who knows? But with my cable company increasing my Internet access costs and removing good channels from the basic package, I'm likely to lean towards watching more Joost. If not, I need to buy a quad core computer and multiple monitors to satisfy my video jones to watch both at the same time.

Skype: The Price is Right?

At the end of the month, the SkypeOut rates for Canada and the US are going up to US$29.95. That's not a monthly rate; it's for unlimited calling for a full year. The current promo rate is US$14.95 for the full year - less than $2/m. I'm probably going to take advantage of the special rate on the last day of January.

I don't typically make a lot of long distance calls anymore, now that I work out of the house, and since I use text chat or email for the most part. However, I'm moving back to the big city, Toronto, Canada, sometime this summer or early fall, to be able to make it to various tech conferences and possibly do some teaching.

That means that if I want to stay in touch with my parents, it'll be a lot of long distance (two different places). And that'll be from my cell phone, since I haven't had a land line in around 10 years and don't plan to. That'll add up, even for the occasional call every month. Skype's price looks more appealing now (though they still don't have SkypeIn numbers for Toronto while Gizmo does).

Even at the doubled price after Jan 31st, it could still be worth it. Skype Journal's Phil Wolff puts the Pro Skype pricing in perspective: 4.3 SkypeOut minutes per day pays back the Pro calling plan, when compared to the new per minute rates - which are higher than they were last year, with no promise of quality. (He even offers a spreadsheet if you want to see the calculations.)

And that's my main beef. The quality of my Skype calls weren't great in December. What's more, since my mother doesn't have a computer and my father doesn't want to use VoIP, for them to call me is going to be costly for them. One the one hand, it's a piddly sum for a full year of unlimited calls. On the other, both parents have complained to me of the quality of my Skype calls to them, even though we all live in the same town. The other problem, as mentioned above, is that SkypeIn doesn't support Toronto yet. It'll be expensive for my parents to call me (my brother just emails me).

That means I need some other option, possibly SkyNET-tel's 1-800 number and a Toronto VoIP number for inbound calling. Why can't there be a single computer-based VoIP solution for a city as large as Toronto (as large as Atlanta, Georgia, if I'm not mistaken). No doubt people in other cities are wondering the same thing. So is the price right or isn't it? I'm undecided.

VoIP Roundup - Thur Jan 25, 2006

TellMe: What's The 4-1-1?
TellMe, a new service for Java-enabled mobile phones, is a potential 411-killer, and voice-activated at that. See Techcrunch for details.

Skype Gross Profits Heading Upwards
Apparently in Q4 2006, Skype sold a lot of minutes: US$1.5 billion worth, compared to $1.1B in Q3. More at GigaOm.

Bring The Woize
UK-based Woize is bringing it stateside in February. All 50 states will have VoIP service and DID numbers. [via VoIP News] So the already competitve US market will have yet another contender.

I Think I Cracked My (Blue)Tooth
One flaw of Bluetooth is that it's susceptible to easy hacking. Well, that just got even easier with Bluetooth cracking tools released by a couple of German programmers. Companies apparently don't put as much emphasis on security for Bluetooth, and these cracking tools are proof-of-concept.

Communication Breakdown: 5 Fake New Year's VoIP Resolutions

VoIP/ IP comm and related companies have made some boo-boos this year, and are probably making some resolutions for the New Year. Here's what they might be resolving to do.

1. Skype. We resolve to put more thought into our business version's design, and actually let bloggers know about new versions ahead of time. Well, at least a day or two.
2. Vonage. We resolve to boost our stock's share price to at least $15 in 2007.
3. Gizmo Project. We resolve to stop being the Rodney Dangerfield of VoIP services and get some respect. And more subscribers.
4. Google. We resolve to think through our click-to-call products before releasing them.
5. Cable companies. We resolve to stop screwing subscribers with ridiculous residential VoIP rates when we're already screwing them on TV subscription rates.

Skype Call In Numbers Not In Your Country?

With the impending SkypeOut pricing for the entire world to be revealed at the end of January 2007, you'd think Skype might also try to push their SkypeIn option. SkypeIn is essentially a local phone number. If you get one of these, people can call you on your computer from landlines and mobiles (and from Skype), just as if you had a regular phone number. Well, call quality issues aside, this a very appealing idea to me and no doubt some other Skype users. Except that SkypeIn numbers are only available in about 14 countries.

I sent an email to Skype support recently, and here is part of their response:

Thank you for your dedication to Skype.

We are doing our best to add more and more SkypeIn numbers in different locations. Sometimes there are more difficulties in negotiating with corresponding authorities than we expect, so it takes time to introduce this product in certain areas.

As soon as there are new locations added there will be an announcement on our web site.

We are sincerely sorry for keeping you waiting.

That's a reasonable, polite explanation, though it would suggest that some providers, such as Gizmo Project, are better negotiators, seeing as they have CallIn/ local numbers in 28 countries.

Digging Into The Skype Protocol

Nuno at 21Talks reveals a bit about the inner workings of Skype. I've speculated before, but he confirms that Skype uses UDP (User Datagram Protocol), a connectionless protocol, instead of TCP (Transmission Control Protocol). This backs up my previous speculation as to why Skype sometimes has crappy voice quality: data packets can arrive in which order they want to. TCP, on the other hand, orders packets going in and coming out. So if there are network problems, Skype will exhibit the "warbled" voice phenomenon. This could also happen if free RAM and/or processing cycles on your computer are low, resulting low quality VoIP calls.

It might be due to the holiday season, but my cable connection has been especially horrible for over two weeks now. While I've only used Skype for VoIP during this period, I'm hazarding a guess that any VoIP service is suffering some sort of problems.

Skype Trojan Attack?

Who woulda thunk it? Skype recently suffered from a Trojan horse attack in the Chat mode, which on some computers tried to get users to download an sp.exe file. Apparently, the Yahoo Messenger IM had a Trojan virus as well.

These events show that certain types of VoIP service are susceptible to some form of attacks. Now security experts have been saying that things will be worse in 2007. This is on top of vishing attacks, which are expected to grow. Add to this the fact that e-911 is being mandated of VoIP providers in the US by the FCC. This could be yet another advantage for pure play VoIP services such as Vonage.

Expanding E-Learning With Skype Conferencing

Ask any schoolchild and you'll probably find that they enjoy learning about other cultures, other children. A teacher in South Carolina  has a project to hold videoconferences between his class and one in Peru. And not surprisingly, the kids loved it. Me, I was happy to see the moon landing or an eclipse on the "A/V monitors", as we called the the bulky video players way back when. Video conferencing would have been way cool (though impossible back then). So I'm glad to see that teachers are using technology in innovative ways, expanding the global village and simultaneously involving children in a sort of electronic living anthropological experiment.

Hopefully, other teachers will follow suit. Video conferencing has many uses, not the least of which is e-learning/ tutoring - i.e., as a teaching aid.

Skype Roundup - Tues Dec 26, 2006

Skype Journal
One of my fave VoIP blogs, Skype Journal, hasn't been been posted to in several weeks. Phil Wolff commented elsewhere on some technical problems that they are trying to sort out. But I just now looked and it appears the domain expired on the 19th. Jim, Phil, I really hope you guys get this sorted out, as it'd be a bloody shame if you lost the domain. Hopefully you didn't forget, while trying to sort out the other technical problems.

Share Your Music
A Last.fm playlist badge is one of the popular ways that bloggers let people know what music they've been listening to. Now, you can share your Last.fm playlist in Skype 3.0 with an Extra, as well as build a customizable radio for yourself. The Share Skype blog gives more detail.

Disruptive VoIP Pricing To Come
Skype has already announced disruptive SkypeOut pricing for North American users. But they've also let on that there'll be a disruptive pricing strategy for all 136 million users. That'll be revealed Jan 18th, 2007. Will this move forever set the standard for VoIP pricing around the world? We'll know in a few short weeks.

Skype For Business?
With a poor and subdued showing in Skype 3.0 For Windows - Business Edition, many of us VoIP bloggers have been wondering what it's really in store. A recent article quotes VP Mobile + Telecom Services Michael Jackson joking about no Skype trucks in the future (to configure business installations), though there may be independent Skype integrators. Also mentioned is that Skype for business functions will evolve, but that they'll be relying on an "ecosystem of third parties" in the short to medium term. Wait and see, I guess.

Skype 2.2 Smartphone + PocketPC Beta

Skype 2.2 Beta for Windows mobile devices was released recently and you can start using Skype on your smartphone/pocket PC device. Though obviously you'll need a mobile data plan, preferably unlimited.

Features
The list includes:

• More Windows Mobile and PocketPC devices supported.
• Status displays (whether your friends are busy/ available).
• Alerts on missed calls.
• Chat messages and voice messages.
• Suport for HTTP, HTTPS, HTTS/SSL and SOCKS5 proxies.

Hardware requirements
Minimum hardware configuration requirements for Skype 2.2 as per Skype's website:

• OS: Microsoft Windows Mobile Smartphone 2003, Microsoft Windows Mobile Smartphone 2003 Second Edition (SE), or Microsoft Windows Mobile 5.0Smartphone.
• Display: 240x320, 320x240.
• CPU: 195Mhz OMAP, 312Mhz Intel or 300Mhz Samsung.
• Network: Wi-Fi, 3G or EDGE.

Disk  space requirements

• 10MB disk space for installing on smartphones. After installation, 6MB is sufficient
  for running the app.
• 13MB disk space for installing on Pocket PC. After installation, 7MB of disk space is enough.

Existing problems

• The Skype forum lists some possible problems you might face with Skype for Windows Mobile 2.2.0.18.
• Quality of the calls via Voice over IP may not be great. Call quality is influenced by many factors.

Nomadic Workers + The Global Village

Andy Abramson writes about his Working Anywhere project, which, as he puts it, is about the nomadic worker. He talks about how he has to work in a virtual office because of far-flung clients and colleagues. As a former nomadic worker myself, I know exactly what Andy is talking about. At one point, I lived in one city, worked in another, sometimes visited clients in several nearby cities, then hung out in yet another city at the end of the day, where most of my friends lived, oddly enough.

To swing this nomadic behavior, at one point, I had two pagers and two cell phones. One pager and one cell phone had 1-800 toll free numbers (which was allowed at the time; no more) so that friends could call me. The second pager was for work. The second cell phone was mine but had the same area code as work. I had to replace my trouser belt a lot, what with the weight of VoIP didn't exist then, or at least not reliable. And smart phones were just popping into existence. So mobile VoIP was not even an option. And high-speed connections were hard to come by due to poor coverage in my neighborhood, so telecommuting wasn't an option back then for me, either.

Now, I work entirely from home but regularly collaborate with people in at least six time zones across the world. I've been using text mode chat for many years, and it's helps me get by now, too. For collaboration, I have several desktop sharing options including AIM Pro and the Unyte add-on for Skype. And for voice chat, I've used Skype and Google Talk, the two most common VoIP and VoIM soft clients amongst my colleagues. Without IP communication, there'd be no way for me to work entirely from home, away from the rat race, road rage and traffic jams of my previous career. Yay VoIP.

The electronic global village is enabled by IP communications. Though strangely enough, despite the growing e-learning/ e-tutoring and online education markets, there are some things that just can't be done over the Internet: attending live workshops and industry conferences. And that means that despite all this great technology, I'll be moving back to the big city within the next year for that reason.

Skype Coping Well

Skype may have had a number of management shakeups and an exodus of staff, but they not only seem to have that under control, but Version 3.0 for Windows went live (i.e., past beta) and Skype 2.2 for Windows Mobile was released, with support for 120 smartphones and Pocket PCs.

There's also been recent talk of coming support for Symbian phones, but there's been nary a peep about support PalmOS-based Palm Treos. I'm waiting patiently for St. Niklas (Zennstrom) to announce this, but somehow I think it won't be this Christmas. Ah well, real mobile VoIP will be out of reach for me for now.

Skype Management Changes: Insider News

Jaanus (not Janus Friis), who blogs at Skype, talks of the management changes and how organization charts were being drawn up and were then thrown out because of even more changes. And here's the scoop. (The employee defections aren't mentioned.) At least, it seems to be: Niklas Zennstrom, one of the founders (along with Janus Friis)

will continue to run the company according to his vision with the rest of his original core team that started Skype more than three years ago.

The eBay people brought in will stay on as advisors. It's pretty much spelled out in between the lines of contradiction. They've brought St. Niklas back in. Maybe that's why TVP (The Venice Project) didn't meet its mid-November release date? Whatever the reasons for this, it's a good thing, for who would know the product better?

Friends By Skype

Jaanus snuck in a little tidbit of information on the Share Skype blog indicating that

over half the people using Skype use it to meet someone new.

Very interesting. How do you meet people online? For me, I've mostly met new friends and acquaintances this year via interaction in the comments section of weblogs and community sites, and sometimes through PM (private messaging/ pseudo email at community sites). I have met some people via Skype for interviews, but then, I'm not actively seeking to meet people due to a busy schedule. How about you? (Though I did find four hello messages on my Verbdate profile the other day. Verbdate uses Skype click-to-call buttons to enable members to chat with each other, by opt-in.) How do you meet people online?

VoIP Roundup - Mon Dec 18/06

Design Skype Wallpaper, Win Skype Phone
The new Skype 3.0 lets you add your own wallpaper to create your own customize look. And if you come up with something that you think other Skype users may like, enter it into their wallpaper contest before Jan 13, 2007, midnight, GMT. The best 3 designs will win a US Robotics USB Internet Mini Phone. Here are some sample wallpapers.

Say No To POTS
POTS = Plain Old Telephone System. Time to show it the door.

To Approve Or Not To Approve?
Question: Why go through telecom deregulation in the 1990s to reduce unfair monopolies only to allow still giant telcos to merge in the 2000's? Answer: I wish I had one. The US Justice Dept is being accused of messing up their antitrust business analyses before the approval of two mergers.

Vodafone Gets Huge Fine
Greece's telecom regulator is fining the local Vodafone division 76M Euros for their part in a wiretapping scandal. Ouch.

New North American Skype Promos

A quick glance at the Skype website shows not only a brand new home page but a new 50% off promo for North American users. If you'll recall, N.A. Skypers can call any phone in the US and Canada for free until Dec 31st. Now, you can get one full year of unlimited calling in these two countries for only US$14.95. (Skype has also had promos in the UK, France, and other places.)

Not a bad deal, and you can use PayPal to pay. Except that my most recent conversation using Skype, which was actually to another Skyper, was of terrible quality. It may have had something to do with my running Audacity to record the conversation, but having successfully used HotRecorder and Skype on a laptop with one less processor and half the memory, I'm not so sure of that. In fact, because of this, I opted to use my mobile phone to make a long distance call today to a tech support team (not Skype) instead of worrying that sound quality would suck.

The sum of $14.95 is paltry, especially if it'll save you more than $1.25/mth in long distance. But if the quality is questionable, you have to decide on your priorities. (That said, my cable Internet connection has been terrible the last few days, so maybe it's not Skype's fault.) Though if you do opt for it, they throw in US$50 in coupons for a Motorola headset, Netgear Wi-Fi phone, and Polycom speaker phone. What I would have liked to see is, say, an unlimited calling plan for $39.95-$59.95 for one year that includes a free Skype-certified Wi-Fi phone.

A couple of notes. After Jan 31st, 2007, the plan's price goes back to US$29.95. During the first three days after signup, you can only use Skype for 7 hours per day. Seriously. Even a chatterbox like myself has never spent more than 6 hours on the phone in a single day.

Configuring A Bluetooth Headset For Desktop VoIP Software

If you already have any Bluetooth headset for your cell phone, note that it can be used for VoIP soft clients such as Skype and SightSpeed. You'll need to either have a built-in Bluetooth card on your PC/ laptop, or get a Bluetooth USB dongle. Next step, configure your VoIP soft client to change the input/ output device. Shut down any program that uses sound first, else they'll be rerouted to your headset. It's not fun listening to TV or music over a single-ear headset.

That's all you need to do, but you may need to fiddle with your soft client's sound settings to get it to work right. As for comfort level, I ditched my Logitech Mobile Express after only two or three weeks of use. It sits on top of my audio mixer, no longer used, because the earpiece chafes parts of the ridge of my inner ear, which was bruised for many days after only the first two days of using it. I found that, at most, I could wear it for about 1-1.5 hours before it became uncomfortable. The Motorola Oakley Bluetooth sunglasses are said to be more comfortable, though not only is the unit expensive, it's unlikely you want to wear your sunglasses at night, especially indoors.

Skype Blocks The Blockers

When Skype recently released its version 3.0 for Windows, it introduced a version that was harder for Skype blockers to detect it. No doubt this has caused grief in the hearts of all those sys admins in countries (and universities and corporations) who have been told to block Skype. Dal at AsteriskVoIPNews provides some technical details about how Skype achieved their cloaking, and what Skype blockers are doing as a result to detect and block the software.

Speaking of blocking, Nokia has launched their own VoIP blocker. What are they thinking? This is the company that announced IM over all their latest cell phones. Why do this then?

Skype and Bandwidth On Mobile

Did you get a shiny new EV-DO data card for your laptop or EV-DO on your PDA/ smartphone? If you're running Mobile Windows (not Palm OS), you can run Skype on your phone. If you're wondering about how much bandwidth is used up by Skype, and whether it'll eat into your EV-DO monthly data plan, Ken Camp provides a few details, gleaned from the Skype FAQ. He also discusses the quality of a call between himself and Phoneboy.

My own experience with EV-DO on my Palm Treo 650 (Palm OS) is limited to calls over VoIP bridges, as EV-DO and Palm OS don't play nice. So while I can run a few Google Talk compatible IM (Instant Messaging) clients on my Treo, I cannot run actual VoIP software. Yet. However, with my one success (I gave up after a while) on Mino Wireless, the call quality was very good.

Unyte vs AIM Pro: Desktop Sharing - I'll Show You Mine

Earlier, I mentioned Unyte, a Skype plugin that allows collaboration (desktop sharing), web conferencing, and more. I downloaded and installed Unyte and took it through a few tests. The interface is clean, and it appears easy to find everything. You can pick through your Skype contact list and decide whom you want to share with (though you need Unyte+ for more than one person). A comparison of Unyte to AIM Pro's desktop sharing is given below.

I tried it in both modes, and it's fairly similar to AIM Pro's desktop sharing features. (I ran Unyte + Skype on my desktop, and another Skype account on my laptop.) The main differences:

• Unyte's interface can be in one of 12 languages, including English. Though to be honest, I never checked for this in AIM Pro.
• Unyte has two modes: a display share only, and a controlled share between all parts. I.e., remote desktop control.
• AIM Pro will let you see the Windows start bar at the bottom of the screen. Unless I missed it, Unyte doesn't have that.
• Unyte is integrated with Skype, so you can easily determine sharing.
• AIM Pro only shares one on one; at least, I don't think you can have a conference share.
• Unyte lets you pick what to share, out of the applications already running. But if you pass control over to another person, theycan start an app by clicking on your desktop icon (remotely).
• Unyte actual shared session runs in an Internet Explorer window on the other party's computer, so they don't need Unyte. With AIM Pro, the shared session starts up in a browser (mine started in Firefox) then switches to a separate window. However, this could still be a browser window, as Firefox allows this through XUL. The documentation says that it'll work with IE, Firefox or Safari on any platform, so it must be defaulting to IE on my laptop.

These are the differences that stand out for me. A few other features are that Unyte lets you quickly click a checkbox to turn off all sharing. You can be selective of which applications you use. The other parties don't need Unyte, as noted above, but they need Skype 2.0 or later. The host can only use Windows 2000/2003 or XP.

Overall, I'm pretty impressed. I can see immediate applications of this, as I hire a few writers from across the world, and I can very quickly give them a live training session.

I haven't tried Skype 3.0 for Windows Beta, so I cannot comment on Skype's own desktop sharing features, or whether they'll affect Unyte in any way. Unyte is Skype-certified, so I'm assuming Skype isn't going to directly compete with their own partners. (More on that once I find out details.)

Unyte + Skype For Desktop Sharing

Skype's latest version 3.0 for Windows already has desktop sharing, but I haven't tried it out yet. Unyte, however, has a plugin that works with Skype - two, actually. One is free and allows desktop viewing. The other, Unyte+, costs $30+/year and allows desktop application sharing, shared control and scheduling web conferencing, etc. It has what appears to be good integration with Skype, as it lets you pick your conference participants from your Skype contact list. You can also select which applications to display/ share.

The free version only allows 1:1 viewing (that is, one person showing their desktop to one other person. Unyte+ supports 1-25 users. You can download both versions for free, though after 30 days, Unyte+ has to be upgraded to a paid version. No idea how Skype's own native support for desktop sharing (in version 3.0) will affect Unyte. It looks quite interesting, and a comparison of Unyte to AIM Pro's desktop sharing will be posted shortly.

VoIP Roundup - Fri Nov 17/06

Free Asterisk Voice Prompts Until Nov 21, 2006
Digium recently changed the deal on their Asterisk voice prompts, so Ward Mundy at Nerd Vittles has generously decided to give away a block of IVR (Interactive Voice Response) prompts, 20 words or less (hyphenated words are multiple) until Nov 21, 2006. If you don't know what voice prompts are, you probably don't need them :)

Verizon Business Conferencing
Everyone's getting into the VoIP conferencing market, and Verizon Business is the latest.

Google Maps Click-to-Call
[UPDATED]Thanks to the new click-to-call integration, you can find a business on Google Maps and then click on the displayed phone number to initiate a call to the business. Of course, you can't do this with Google Talk. You enter your phone number into an available form field on the map result, and a call is initiated. Google's service rings up the business and then you.

Show Me The Money In VoIP - The Fabled Skype ROI

Recently, I did some rough math on how long it might take eBay to recoup their US$2.6B purchase of Skype last year. My admittedly rough calcs showed about 4 years (17 quarters), not counting inflation and taxes, based on recently observed quarterly increases in gross revenues. But Russell Shaw thinks that it'll take years for the ROI to show on Skype, which is in agreement with Kevin O'Brien's Where's the return on investment. Oh ye of little faith! Didn't I just agree with Andy Abramson that eBay has too many smarts to not monetize Skype in some manner? Granted they'll need some "disruptor" type management to replace those old-school Skypers heading for the door.

Russell also says that Skype doesn't understand how business users think, in relation to the quietly released Skype 3.0 for Windows - Business version, and explains his reasoning. Jim Courtney of Skype Journal echoes this sentiment, partly because Skype did so little to promote this version. Now I have to agree with Russell there, despite reserving judgement the other day. Their software, pre-eBay, was never intended for enterprise. This new "business" version has a few concessions for enterprises, but there's a lot that's left out, such as an IP PBX, etc.

If eBay is smart, they'll buy Canadian Pika Technologies, who've married Skype to an Asterisk IP PBX. Though I don't know how the open source license would work in this case. Still, an alliance with a company as smart as Pika would do post-eBay Skype a world of good in terms of business solution potential.

Business Skype 3.0 For Windows?

Skype's gone release mad these past few days. First it was Skype 3.0 for Windows Beta, then yesterday 2.5 for Mac Beta. They also released an update for 3.0 Windows Beta, and very quietly, Skype 3.0 for Windows - Business Version. What gives? Why not announce it? Are they shy because they themselves said Skype's not meant for the enterprise? The download page does say that it's only for experienced users, because they're still working on it.

The so-called "business friendly features" include a Windows Installer (MSI), increased security, easy deployment, admin control, and multiple account management from the "Business Control Panel". And then there's the standard features. I'll have to look into these further at some point in the near future (probably after it's out of beta), but this version could go a long way towards assuaging the fears that several companies and a few universities have had about security and other issues. And since it's still free, the monetization will have to come from SkypeIn, SkypeOut, and Skype-certified Wi-Fi phones, I guess.

Now, marrying Skype with an IP PBX, such as Pika Technologies has done, makes sense.

Skype On Mobiles Redux

So apparently TalkPlus CEO Jeff Black made a call using TalkPlus from a mobile and to a Skype test user (echo123, which can't be faked - no SkypeIn number). What I'm wondering is what are the implications of that. I've had no luck running Skype on my Palm Treo 650 or any other VoIP soft client (though I can use Mino Wireless' bridge). If there's a solution, I'm not aware of it. So what if TalkPlus works on my Palm? Then why doesn't Skype? But if Talkplus doesn't work, then I'm no better or worse than now. Besides that, though, the implications of the experiment are that TalkPlus have managed to create a mobile client, without Skype components, that can talk to Skype's network. And this means that Skype could lose their revenue stream for SkypeIn numbers. TalkPlus recently received US5.5M in VC financing, so they're probably motivated to become disruptors themselves.

VoIP Roundup - Wed Nov 15/06

Skype Enterprise Features Coming?
Skype execs have hinted at upcoming enterprise and call center features. So maybe this will be how eBay finally monetizes Skype?

Speed Demons
The 100-Gigabit Ethernet (100-GbE) technology is here, being demonstrated by a number of companies and the University of California Santa Cruz. A test run sent a signal from Tampa, Florida to Houston, Texas, and back - a first for a live production network. If I understand this correctly, IP backbones will get this technology fairly soon. And as 100-GbE becomes commonplace, likely in several years time, it should mean some incredible real-time video conferencing ability, superfast downloads of movies, and live video broadcasts, to name just a few benefits.

Legal Issues Surrounding VoIP Enterprise Implementations
TechRepublic details legal issues to be aware of when planning a VoIP implementation. They have real alphabet soup of issues, some of which I've only peripherally aware of: SOX/ Sarbox (Sarbanes-Oxley Act), GLBA, HIPAA, E911.

Sony What? Mylo? What's That?

I don't get the freebie gadgets that some of the other VoIP bloggers do, so if I want to test some phone or mobile device, I have to shell out my own cash. Interested in the VoIP capabilities of the Sony Mylo, I walked into my neighborhood Sony Style store late last week and asked the two young male clerks if they were selling it. They looked at each other, then one looked back at me with a bit a of sneer and said, "Sony what? It's replacing the Clio, right?" Uh, pardon me, but you work here, not me. (This is the second gadget store in the same mall with a rude young male clerk. And business owners wonder why some customers would rather buy online.) Diatribe over.

Then again, Luca says the Mylo's not for him. Andy likes the audio and quality and the fact that it has Yahoo Messenger. It also has Skype, which interests me. But he concludes that the novelty of the Mylo wore off for him. (Though some Mylo reviewer did use the Skype file transfer over Wi-Fi because the USB cable was missing.)

So maybe those two rude young idiots saved me some money. Fact is, I stopped buying Sony products since my cassette Walkman in the 1980s. The way I look at it, if I have to shell out a few bucks myself, I think I'm going to wait to see if Apple comes up with an "iPhone". There have been rumours about Apple's VoIP plans for a while, but it's questionable whether any new iPod this year will have VoIP.

Skype Troubles? Make Room For SightSpeed

Since eBay bought Skype not so long ago, the story goes that much of the old guard management has left. The International Herald Tribute (and others) wrote about this and Andy Abramson weighed in on the goings on. His conclusion (hope I'm not misquoting) is that eBay has enough smarts to make Skype profitable, but they need someone to run the show, to be a proper disruptive force. That is, to continue being the disruptive force that Skype was before the purchase and can hopefully still be.

Well, I agree with that assessment, but the company I'm gunning for as the up and coming disruptive force is SightSpeed. Their video calling quality arguably tops Skype's. Sure, they don't have the addon architecture that Skype has recently moved up to with Skype 3.0 for Windows Beta, but maybe that's coming - assuming I haven't somehow missed something on SightSpeed's website. Otherwise, if the ability to develop addons for Sightspeed appears in the next few releases, I think that they will become the primary disruptive force in the soft VoIP niche. (I vaguely recall something that one of the support staff told me a few months back about the existence of an SDK or API or some such, but I think it's only available on a selective basis.)

All I Want For VoIPmas Is SuperSkype

Skype just released their 3.0 Beta for Windows. Wow. From 2.5 to 3.0 in only a couple of months. What's this one got that's new? Supposedly Skypecasts and Public Chats, which I thought were already part of Skype. Click-to-call from websites through Skype browser extensions (for IE and Firefox web browsers). Again, this functionality already exists for Skype through other means. A more powerful user interface: new tabbing arrangements, wall paper. Skype Extras, for playing games, sharing desktops, and a whiteboard for notes during Skype calls. (Extras aren't new, but they have been integrated more tightly with the interface.) Enterprise compatibility? This should be interesting.

But to clarify, the Skypecasts are now browsable. Search for a Skypecast then join in. The Public Chat host can moderate conversation and reject or ban users. Public chats are promotable as links in email, web pages or Skype mood messages.

What'd be really cool, though, is built-in recording, with aim to satisfy podcasters. That means searchable meta tags on recordings (a la HotRecorder). Plus the ability to post the podcast to a weblog on the all of the popular blog platforms. There is Skype Recorder v1.2, which is free and activates automatically, but it doesn't have those extra features that would be great for podcasters.

Suggestion to eBay/Skype: buy HotRecorder and hire a team to do weblog posting integration work as well. At that point, I would actually pay for the Skype soft client (provided I can use Paypal, your sister company, to do so).

So, St. Niklas (Zennstrom), all I want for Xmas is a super Skype that does all of the above. Oh yeah. And the ability to mobile Skype from my PalmOS-based Palm Treo 650 running on CDMA EV-DO cellular wireless Internet access. I'm not asking much, am I?

Recording Multi-Person Conversations For Podcasting

Nick Wilson over at Performancing.com asks about "the quickest, cheapest way to do high quality multiple stream podcasts." Meaning, in this case, recording a VoIP conference call and publishing it to a website as a podcast.

There are hosted services and even some that let you initiate a conference call from their website. For example, Gabcast offers free podcast creation and hosting, but there are some limitations. There are toll-free numbers for the US, but in other places, you might have to pay for a long-distance call.

But in my opinion, the quickest, cheapest way to pull off a multi-person podcast is, arguably, with Skype. For a free solution, a Skype conference call will work fine provided a few factors are satisfied:

1. Everyone is using Skype. I.e., not landlines or mobile phones in use.
2. You shut down any unnecessary apps on each participating computer. (For best call quality.)
3. You all have a broadband connection and are not talking during a busy period locally (late afternoon, mid evening, before midnight).

There are a few other tips for better VoIP call quality.

For recording the calls, there's HotRecorder (HotRecorder.com, US$14.95) which is even geared for podcasters. There's a search function based on the text that you attach to each recording. HotRecorder, if it's running on your PC (Windows XP, 2003, only for now), will automatically start recording when a call comes in on Skype, or you activate it. HotRecorder works on Skype conference calls as well.

For a completely free solution, use the Audacity (audacity.sourceforge.net) audio editor (with support for Cubase VST plugins) to record the call. Audacity has to be manually started, but it's easy to edit your audio track afterwards - something HotRecorder does not feature. Audacity runs on Windows, Mac OS X and GNU/Linux.

Also see VoIPcasting: recording VoIP and Podcasting.

How Do You Video VoIP?

If you're using a VoIP soft client such as Skype or SightSpeed, you probably already know that both have a video calling mode. Either party on such a call can view and/or transmit video, assuming that both have cameras. The video mode can also be one directional. So if you're not up to showing yourself on call, you don't have to, but you can still see the other party if they enable video from their end. As Peter Csathy, CEO of SightSpeed, points out, keeping video mode turned off can serve multiple purposes, including allowing you to do other work while participating in a voice call. So there are suitable times for non-video, so you don't have to worry about things such as video calling etiquette.

UAE To Lift VoIP Ban?

VoIP services have been blocked in the recent past in a number of countries in the Middle East. One of them, Jordan, recently reversed their decision and will unblock Skype in particular. The UAE (United Arab Emirates), however, have held to their ban.

Word is that this ban may be lifted by the TRA (Telecommunications Regulatory Authority). The UAE is blocking Skype and other VoIP services in some of the Emirates, including Dubai. On the other hand, other reports indicate that the TRA has claimed they are not ready to lift the ban just yet. They may be working with Etislalat and Du to license VoIP, but other services, including Skype, would probably remained blocked. That is, mostly legacy/ incumbent telecom providers would be allowed.

Seems to me like the status quo just found a way to remain the status quo - at least in small countries where the powers that be can gain something by blocking and selectively unblocking VoIP. The question is, are they doing this to gain monetarily or so that all calls can be monitored discreetly somewhere in a warehouse? Not to say that larger countries don't do they very same thing, but they don't block VoIP for the entire nation. The interesting thing, if I've understood correctly, is that a very large percentage of the UAE populace is made of foreigners (to them). So having affordable long distance rates to call friends and family is of high importance.

In short, for most people, especially fans of VoIP and VoIM clients such as Skype, AIM, MSN Messenger or Yahoo Messenger, there's no hope for their unblocking in the near future in the UAE.

[sources: Gulf News, TradeArabia, 7Days, VoIP News AU]

Need To Block Skype?

VoIP Telephony Service blog has a list of six ways to block Skype using a variety of products and methods, plus a reference from another blog about a seventh. Most of the methods detect and block P2P (Peer-to-Peer) traffic, so it wouldn't be just Skype that's being blocked, but also torrents and other related applications. It appears that part of the fear regarding Skype is that customers are not sure what Skype is doing because its streams are encrypted. (At least, that's what the VoIP Planet article that is quoted is saying. Tom Keating also has an article from last year with some more indepth info about blocking Skype.

This is sort of what I was trying to get at when when I said that Skype was ruffling feathers. I love Skype just as much as the next Skype lover (and SightSpeed and a few other apps as well). But their lack of an open standard, as well as their relative popularity, is going to ruffle feathers. Phil Wolff gave a good explanation of why there are feathers being ruffled.

Skype Employee Defections

Andy Abramson points to Om Malik's reflection about pre-eBay Skype employees that have been leaving recent - some of them highly placed. Not to be a cynic or rain on anyone's parade, but when a huge company takes over another company that wasn't as profit-driven, shakeouts are normal.

Having worked or consulted for many large companies since the early 1990s - including a large telecom- I've seen this happen over and over. There are always people who liked things the way they were and either cannot or do not want to be part of the change. There's nothing wrong with that. Doesn't anyone remember that Skype's URL used to be skype.org - a TLD often but not always associated with "no profit". At least, I don't remember the .com before eBay took over, but I could be wrong.

Now eBay paid a lot of money for Skype - what was it, US$2.6B? And eBay wants Skype to pay off. Well, I've worked in companies that had 20 employees and left after they a hundred. The atmosphere always changes. And telephony and pure Internet companies end up being quite competitive in atmosphere.

VoIP Roundup - Wed Nov 01/06

What TalkPlus Offers
Ken Camp gives an indepth explanation of why TalkPlus is important. They're the mobile VoIP company that just received over US$5M in venture capital. They offer the ability to have multiple phone numbers

You Lose Some, You Win Some
Last year in Q3, Qwest Communications bore a loss in their revenue. This year in Q3, they showed a profit. Earnings were just under US$200M. Verizon Communications also showed a Q3 profit of over 10 times that of Qwest, coming in at US$2B.

Belize: More Skype Blocking
Phil at Skype Journal reports that Belize Telecommunications in Belize (Central America) is interfering with Skype. They have not implemented a full-out block, but some users have witnessed Skype being blocked once in a while.

Anothr.com RSS Reader For Skype

If you don't know what RSS is you're not alone. Instead of giving you a discourse on it, you can go read about RSS at Wikipedia. Some people call them "web feeds" or "news feeds". If you do know RSS/ Atom web feeds, well anothr.com let's you read them from Skype.

I tried it out last week, before Jaanus mentioned it on the Skype blogs. While it functions fine, it rings you up as an incoming call whenever there's a new headline and associated story text to display. This is fine for web feeds that don't have a lot of articles posted, but it could be a disruptive for busier websites. As Jaanus points out, this method isn't for the professional blog reader, who would subscribe to multiple feeds (I read/ browse/ scan the web feeds of over 900 web sites each week or so).

By the way, Asterisk, the open source IP PBX software, has an RSS add-on that reads you one minute headlines/ summaries over Asterisk-based VoIP phone.

VoIP Roundup - Tues Oct 31/06

Skype UK Calling: Not Free After All?
Skype recently announced a promo for UK customers. Spend £10 in Skype credit before the end of 2006, and you get 6 months of free SkypeOut from and to the UK starting shortly after you sign up. Except that some customers are still being charged for their SkypeOut.

Mobile VoIP Player Gets VC Financing
TalkPlus, a holder of patent-pending VoIP technology that provides telephony services for mobile devices, just received US$5.5M in Series A venture capital from Menlo Ventures. One of their offerings is a second number of cell phones, called the TalkPlus Number, which they feel is ideal for the online dating market. [via Saunders Log]

Glofiish Smartphone: Kooky Name But Offers GPS, Wi-Fi, And Skype
Why not cover all angles? The Glofiish smart phone covers all the hot features of the mobile domain: GPS, Wi-Fi, and Skype. It's powered by Windows Mobile 5.0. [via 21Talks]

Everyday Is Hallowe'en: CrazyTalk For Skype

Today is Hallowe'en in North America, so maybe this is as good a time as any to bring up CrazyTalk for Skype, an add-on for the video-calling mode that lets you put on an animated mask. A number of VoIP bloggers, including myself, have joked about how having video-calling in SightSpeed and Skype means having to shave/ do your face, put in your teeth, or what have you.

Well CrazyTalk lets you pick up an an animated avatar, human or animal. When it's installed and you run video mode calls, your other party will see the avatar. The crazy part is that it will talk; it's lips will move in sync with whatever you say. If you don't like the choices, you can create your own using additional software that they sell.

I downloaded and tested it (Windows XP, 2000 only), and it works after a fashion. If you use an animal avatar, such as the frog prince, the cat or dog, it'll be hard to tell what someone is saying. The animated mouths don't open wide enough to shape properly. The human animations are a bit better.

In all, it's a bit of fun for when you wake up on the wrong side of the bed for video calls. And it's free. Give it some time, and maybe a few versions from now, with a few avatars created from Poser, maybe you won't be able to tell the difference between an animation and a real person. [If you decide you want to show your mug, Emily Post has her own video conferencing etiquette rules - via VoIP.com]

Skype For Business?

I missed this announcement from last week. Businesses can now get premium VoIP-based Skype conferencing services through a site called Highspeedconferencing.com. The latter licences a conference bridging service from Vapps. What it amounts to is Skype for business, something people have been wondering if Skype was ready for.

Skype themselves said, late last year, that they were not ready for a place in the enterprise. However, this service seems a step in the right direction. And the price is fair: only US$4.99/month. For that fee, you get moderated services, "hand raising" for conference participants, recording and downloading, high speed conferencing, and more. A regular speed conference call is free, as is a virtual conference room. You can also use regular phones instead of Skype for an additional fee.

[sources: PR Newswire via VoIP Watch]

Video Politicking - Reach-Out Campaigning

Gadget Trail has a list of ten ways to use VoIP that you probably didn't think about [link below]. One of the tips, #4, suggests volunteering with you fave political party, then using Skype to make free outbound calls (to landlines) to registered voters in swing states. What a briliiant way to campaign without spending loads of money. Rock the vote. Save the campaign money instead to pay for the nasty, mudslinging TV commercials. I suppose you could post them on YouTube as well.

Go one step further and use videblogging using SightSpeed (or Skype). Or hold live video interviews that anyone can join in on. Even one-on-one video campaigning could be effective, as Peter Csathy discusses [link below].

The politician that captivates the web-savvy group, and maybe even uses something like Skypecasts or video-conferencing in SightSpeed or IPTVbroadcasts, is a person whose message will get out there, and who has a chance of running for high office. But that person will also be under intense scrutiny, so the best course of action is utilizing a "permission list" to send campaign videos to, if they're precorded. Consider also using "SkypeMe" buttons on a campaign website.

Whatever you do, don't follow step #10 at Gadget Trail to connect the White House with Cuba. Unless you're at a public computer that doesn't require signup of course :)

[sources: Digital Media Update, Gadget Trail via VoIP Telephony Service]

Splish Splash I Was Skyping In Bath

I can't find the original page at the Skype site that I read, but here's another that says 75% of all UK Skype users have talked to people on the phone while in the toilet - some even in the bath, particularly women. I know someone years ago who did a radio interview (recorded, not live) while on the toilet, and his friend played it on her college radio show. But I digress.

The info is part of a survey that Skype did as part of their free Talk for Britain SkypeOut promo. This is the third region in the world where Skype is offering free calling to landlines for a limited time. The other two regions are France and North America (Canada, US only). Hong Kong also has free Skype-to-toll-free numbers only. Yahoo! had a holiday offering for East Indians on the past weekend for the Diwali festival: free calls from Yahoo Messenger IM (from North America?) to landlines in India. Russell Shaw wondered if this holiday/ promo trend would be the beginning of free VoIP calling all over the world. Jim Courtney asks if this new SkypeOut promo for the UK is a trend for SkypeOut.

I'm inclined to say yes. Skype had other promos during the summer, where people could call out from North America (Mexico excluded) to different countries (UK, Mexico, Japan) for a limited time frame each weekend during the promo. With the VoIP/ VoIM market suddenly becoming so competitive, we'll no doubt see more such promos, and maybe even some from Microsoft and AOL. Gizmo Project already allows free calling to landlines in 60 countries, provided the person you are calling is registered with them.

I know that I plan to get SkypeOut when the North American promo expires. However, they don't have local numbers in my area, and since I'm planning to move back to the big city next year, I'm still seeking the optimum VoIP service for me. Note to VoIP providers: I'm getting SkypeOut because I can pay with Paypal. I don't have/ use credit cards.

What's Going On With Skype In Jordan?

There has been some confusion lately about Skype's use in Jordan. First it was blocked for security reasons.  Then the decision was reversed. Then some blogs reported that it had been blocked again, due to an intent to protect the local economy. Apparently there's some confusion. David M. DeBartolo, a Fulbright Researcher in Jordan, interviewed the Jordanian telecom minister on Oct 17th and reported his findings in Skype Journal.

The minister, Eng. Omar A. Alkurdi, gave a response that sounds like something a typical politician would give. However, given that SJSU (San Jose State University) in California had planned to block Skype for security reasons (but backed down), it's possible. Apparently the minister is himself a Skype user. While Jordan may now have Skype again, a number of Emirates in the UAE (United Arab Emirates) is still blocking Skype, as is China, and with plans to do so in South Korea.

There seems to be a common refrain here, though. Skype's closed protocol seems to be ruffling feathers everywhere. Here's a prediction. Given a couple of years, Skype will either open up their protocol, or offer some way to make other VoIP services Skype-aware.

Mobile Skype? For Some Phones

If you have a BlackBerry or a Windows Mobile PDA/ phone, you can now use Skype on them courtesy of EQO Communications. In fact, they support more than just Skype, including the more popular IMs: AIM, ICQ, Google Talk, Jabber, MSN Mesenger, Yahoo Messenger. EQO already supports over 400 devices. See the press release for the full list.

Skype had announced last month that they were having difficulties getting Skype to work on some mobile phones, particularly Symbian, and that they were working on the technical problems. At the time I last tried EQO on my Palm Treo 650 (PalmOS, EV-DO), it didn't work for me. I'd been told a few weeks ago that Palm Treos were now supported. For technical reasons I won't get into (unrelated to EQO, I was unable to test it again at this time.)

17 VoIP + IPTV-Related Xmas Suggestions

If you are not already familiar with VoIP (Voice over Internet Protocol) or vVoIP (video and voice over IP), it's a means to voice and video calls from a computer. Most VoIP services also let you call to regular phones. VoIP is a great way to save money on long-distance calls, as PC-to-PC calling is free, as is some PC-to-phone calling. IPTV (Internet Protocol TV) refers to a variety of TV-watching services on the Internet, and loosely includes streaming video.

Here's a short-list of some things that might be nice to give as holiday gifts this year, for the VoIPr in your life. I am going purely on specifications and my knowledge, not necessarily because I've tried something (although I have tried some). These are in no particular order, and are not endorsements of any product or service. The suggestions are for both mobile and stationary VoIP calling.

1. VoIP soft phone. There are tons of choices for VoIP software, all free. Some IM (Instant Messaging) clients such as AIM Pro, Windows Live (MSN) Messenger, and Yahoo Messenger also have the ability to call out from computer to regular phones. Google Talk cannot, but if you add Talqer, you can.
2. Calling credits. SkypeOut credits for Skype, or the equivalent for SightSpeed, Gizmo Project, Hullo, etc. This lets you call from your PC/ Mac to a regular phone. Gizmo Project already offers a lot of free calling to landlines in 60 or more countries, but only if the callee is registered.
3. Call-In phone number. A "Call In" phone number for Skype, SightSpeed, Gizmo Project, Hullo, etc. With one of these, people can call you on your computer as they would your regular phone. Skype is limited in the cities that they support; SightSpeed has a bit more variety.
4. 1-800 number. SkyNET has a reasonable plan for internationally-accessible 1-800 numbers, which can be redirected to a VoIP Call-In number. If you live in an area where Skype or SightSpeed (or whatever) do not offer local phone numbers (for Call-In), you can get a SkyNet 1-800 number and redirect it to whatever Call-In number you get. SkyNet also has local numbers, but that means you have to purchase their VoIP calling plan instead of Skype's, etc.
5. Webcam. Mobile video may take a while, but desktop video calling is free and functioning, courtesy of SightSpeed and Skype. MTV's Total Request Live (TRL) even incorporates fan input via SightSpeed, right into the show. My suggestions: For a laptop, get one that clips on easily. For a desktop, get both a flat USB port and webcam with a "snake" cable, so that it's easily adjusted.
6. Microphone. You don't need an expensive one, if you are not doing podcasting. But most built-in mics on laptops are relatively low-quality. Alternately, you might want to give someone a headphone/ mic combo headset (#7) or Bluetooth headset/ earpiece (#10).
7. Speakers or headset.
8. New smartphone or PDA. Pretty much any new Nokia N or E series phones, most of which, I believe, support VoIP (properly). Some PocketPC or Windows Mobile-based devices might as well. I don't know all the specs on the RIM BlackBerry Pearl phone, but it is a cool phone. Many phones will allow "mobile VoIP" services such as EQO or Mino Wireless, etc., to function correctly. These services essentially call you back, once you activate a call, so your cost per call is only your cell minutes, plus the cost of your cellular Internet usage. Of course, if Apple actually releases the iPhone/ iSmartphone, that might be nice, too.
9. Cellular wireless data plan. Great for accessing the Internet from your mobile phone, and making mobile VoIP calls. Just make sure that an "unlimited" plan really is unlimited. Many cellular providers only allow 250 megabytes per month, and cut you off after that.
10. Mobility. Bluetooth earpiece or headset, to give your voipr some mobility around the house or office - or for hands-free operation while driving. Also nice for when it's cold out. You might want to test earpieces, as some chafe the inner part of the ear. A headset is another option, or the Motorola Bluetooth hat, or the Motorola/ Oakley Bluetooth sunglasses. But Bluetooth devices are not only more expensive than regular wired headsets, they eat power for lunch. And mobile phones operating in "find Bluetooth devices" mode will also need to be recharged more frequently. A new Nokia wireless protocol called Wibree may change that in the very near future.
11. Mobility, part 2. Wi-Fi VoIP phone - maybe even a Skype-certified one. That, or maybe a dual-mode Wi-Fi/ cellular phone. These are going to be hot, with all the municipal Wi-Fi projects going on all over the world.
12. Wireless router. If you want to be walking around the house while VoIPing, one way is to use a Wi-Fi phone. Depending on the type, you will probably need a wireless router attached to your broadband Internet connection. Most large office supply or consumer electronics stores have these.
13. VoIP call recorder. You may want to record VoIP calls for posterity, business reasons, or even interviewing or podcasting. HotRecorder is my fave, but there are lots of others. HotRecorder activates itself when a Skype call comes in - and it's supposed to work with other VoIP soft phones. It's only about US$15, but if your budget is running a bit thin, there's the free audio editor Audacity, which has to be manually activated, but works fine.
14. Business VoIP. An iBlue IP PBX, made with a Mac Mini. Great for that Mac-lover who also has a small business and wants to use IP telephony for communications. Or for a larger business (including call centers), there's Pika Technologies' bridge over troubled VoIP. It marries the Skype interface with Asterisk IP PBX.
15. VoIP knowledge. A copy of Ted Wallingford's VoIP Hacks, where he'll teach you to make your own iBlue with a Mac Mini and Asterisk software.
16. Cinema screen. For all the good little boy and girl voiprs, if they've been extra special this year, get'em a 50" Apple display, to watch both IPTV (Internet Protocol TV) and video calls via Skype or SightSpeed, at the same time as the do other stuff on the screen.
17. Plug'n'play VoIP adapter. Know someone who can benefit from inexpensive VoIP calls but does not like/ have/ want a computer? I know a few people like that. For them, you can get plug-and-play adapter/ router that (usually) configures itself once you plug in a broadband Internet connection, your regular phone line, and your regular phone. Of course, if you don't have a computer, why would you have broadband Internet? Well, if you have cable TV, for a bit more money each month, you can have broadband, and all on one bill. Your cable company will try to sell you their "digital phone" plan, but they usually charge a lot more. You'll have to decide.

Happy voiping.

VoIP Roundup - Wed Oct 25/06

Lessons In Mobility: Airline Wi-Fi Guide
On The Beach has a fairly comprehensive guide to Wi-Fi/ Internet access on airines, right down to actually listing airlines and the flight numbers. Not all access is free, but they've listed costs as well. If you're travelling, this should be a great resource. I'm assuming you should be able to use most Wi-Fi phones via these services, unless there's some sort of blocking. To accompany the airline guide, here's a bit about saving on hotel phone bills using complimentary Internet access.

(Sort of) Free Skype-to-Phone Calls In The UK
Live in the UK? Want free calls? Sort of. Buy £10 of Skype credit before the end of this year and you can call from your PC to a UK landline phone for the next six months. Not quite as free as the free SkypeOut calling in Canada and the US (until the end of this year), but reasonable. I suspect that a similar offer might be on the table for North Americans after Dec 31st. [Skype via The VoIP Weblog]

Can Gizmo Project Take On Skype?
Rich Tehrani talks briefly about Gizmo Project as a possible contender to Skype. Gizmo is SIP-based, an open standard. So any other SIP-based soft phone can communicate with it. Gizmo currently offers free calling to landline phones for around 60 countries, provided the person you are calling is registered with Gizmo Project. I wrote briefly about Gizmo Project vs Skype, a while back.

It's Beginning To Look A Lot Like VoIPmas

Check out the "handheld holy grail" feature list of Zack's at the VoIP Service blog, in response to my post asking for your ultimate media gadget's feature list (which in turn was in response to an ABC news article). A very thorough list (but VoIP was so far down it).

Hmm. Santa is going to be busy this year with the big kids. I wonder if he uses Skype or SightSpeed? Or do you figure Gizmo Project? Think anyone has registered "santaclaus" on any of these? That'd be something, wouldn't it? If Peter Csathy put on a jolly suit and answered big kids' video calls on SightSpeed? Well, Santa, I want SightSpeed to run on my Palm Treo, even if I can't do video calling. (I'm sure that if SightSpeed ever sells, he'll be going ho, ho, ho because he'll be rolling in the dough, dough, dough.)

How Long For Skype To Pay Off?

So Skype grew in users by about 23 million in Q3 2006, over Q2. And they earned their parent company US$50M in that period, at a 13% increase over Q2. Now, assuming a linear increase from now on, it'll only take another 40+ quarters to earn back the US$2.6B or so that eBay paid for Skype. That's ten-plus years. On the other hand, if they continue to increase in revenue each quarter by 13%, it'll only take about 17 quarters (just over four years), not factoring inflation, interest, etc.

There may be more MSN Messenger users that Skype users, but I think it'll take a little less than four years for Skype to at least break even, despite any problems such as lawsuits. VoIP use in general will likely accelerate rapidly over the next few years. It's obvious from the fact that the US now has more mobile phone lines than landlines that the convenience of mobility is important to consumers. Wi-Fi and dual-mode Wi-Fi cellular phone use is expected to increase, and with that will come an increase in mobile VoIP use. Skype admitted recently that some mobile handsets are problematic for Skype, but when that problem is resolved, Skype will probably have a surge in use from mobile users.

VoIP + IPTV: CEO Bloggers To Read

The blogosphere supposedly has 50 or 60 million weblogs, even though 80-90% of them are probably zomblogs, abandoned by their creators like Frankenstein's monster. Of what's left, there's the A-listers, B-listers, and those inbetween. My experiience is that the Bs and inbetweeners are the interesting ones, primarily because of their unique commentary, not because they are covering fresh topics. In the blogosphere, there are no fresh topics. Well, that's not true. I'm finding the IPTV to be one of the few niche topics that hasn't been done to death yet. VoIP ranks up there, too, but probably not for long.

There's also another type of blog that is increasingly popping up: the CEO blog, or something of that sort, where an important executive-type person at an important company blogs their thoughts, usually on their industry. Two such blogs are those by Peter Csathy, CEO of SightSpeed, and Janus Friis, billionaire co-founder of Skype and Kazaa. (Prediction: Peter will be a billionaire in a few years, too.)

Both of them are blogging about VoIP (voice and video) and various aspects of IPTV, two.point.five niches of IP (Internet Protocol) communications that are already (becoming) hot topics. Peter talks about SightSpeed TV, and Janus about The Venice Project (TVP). So if you want the lowdown on VoIP and IPTV goings on, these are two blogs you should keep an eye on, as they are heralds of some very cool IP-based software and services to come.

VoIP Roundup - Fri Oct 20, 2006

Will They Won't They? AT&T BellSouth Decision
Last week, the US DoJ (Dept of Justice) voted favorably on a merger announcement between AT&T and BellSouth. But the FCC wasn't so happy about it, especially because there were no conditions imposed by the DoJ. Will they won't they approve? Although I hope not, I think they will, with some conditions. What do you think? Anyone remember deregulation?

Skype Gearlog
Skype now has a weblog dedicated to all manner of cool hardware and accessories for Skype, including phones, cables, headsets, mice phones, keyboard/ phone combos, and loads more. And holiday season is just around the corner.

Verizon May Spin Off Telephone Directory Division
With AOL trimming the fat and selling off several of their European divisions, they must have started a slimming trend. Now Verizon is considering spinning off their telephone directories division. They don't want to sell due to tax reasons, but a spin-off may help with their debts. I'm guessing that more telecoms are feeling the pinch due to VoIP. Though those with cable divisions may see an increase in business, what with all the triple-play and other bundled services they're now offering.

Enterprise: Ways To Marry Skype With IP PBXes

Not too long ago, Pika Technologies announced their bridging solution for Skype and Asterisk, perfect for enterprise use. And there's also VoSKY's solution which combines Skype and an IP PBX, aimed at SMBs. They even have a VoSKY Skype Call Center. And I won't pretend to know exactly what this does, but last week, Instant Solutions released their ChanSkype Skype channel driver for Skype. But from what I gather at O'Reily Emerging Telephony and other sites, it seems like you can use it to run Skype clients off of an Asterisk IP PBX. They tested it off of a Dual Xeon 3.0 Ghz with 6 Gb of memory. Hmmm. Wonder if it might also function as part of a Mac Mini IP PBX, since both Skype and Asterisk can run on one.

Skype For Business VoIP?

The jury is still out on this one, as far as I'm concerned, but things are looking up. Skype generally has high call quality, and even polls users after a pc-to-phone call. Then there's Pika Technologies VoIP bridging solution for Skype clients and the Asterisk IP PBX, which holds great potential for business use: inexpensive calls in a great interface, coupled with a great SIP-based IP PBX. Then there's the customer testimonials. According to Jerald Downs, owner of a US-based fruit company

In the past all my business was done by e-mail. Now I use Skype a lot to keep in touch with my growers -- it increases the lucidity and trust between us and it's clearer than any landline.

Well said. Successful business relationships rely a great deal on human interaction. VoIP offers an interaction that supplements face-to-face meetings. And I know from personal experience that high-quality calls seem to engender more trust than when you have to put up with rattle and hum, crackle and pop.

So any VoIP solution that can satisfy the above conditions for business use has an advantage over all others.

[sources: ZD Net Australia]

VoIP As A Teaching Aid

VoIP is increasingly being used in a number of ways that traditional telephony never could. One such way is in online tutoring. Using either a VoIP or VoIM soft client, you have access to a host of free (or inexpensive) functionality ideal for remote teaching: text chat, voice chat, file sharing, video calling, conferencing. Some soft clients, such as AIM Pro, also have the ability to do desktop application sharing. There are even a number of options for collecting payment for your time: Ether or Skype + Jyve.

If you plan to tutor online, using VoIP or VoIM software is an ideal way to supplement the learning experience. See more details at 8 reasons to use VoIP and VoIM in teaching.

Check Your Skype Credits

Garret Smith asks is Skype stealing your money? Seems another writer, Phil Bowermaster, discovered something in the fine print of Skype's service policy that says Skype credits expire six months from the date of purchase.

This isn't a surprise to me, but it's not exclusive to Skype. several other VoIP soft phone-based services do the same thing. I'm sure I've read it in the service policy of at least three of the dozen or so soft phones I've download. But as I haven't bought any credits from anyone yet, it hasn't concerned me. (Maybe it subsidizes the promos like free French SkypeOut or North American freebies?)

While I don't have to like this clause, it's no different than mobile minutes that don't roll over to the next month or phone cards that expire their credits 30-60 days. In the case of a phone card, however, I can at least give it to a friend. I'm not sure if that is so with VoIP call-out credits. My guess is that this policy is instated so that if you use a lot of credits then have a dry spell, you'll consider getting an unlimited plan next time. Subscriptions are often far more important to a company, even if it means losing a few dollars of revenue. It's the predictability factor.

Sightspeed: SMBs and Video Conferencing

Back when I was working on a Master's degree, one class I was in was part of a trial with another nearby university. The course was being jointly taught by two professors, one in each town. The room my class was in was a small amphitheatre with a large screen usually obscured by the overhead projector's screen. The other university had a similar setup. Occasionally, our lecturer would turn on the transmission and we'd see the other professor, who would conduct the rest of the lecture - or vice versa with our professor. This only happened a few times during the semester, and the transmission was over a satellite link. It was video-conferencing of a sort, but very expensive, if I recall.

This was back around 1993-4. I know the room is still there, although I don't know if they still use the satellite link. The campus had access to the "web" back then, which consisted only of email, ftp, gopher, archie, newsgroups, etc., access. The full Internet was only a few months away. Today, there is Wi-Fi across parts of the campus, accessible if you have a student or alumni account. But video-conferencing is not only a lot more accessible these days but far less expensive. Anyone with an internet connection and a video-calling soft phone like Sightspeed can have a video conference.

In fact, several SMBs (small and medium businesses) in the United States are using video-calling functionality. A small teacher certification business in Texas uses Sightspeed's video-conferencing feature to communicate with their students. The founder of a consulting firm also uses Sightspeed to communicate with both clients and colleagues (in another office). Yet another company uses Skype and the Festoon add-on, which bridges both video and voice calls between Skype and Google Talk.

VoIP itself can save a small business. Video conferencing can save a business even more, coupled with the ability to share clickable URLs, documents and desktop applications, the need to travel even locally between offices can be reduced significantly. This not only saves money but valuable time.

VoIP Roundup - Wed Oct 04/ 06

GoTalk: Free Happy Hour VoIP Calls
GoTalk is offering new customers free calling to landlines and cell phones during the 6-7 pm slot, provided you sign up for a year. A free plug'n'play adapter is included in the package. [via The VoIP Weblog]

VoIPing For Profit: Skype Moodmessage
Skype has a plugin known as Mood-o-Matic, which displays clickable mood messages. A guest blogger, Hans Blaauw, at Skype Journal is suggesting this as a vehicle for unobtrusive advertising, as a way for Skypers to earn some VoIP calling credits. This might be more palatable to some people than Globe7's plan to have people watch video ads to gain VoIP credits.

IP Telephony Changes Canadian Telecom Market
The Canadian telecom industry is undergoing changes due to new technologies such as VoIP, which allows non-traditional providers into the market. And that of course is a good thing, resulting not only in more choices for consumers but lower prices. The Canadian telecommuncations market, watched over by the CRTC (Canadian Radio-television and Telecommunications Commission), also underwent deregulation just like the American market did, and that's what has paved the way for these changes. [via Teleclick]

Lights, Camera, Sightspeed

MTV is looking for VJs for their Total Request live show, which often features Sightspeed-driven videos by fans. Sightspeed is arguably the best video-calling VoIP soft phone available. Andy Abramson talks about the MTV casting call and some of the positive aspects of this development, including a new type of social interaction enabled by VoIP.

Earlier this year, Skype promoted a special contest for fans of alt-rock band Coldplay. The two young women who won got to Skype with members of the band for several minutes. Now consider the Japanese TV broadcasting via Skype. So there is great potential for celebrities to connect with fans via IPTV over VoIP IMs, either live or recorded. And with video interaction through Sightspeed, Skype or similar soft phones, citizen video could become the source of unique TV or IPTV content, such as 11 Cameras (which is supposedly a view of the lives of several people via 11 video or webcams viewed through instant messengers).

Skype From Mobile: SoonR - Take 2

Song Huang from SoonR responded in detail to my original post about Sooner, as well as a post about soft VoIP for mobile devices. SoonR is an application that lets you not only make Skype calls from your mobile phone or PDA, but it also lets you view your desktop applications. Apparently it can render all kinds of information on your phone including Powerpoint slides, AutoCad and Illustrator drawings, and PDF documents.

Except that I couldn't get it to work, other than being able to view my desktop's folders. I couldn't get a simple text file, nor could I use the Skype feature to phone a friend. Actually, I could, but when SoonR called my cell, I was still on data mode and it went to voicemail. So the friend I was trying to call heard my voice mail instead of me.

According to Song's response to my problems with SoonR on my Palm Treo 650, it appears that I missed a few details. Treos are problematic, especially on EV-DO networks. (At least, I think that's the issue. Palm devices using Microsoft Pocket PC don't have the problem.) SoonR allows you to set a delay so that you can switch from data over to phone mode. I missed that. But then, I missed that setting for a few apps. Delays are how Mino Wireless and EQO Mobile both get around the Treo data network problem. (Though at least Mino's is automatic, and EQO might be as well.) So if you are having similar problems with SoonR on Palm OS-based smartphones/ PDAs, try configuring the delay setting.

Now I guess I have to add SoonR to the growing list of VoIP/ voice apps that I have to try or re-try. But assuming that it will work for me now, with all the features it has, it's an incredibly cool application. At least in theory. While it'd be very nice to have access to apps like Outlook, Powerpoint, Illustrator, and PDF, it's like I said about Cognos announcement about running their business intelligence software on Blackberry devices. Basically, the app may be cool, but all of them suffer from the fact that mobile devices typically have such small viewing screens.

What I'd like to see - although I am a geek - is a HUD (heads-up display) that I can connect to my PDA, and a simple interface - possibly a wired glove (maybe even RFID) to actually interact with the application as simply as possible. This is about the only way I'd care about running complex apps or viewing complex data on the go. (That and a better cellular data plan.) Even my relatively large Palm Treo 650 screen won't cut it for me.

Skype Ubiquitous On Mobile Phones? Not Just Yet

So it's not just me. According to a CRN article, Skype on mobile phones and PDAs has some technical hurdles to cover before it'll function correctly. Skype CEO and co-founder Niklas Zennstrom specifically mentioned Symbian phones being more difficult than expected. PocketPC-based phones and PDAs do have Skype, but a lot of other mobile communication devices do not. Or when there is a Skype-related mobile solution, such as SoonR, there are still technical glitches, depending on your phone. So I can almost sympathize with Zennstrom.

In fact, Skype isn't really the only VoIP service having this problem of achieving ubiquity on mobile devices. I've had little luck getting anything to work on Palm Treo 650, a very specific phone. Mino Wireless works, and Chris from EQO says that EQO Mobile should work, too. (I'll try it this weekend.) But as for actual mobile Skype, well Niklas Zennstrom says that have nothing to offer yet and no timetable besides.

Too bad. I guess I'll be waiting with bated breath, and keep my outrageously expensive cellular wireless data network plan going in anticipation. Wonder how many additional active users Skype'll gain when they do go mobile? Maybe Skype needs to start acquiring a few companies with some of that US$2.6B they got from eBay last year. In the meantime, though, Skype-specific Wi-Fi and dual-mode phones do seem to work, so you might want to consider one of those for a bit of mobility.

Skype File Transfer: Unusal Uses

Have a Skype-certified mobile device but no appropriate USB cable handy? You might be able to transfer files to the device using Skype's file transfer feature. Skype Blogs has a post about a reviewer who managed to transfer music files to a Sony Mylo media player and wireless Skype VoIP phone via file transfer. (Sony didn't send him an USB cable.)

You can also use this feature to transfer files between two of your own computers. Really, that's no different than if you were just sharing files with someone else. I work daily on both my laptop and desktop computers for overlapping purposes and have two different Skype accounts, and two different Google Talk and GMail accounts. (Google Talk recently got the file transfer feature.)

I suppose I could just as well use either of my wired or wireless networks and Windows Explorer for a file transfer, but this is easier because I don't have to expose my directories to sharing, and then unshare them each time. My home network stays secure. BTW, here's a link if you want a quick overview of various Skype features.

GTalk2VoIP: Combining Google Talk And MSN Messenger

Not so long ago, I was lamenting that Google Talk didn't have true VoIP (until Talqer), and despite being based on an open VoIP standard, it could not communicate with more popular IM (Instant Messaging) clients such as MSN Messenger (now called Windows Live Messenger), Yahoo Messenger, or Skype (although Festoon Unity tried). Well  now it can, at least with MSN, using GTalk2VoIP. No software to download. Just add an email address to your Google Talk contacts and fire away.

Well, I just tried GTalk2VoIP a few minutes ago, and honestly, besides the annoyingly loud background music (Guns'n'Roses?!! bleah), the whole setup involves a text menu with a list of options that you have to choose from. Most people want transparency in their phone calls, VoIP or otherwise. They don't want to have to enter a command, nor memorize the list. sorry, but it's way too complicated for wide spread use. (Look, I'm an old-school Unix/ Linux person, but I don't want a command line program for my VoIP client.)

VoIP Roundup - Thur Sep 28/06

Vonage: Charging To Cancel Accounts
Andy Abramson says Vonage charged him to cancel his account, but explains how he was able to keep his phone number (a form of phone number portability). The VoIP Girl also cancelled her Vonage account, as did Tom Keating, who recorded his call to customer service. What is this? VoIP bloggers-cancel-Vonage week? Current cancellations not withstanding, Vonage still holds the most VoIP market share.

Rebtel Picks Up $20M In VC
Rebtel Networks in Stockholm just picked up US$20M in Series A funding from Index Ventures and Benchmark Capital. [via Light Reading]

Skype And eBay Facing Civil Suit
Why a civil suit I don't know, but Skype and eBay are facing one from a company called Mangosoft Intellectual Property, a division of Mangosoft, regarding a supposed patent infringement. [via The VoIP Weblog]

Smart Telecom Lays Off 180 People
While Comcast, the US cable company leading in the cable VoIP subscriber race, is planning to hire 4000 people, UK's Smart Telecom just laid off 180 people last week. There are another 70 jobs threatened. The company is taking a loan from a co-founder and major shareholder to keep going, and needs more to upgrade its broadband infrastructure. [via The Register UK]

VoIP Roundup - Wed Sep 27/06

EverywhereNet: Might As Well Be On Mars?
Ted Wallingford posted a fascinating article, EverywhereNet is on peoples' minds, in response to Andy Abramson's discussion of something called Open Net. It's new territory for me, and I honestly don't think I can sum it up for you just yet. But if you are interested in reading about ideas for a better national and global IP infrastructure, I suggest you read them both.

Forget iPhone?
Cynthia Brumfield points to David Pogue's NY Times discussion of the rumoured Apple iPhone (not to be confused with the SIP-based iPhone from Teledex). Basically, forget about it.

Jajah Mobile Suite No Threat?
Russell Shaw weighs in with his nine reasons why Jajah Mobile Suite is no threat to cell or VoIP. Common thread: people with existing cellular or VoIP subscriptions are unlikely to switch.

SJSU OK's Skype
Phil Wolff reports at Skype Journal that, reversing an earlier decision to ban Skype on campus, SJSU (San Jose State University) has okayed the popular soft phone for now. The post also has a nice summary of the reasons why Skype would be beneficial to the university. Bravo on both counts.

VoIP Roundup - Tues Sep 26/06

Here's a quick roundup of what other VoIP/ IP media bloggers are talking about for IP communications ....

Om Malik at GigaOm says that VoIP loves small business but that maybe too many new VoIP startups are focusing on SMBs as their customers.

Cameron Sturdevant and the gang at eWeek Labs have been able to prove that VoIP can coexist with server security such as SSL (Secure Sockets Layer). Which I think means that businesses (and universities) can implement soft VoIP without the same concern for security as they might have had. Andrew Garcia, also at eWeek, offers an option for IT managers at SMBs who want to use VoIP but don't want to replace hardware: virtual PBXes. When you finish that, look at Garcia's article about some new VoIP gear from D-Link, including routers aimed at the small business market.

I have no previous knowledge of QQ is, but Phil Wolff at Skype Journal is speculating on a merger between them and Skype (as well as something eBay China being purchased by Tom.com, a Skype partner). Wolff also wonders if Skype could be like Mercora's IMRadio service, allowing you to build and broadcast your own Internet radio station. The technology's in Skype already. Hey, I've already watched Japanese TV from Skype.

Speaking of Skype, The VoIP Girl gives the lowdown on the meaning of all those shiny little icons in the Skype interface. She also throws in a list of VoIP services for Canadians, to supplement the ones Canadian tech blogger Mark Evans listed.

10 VoIP Soft Phones and Soft Services

This is a quick list of some of the soft phones and software-based services covered here in the past year. It's not a complete list, and is not an endorsement of any particular soft VoIP client. By "software-based services", I mean VoIP services such as Jajah, which does not use a soft phone but from which calls are initiated via a web page or other software. Also included are text IM clients which have VoIP features. Here they are, in alphabetical order:

1. AIM Pro.
2. Gizmo Project.
3. Google Talk.
4. Hullo.
5. Jajah.
6. Sightspeed.
7. Skype - there are a lot of articles about Skype here, so here's the actual Skype site.
8. Talqer (gives true soft VoIP features to Google Talk, or runs on its own).
9. Wengo.
10. Yahoo Messenger.

Windows Live Messenger has only been covered piecemeal here, over numerous posts, so it's not mentioned. There are other VoIP-related software that works in tandem with some of the above-mentioned softphones, but not by themselves. As such, they haven't been mentioned here.

By the way, check out the article 10 Skype Alternatives for a few more softphone options.

More Mobile VoIP Solutions: iSkoot, Fring

There are a couple of recent mobile VoIP offerings that maybe noteworthy. First, Ken Camp talks about fring, a beta offering that is PC-free. It only works for 3G phones and allows mobile-to-PC calls to Skype and Google Talk, as well as other calling combos. It can be downloaded into your handset via SMS text messaging and all calls are free. Just pay for your cellular data network. Unfortunately, as it currently only supports seven Nokia phone models, I can't test it on my Palm Treo 650. Let's hope they follow up with other mobile phone and PDA support.

The other recent offering is iSkoot, also in beta, which is referred by a lot of VoIP/ comm websites as Skype-on-mobile phones. That's because it works with Skype. Fortunately, for me anyway, this one now offers support for Treo 650 and 700p PDA phones (in addition to Motorola, Nokia, and Sony Ericsson). Unfortunately for me, while trying to register with iSkoot, I was unable to enter my full Skype id. Curses!! Foiled again. How much effort would it have been for them to add a few more characters to the form field for Skype id? I'd have to register yet another Skype id just to try iSkoot.

Well, if none of these offerings are for you, there are a number of other mobile soft VoIP options for you mobile warriors.

VoIP Roundup - Thur Sep 21/06

Thomson + Skype Offer Dual-Mode Skype Phone
Thomson and Skype are aiming a new wireless handset at Skype-lovers who want to maintain the ability to make both landline and Skype calls. The GE DECT (Digital Enhanced Cordless Technology) 6.0 wireless handset (GE Model 28300EE2) has an MSRP of US$149. The set has 120 hours of standby time, 10 hours of talk time. The system is expandable up to six handsets, which can be placed around your home. Read about the feature set at Skype blogs.

Brazil: Mobile Phone Lines Exceed Fixed Lines
The current number of mobile phone lines (12.3M) in Brazil are twice the number of fixed lines (6.5). [via Cellular-News]

Yahoo Messenger Plugins: Learn Languages
Someone's gotten smart and created an interesting way to learn a language, in this case Vietnamese. The Peacemoon plugin for Yahoo! Messenger supports four types of quizzes. While it's designed for Vietnamese, a note in the description welcomes other users.

Finally: Skype Video Calling For Macs

Mac Skype users who have been salivating over the video-calling that PC users have had for a while can wipe their drool. Skype just released Skype Mac 2.0 beta. You need "OS X v10.3.9 Panther or newer, a G4, G5, or Intel processor running at 800 Mhz or faster, 512 Mb RAM, 40 MB free disk space" and of course, an Internet connection.

Video display can be within a Skype window or full-screen. (Hey! Do PC Skype users get that?!) You also get to see yourself in a separate window, in case you have a piece of chive in your teeth or pizza sauce all over your the front of your shirt. (Unless of course, you want it that way.) Don't forget the niceties of video calling, especially in a video-conference.

Apparently, Skype also released Skype for Mac OS X 1.5 Gold, but I see nothing about it or 2.0 on the Mac OS X download page. Sightspeed, by the way, has had video-calling for Macs for quite some time.

Enterprise VoIP: Pika Combines Skype and Asterisk

Big news on the enterprise VoIP front. Pika Technologies, Inc., a Canadian call center services company, has come up with a solution that seamlessly combines Skype and Asterisk. Free plus free equals free. Get more details on Bill Campbell's post at Skype Journal, or the Pika press release.

Wow. It's amazing how flexible Skype seems to be, considering it's not open source like Asterisk. Regardless, anyone with a small business should be salivating at this news. This sounds like the perfect enterprise VoIP soution, both for SMBs (aka SMEs) and large enterprises. And here even Skype was saying last November about how it wasn't suited for enterprise use. Pika (and Asterisk) save the day. Expect to see an aftermarket of solutions and hardware for Pika.

Skype Promos: Free French SkypeOut, Free Phones For Flowers

Skype announced a couple of days ago that SkypeOut calls would be free from France to landlines in France. As with the SkypeOut offer in Canada and the US, this offer is only good until Dec 31, 2006. (However, out calls to mobile numbers are not free in France, but are in North America.) Skype also recently announced free SkypeOut calls to toll-free landlines in Taiwan. Skype calls can be made on PC, Mac, Linux computers, Pocket PC phones/ PDAs, and several new Wi-Fi and DECT phones.

On the other hand, if you don't live in France or North America - or even if you do - Fleurop-Interflora Flowers, a Skype partner, is running a free phone promo. Buy flowers, refer five friends, and if one of them buys flowers, you'll get a free Perfectel USB Skype phone.

What Now? An iPod Phone? No VoIP?

Russell Shaw provides an informative two reasons why an iPod phone may not make a dent in the market. Question is, is there a market for it? I'd originally had no intention to get myself an iPod. However, my father recently opened up a bank account under certain conditions and received an iPod Nano for it. He gifted it to me, not having much use for it. While I don't generally listen to it during the day, I actually go to bed listening to it. And I'm addicted enough that I'm contemplating getting a widescreen video iPod, rumoured to be out soon. (I'm a TV/ film junkie, to the point of actually writing about it.) But an iPod phone?

Not sure I care. I have my beautiful Palm Treo 650, which can also display video content. Except that uploading content to it seems a chore compared with the ease with which iTunes lets me transfer audio to my iPod. (I used iTunes long before I got that iPod.) What's more, I can do mobile VoIP on my Treo (albeit with great effort to finally find some functioning solutions). Will an iPod phone be able to do that? Why would I change from the device that I already have (except for its bulk, I love my Treo).

Then there's the question of which cellular providers will offer coverage for the device. Apple has never been particularly fond of third parties taking any of their profit margin. It's the reason why there's a huge PC market and aftermarket and not so much of one for Macs. Apple has been very innovative, but they've also made mistakes. And while Russell doesn't go so far as to say that, I think that Apple would be making a mistake trying for this market. A better offering would be Wi-Fi Skype VoIP iPod (VoIPod) with video-calling, which could potentially wipe up the market with competitors' bottoms.

Bundled VoIP Packages

A quick browse through the website of a relatively large computer store chain in the US and Canada shows that for back-to-school specials, they are offering a free USB Skype phone (worth $99), with $1200 in long-distance savings, when you buy a new desktop computer.

Oddly, the phone doesn't come with Skype preloaded. But hey, if it works and the phone offers some quality, how much trouble is it to download Skype? In fact, the phone might just be a peripheral that runs Skype software already installed on your computer.

Though the phone looks familiar, I can't tell from the website photo which brand it is. Though it's not mouse-shaped and it's not a wireless Skype phone. But if other computer manufacturers and stores are wise, consumers should start seeing more of these sorts of VoIP bundles.

VoIP Roundup - Fri Sep 01/06

Panasonic Skype Wi-Fi Phone Planned
Panasonic announced today that they plan to develop a series of Wi-Fi Skype-certified phones that can be used at home, office, or pretty much anywhere that there's Wi-Fi access to the Internet. [via About Skype] Panasonic joins a rapidly growing list of vendors, such as Netgear,  D-Link, and Philips, who are jumping on the Skype phone and adaptor bandwagon.

IRS Refund On Long Distance Phone Tax
The IRS will be refunding American citizens amounts between US$30-60 on 2006 taxes. This is a reimbursement for a 3% federal tax on long-distance service which has now been removed after US courts refused an appeal. Total refunds will be around $10B. [via eWeek] It's hard to tell from the eWeek article, but I this might be different than the USF (Universal Service Fund), which telecoms and other firms were required to charge customers for, then pass on to the government.

Why You Need A Cordless VoIP Phone
Russell Shaw reports that according to a US Census Bureau study from May, American homes are getting larger. So VoIP providers need to offer cordless phones to make customers happy. Read his post at ZDNet for more details.

Skype 2.6 Beta For Windows
Skype now has 2.6 Beta for Windows available, with a couple of new features: Skypecast listings, contact's birthday reminders, and clickable mood messages. [via Skype Blogs]

Google Talk Hearts Skype?

Google's Talkabout weblog, the official blog for the Google Talk IM client, has a posting about the announcement between Google and eBay (Skype's parent company). There's also a little blurb about exploring "interoperability between Google Talk and Skype". Yeah! Google Talk is based on an open standard, whereas Skype is not. This should get very interesting, with all these IM client pairings.

Russell Shaw at ZDNet, however, thinks Google's not interested in the full potential of Internet telephony for Google Talk. His reasoning, from reading between the lines of the deal, is that Google is saying that they have "relatively modest plans for Google Talk." I have to agree that Google has yet to make Talk a full-blown VoIP IM client. It can't even call out to regular phones without the help of software like Vozin Communication's Talqer. As for whether Russell's right, we'll have to see. Though I think that the higher ups at Google often use the "mystical warrior" philosophy to mislead us on their real intentions :)

VoIPcasting: Recording VoIP and Podcasting

If you're running Skype and want to record your conversations, VoIP-Sol lists 15 voip recording applications (10 for Windows, 5 for Mac) specifically for Skype. If you are using something other than Skype, there's our posts: Recording Your VoIP Calls and How To Record VoIP Calls - Reader Q+A.

What you do with your recordings is your business, but if you plan to podcast them online and have or plan to use Asterisk IP PBX, here's Nerd Vittles' lowdown for a podcast studio using your phone and a free podcast hosting service called Gabcast. Gabcast lets you record podcasts from a phone or using VoIP.

You can actually use Gabcast from any soft VoIP client that has pc2phone capabilities, so you don't really need a sophisticated setup to make a podcast. I used a cheap microphone and Skype. As long as you follow the rules for good VoIP quality, your VoIPcasts will be of reasonably good quality as well. If you're opting for a very professional production, there are all kinds of audio equipment you could look at, and which I might discuss in the future, if readers are interested.

Can't Get Skype? HeyU Will Help

As previously reported, a number of countries, including China, Oman, UAE, ban the use of Skype and sometimes VoIP altogether. (Some cellular networks in North America ban the use of VoIP by customers.) People in Dubai have reportedly gone to great lengths to get around the Internet blocks, but apparently HeyU has figured a way around. And for $25, they'll let you download a copy from an unblocked link. Keep in mind that your country might consider this illegal. If that's true, it's probably unlikely that you're reading this post anyway. They have a couple of other options, including a secure site and a SkypeOut voucher. See ITP Technology or VoIP Weblog for more details.

Personally, despite my belief in freedom of speech, I think that this is a really bad idea. There's no evidence either way whether or not HeyU is legit. I'm not saying that they are not, but for your computer's safety, I wouldn't recommend downloading VoIP software except from the original vendor. If you cannot get it that way, and you are willing to circumvent your country's law, at least get your software from a reliable source, such as a friend or family member, who in turn goes to the proper source. This way, you're less likely to be installing spyware-ridden software.

Happy 3rd Birthday, Skype! And Google Does A Deal With eBay

Today is Skype's birthday, and the team had a nice gift in that over seven million users were logged on simultaneously, for the first time ever. They figure that this will become a common occurrence, and I'd have to agree. Especially considering the multi-year agreement that Google signed with eBay, Skype's parent company. Part of the agreement involves interoperability between Google Talk and Skype (yeah!), as well as "click-to-call" functionality. This means that commerce sites will be able to display a "call" button that, when clicked by a site visitor, will initiate a call to an eBay merchant or Google advertiser, using eitherSkype or Google Talk.

I think that this an incredible development. Especially considering that earlier this year, Google released their Google Checkout competitor to Paypal, which is also owned by eBay. The latter had blacklisted Google Checkout very recently. It's a good thing for consumers that they decided to kiss and make up, though Wall Street seems to be confused about the outcome. Watch for a new Google toolbar, out soon.

Google Talk has been lagging behind a lot of the VoIP capability that Skype has, but soft clients like Talqer has filled in some features. What makes me particularly happy, though, is that intercompability between IM clients seems to be progressing a lot more rapidly this year than I would have thought in January. (Note: Festoon's Unity software acts as a bridge to Google Talk and Skype.)

Skype Usage Helps Nab Fugitive CEO

Comverse's fugitive CEO, Jacob Alexander, who is wanted on securities fraud charges, apparently was traced to a town in Sri Lanka (island country off the south coast of India) because of a one minute Skype call to the US that he made. It's unclear whether CALEA was enforced, since soft VoIP services are not currently bound by it. But Skype does record the incoming IP address. Someone was obviously monitoring the recipient's computer. More details at VoIP News and The Register.

Comverse Technology is involved in a number of businesses and had recently purchased Netcentrex and more recently Netonomy (real-time billing and customer management).

VoSKY Marries Skype and IP PBXes

Who said Skype isn't ready for enterprise? VoSKY thinks otherwise, and to prove it, is offering an actual Skype-certified solution that lets you use Skype with a PBX. Aimed at SMBs (Small and Medium Businesses) of 10-300 employees, the device bridges between a PBX and a Windows XP computer. [IW Distribution/ VoSKy via Asterisk VoIP News]

The IW Distribution press release actually claims VoSKY's device is "the World's First Skype Solution for Business". IW is only promoting the product in the Australian and New Zealand markets, but no doubt other distributors will carry it in other parts of the world, if they aren't already. (I'll do some digging and find out.) Though I'm not surprised, since the SMB and consumer VoIP market in Australia is expected to build to 6 million by 2011.

I wish I could get my hands on hardware like this, to try out. It's likely the beginning of a series of offerings that leverage the cheap pc2pc and pc2phone calls of soft VoIP clients, like Skype and Gizmo Project, for use in even more sophisticated CRM VoIP applications. Businesses need more VoIP products like this.

Combine Jajah and Skype: Hullo VoIP Dominance

Hullo might just cause a hullabaloo, seeing as it pretty much amounts to free VoIP calling, for now, but there will be paid services later (smart move). One difference between it and Jajah is that you can call from a telephone (PSTN or mobile) or from your computer (as with Skype). With Jajah, you can only call from your phone. Hullo also lets you transfer calls, as well as allow new people to a conversation (provided you initiated the main call). Sounds pretty innovative. You can read more at Saunders.LOG.

I downloaded and installed Hullo, but only tried the pc2phone feature. First, I called my father and got his voicemail - very clear. Then I called myself on my cellphone - also very clear quality, but I'm getting weird audio cancelling, probably due to using speakers on the desktop computer and an ear plug for the mobile phone. Try it for yourself. You can make conference calls by selecting more than one profile in your contact list.

By the way, you get two phone numbers when you register: a Hullo number and a Call-in number. I tried calling the Call-In number from my cell, got a recorded message asking for my extension, but found no clear explanation of what that might be, not even in the FAQ. Then again, it's only in beta, so I fired off an email to the support team. (I also tried calling the Call-In number from Skype using SkypeOut, but this time, the call was not answered.)

But I'm overwhelmingly impressed. Skype better watch out, especially if Hullo starts getting plugins. Better get all your free calling in now, on Hullo, before they change the pricing structure.

VoiP Call Quality: Monitoring Skype Calls

Has anyone been using a recent version of Skype? When I switched to using my desktop computer more predominantly than my laptop recently, I downloaded and installed the latest version of Skype for Win XP yesterday. I've made a couple of SkypeOut calls on the desktop, but it wasn't until about the third one, earlier today, that a web browser window popped up asking me about the quality of the call. I made another call shortly afterwards and there was no survey that time. Maybe it's a random survey that Skype is conducting, what with all the writeups about call quality. I've never seen the survey before, to my recollection.

The good news is that my pc2phone calls are now incredibly improved, due to my new computer setup, which I discussed yesterday in the post VoIP Call Quality Improvement Tips. Also good news, if you've downloaded a new version of Skype, you get several free minutes of SkypeOut so that you can test the quality. Since I can take advantage of the current free SkypeOut promo in Canada and the US, it doesn't matter to me. But if you live elsewhere and have not upgraded, you might want to. I mean, free minutes are free minutes, right?

On-The-Fly Language Translation?

I've posed the idea before: how nice it would be for a VoIP data application that provides on-the-fly language translation. Well, there's already such a plugin for Skype in beta format. It's called ULRTMT - Universal Language Real-Time Message Translator. [Mathemagenic via Skype Journal]

Although before you get too excited, it's for text conversations only. Surprisingly though, it handles a whoppingly big list of language conversions. I didn't count, but there's probably close to thirty translations, some of which don't even involve English. And the software supposedly works on both active and archived Skype text chats.

Unfortunately, as Mathemagenic indicated, it takes a bit of effort to install. Follow the instructions carefully and it actually does work. Use Internet Explorer. (I didn't try Firefox browser, because the actual translation window runs in an IE browser window. Don't forget to bookmark the link; there doesn't seem to be a trigger from within Skype.)

I tested the service with English-to-Japanese and English-to-French on archived chats. Then I ran Skype on two different profiles on two computers, with one set to French language (although this isn't necessary for languages that use the Roman alphabet).

Unlike most Skype plugins, the meat of the service runs in a browser window. [Like I mention above, the instructions mention IE Explorer, so that's what I went with.] After refreshing the translation browser window, I selected the active conversation on my desktop - the computer with the so-called English speaking user. Then I typed simple French greetings on my laptop. The translation window immediately showed both my French text and the English version. The desktop's Skype chat window, however, showed the French text as typed from the laptop's Skype session.

Verdict: Unfortunately, the Japanese translation does not use the Romaji letter set, and my knowledge of the other three Japanese letterforms has disintegrated with disuse. So I don't know how accurate the translation is. The French-to-English translation, however, is reasonably accurate, if a bit literal. I assume other translations will undergo the same problem. It's part of the reason why machine translation of a language is generally a last resort if a human translator is unavailable. Still, it's a nice start, so bravo to ZOverLord for a great effort, and to a product that just might one day be the closest thing to an IM Universal Translator. At least in text mode.

VoIP Roundup - Wed Aug 23/06 - Skype Blotter

On the off-chance that you use Skype and don't visit the Skype Blogs regularly, here's a quick roundup of some recent postings there.

More Free Skype Calls
Skype is currently allowing users to call regular toll-free numbers in certain countries, such as Taiwan, at no charge, regardless of where you are calling from. [via Skype Blogs]

Skype As Political Campaign Tool
Can Skype be used as a political tool? Shashi Tharoor, author and long-time United Nations employee, held a Skypecast last week with WABC-TV New York. Tharoor is currently the UN Undersecretary General and is a potential successor to Kofi Annan's post of UN Secretary General. [via Skype Blogs]

VoIPing For Profit
Gumtree is a classifieds ads community site aimed at the UK market. According to the Skype Blogs, over 5% of listings have a Skype button. Besides the standard listings for landlords, etc., some of them are for language tuition. Personally, I think that Skype, and similar soft VoIP clients, are ideal for this sort of use. The Skype post didn't say whether the tutors are using Jyve to accept payment for their time.

More Active Microsoft Messenger Users Than Skype Users

According to figures released by Microsoft, there are supposedly more active Microsoft Messenger users than Skype users, and more simultaneous users at peak use as well. [via Skype Journal]

While that may be true, Microsoft does have the advantage of time and brand. I question the meaning of these numbers (but not the Skype Journal article) and whether they'll hold up a couple of years from now. Are we comparing apples to oranges right now?

I use numerous IM clients, whether for text or VoIP conversations. But guess what? I use Skype more often than Messenger. If I have Messenger contacts I need to converse with, I almost always use a multi-protocol client such as Gaim or Trillian. Heck, I even use Google Talk far more often because most of the people that I actively converse with daily use it. And it's based on an open standard, which means I can use web services such as Meebo.

So I'm probably considered an active Messenger user for the once or twice a month that I use it. But I still use my Messenger account (hotmail) a great deal. So am I considered an active Messenger user? Don't know. And now that newer versions of MSN Messenger are compatible with Yahoo! Messenger 8, it doesn't matter. Because I use the latter client more often, mostly for all the cool plugin modules it has. (Getting the picture? Microsoft really missed on power users by not using a compatible protocol until now.)

Which leads me back to why Skype shouldn't worry. Even though Microsoft has more users, the Skype environment is so much further along in terms of VoIP and data application integration. Even Yahoo!'s new Messenger has modules that are mostly non-VoIP related. Skype developers all over the world have created a rich set of addons that spell the beginning of some fairly sophisticated voice data applications.

In other words, core users of each service (collective users of both Messengers compared to Skype users) have different needs. For now, Skype is much further ahead in data applications, which is what VoIP power users need, and are thus unlikely to use either Messenger client.

VoIP Call Quality Improvement Tips

I've gone over VoIP call quality issues a couple of times, including tips for improving quality. To reinforce some of those tips, here's my latest experience. I recently set up a wireless router at home, configured over my cable Internet service. Because I'm still having access problems on my laptop, I decided to start working off my desktop.

The desktop has dual processors and 1 Gb of RAM memory, and under a gigabyte of hard drive space left on C: drive. The laptop has a single processor and 512 Mb of RAM and at least 8 Gb of hard drive space on C: Both computers are running Windows XP Home edition.

I've only made two Skype calls from the desktop computer to a landline phone, but from the comment of the one person that answered, it seems that call quality is far better than similar calls from my laptop. I should point out that my current Internet connection is also faster than what I used for my earlier calls on the laptop. But even with my current wireless connection fluctuating in speed, call quality is better.

I also found that you do not need to use headphones, provided that you have a directional microphone that won't pick up the audio from your speakers. (I'm still using my $1 microphone. I'm amazed at how well it's performed so far.)

So to summarize, to maximize your VoIP call quality, use a fast computer with lots of RAM, and a fast Internet connection. If you're directly wired to the Internet via cable or DSL, that's probably better. But a wireless router configured to cable works fairly well, too. As for having a dual processor, it's not necessarily going to make a difference because not all software is designed to take advantage of it. My observation while running processor-intensive programs is that one processor will be closed to maxed out, and the other will be relatively idle. Win XP doesn't necessarily balance processor load.

VoIP Roundup - Fri Aug 18/06

Skype has released version 2.1 beta of their client for PocketPC smartphones, which will actually work on either Windows CE or Windows Mobile 5 devices. [via The VoIP Weblog]

The question of how VoIP calls get routed to their proper destination over the Internet depends on several methods, none of which are standardized. Some people think that this hinders adoption of VoIP for enterprise. So a set of protocols called ENUM (tElephone NUmber Mapping) was devised which is tied directly to domain names or IP addresses in really clever, simple way. Read more at Extreme VoIP.

I'm not the only who makes nearly all of my calls via VoIP or a cell phone. Phoneboy does so as well, but uses Gizmo Project whereas I use Skype for the free SkypeOut in Canada and the US. Although the pc2phone  call quality of Skype (and other soft clients) is pretty bad, as Phoneboy points out.

But using Gizmo does have some shortcomings, too. Go have a read (it's short) about how he got around a not being able to mute his handset during an 800 number-based conference call.

InnovAlarm VoIP-based Alarm System

It's always nice to see VoIP being used in unique new ways, and that's exactly what InnovAlarm is doing. Imagine home and security alarm systems, but which use Skype or another soft client instead of regular phone lines. The service is in pre-beta. [via Read/Write Web]

The only drawback with this application is that your computer has to be turned on. I'm wondering if there's a market for a similar solution using phone2phone with a VoIP bridge, using hardware such as Digifone's plug'n'play adapter. Phone2phone VoIP calls generally seem to have better quality.

There's obviously a perception that there is a market for InnovAlarm's method. In fact, Read/Write Web reports that the company will be getting $10 M of venture cap in Q4 2006.

VoIP Roundup - Fri Aug 11/06

The Deputy Director General for Telecomunications at the OUR (Office of Utilities Regulation) in Jamaica feels that VoIP will eventually dominate fixed phone lines. But VoIP industry players there are understating that, saying that VoIP will supplement rather than dominate fixed lines. [via Jamaica Gleaner]

I don't know exchange rates but unlimited calling there costs between 1500-2000 Jamaican dollars per month. Service initiation fees cost almost double that, one time. Sounds like a lot, but apparently, though, this is "low cost".

Daily India has an interesting perspective to the value of VoIP in the home: family ties. The article points out the cost of long-distance calls have a negative social effect: loss of family ties and resulting regret.

A rather heavy verdict, but maybe it's true for immigrants of some countries. It's not surprising that many of the reader questions on this site are basically "how can I call from/to India for free". By sheer population size, India and, to a lesser extent, China will have many ex-pats living elsewhere, say North America, than other countries. Free calls, or at least inexpensive net2phone calls, would give families a stronger bond.

I've asked the question before: when you think of VoIP, who do you think of? Skype? Vonage? Despite the reputed US$20 M/ month that Vonage spends on advertising, and their slogan "VoIP with Vonage", more people might be associating VoIP with Skype. [via Networking Pipeline]

Regardless, I'd choose Skype over Vonage any day simply because of all the extra features, such as video, the ability to plug in Jyve to get paid for my time, file sharing, etc. Although, there are people who would benefit from a basic service such as Vonage.

VoIP Roundup - Wed Aug 09/06

Jeff Pulver (Pulvermedia) and Paul Kaputska have just launched Vonosphere, a website dedicated to voice- and video-on-net news. Jeff is a very proactive person who writes letters to politicians regarding issues such as net neutrality. Congrats to both of you on the new site. [via IP Inferno]

The pricey (US$350) new Mylo from Sony, like the HyunWon Boxon, is a combo consumer electronics gadget. But it actually has VoIP, in the form of Skype. [Sony via Engadget, The VoIP Weblog]

Vonage has come up with a way to offer real e-911 access to their customers. The service ties the caller's phone number with a phsyical address. [via Xchange Mag]

Cindy Waxer of TMC Net says that VoIP job opportunities abound. So, she says, forget about become a doctor or lawyer. Apparently,  the second-fastest growing occupation is in the area of network systems and data communication analysis, right through to 2014. Job numbers will increase by 55%.

VoIP in the enterprise to date relies on WANs (Wide-Area Networks), but deployment's been a headache for some network managers. That's because VoIP is a demanding application in terms of network usage and traffic patterns. [via TMC Net] An alternative is to deploy VoIP over MPLS (Multi-Protocol Label Switching) networks.

KishKish Skype VoIP Lie Detector Test

KishKish has a new feature for Skype called SAM, which effectively functions like a lie detector. Or so they claim. Voice Stress Analysis is the principle on which lie detectors work. SAM can do this for VoIP calls recorded from Skype.

SAM was orginally just a voice answering machine for Skype. If you're away, it'll record the call and notify you with a list of messages, as well as access to the recording. Now it also detects voice levels on recorded Skype calls, to help determine if the person is potentially lying. [via Skype Blogs]

On their webpage, they have a video of President Clinton talking about the allegations levelled at him re Monica Skankinksi.. uh Lewinski. While the video is playing, a little graph shows P-Willy's voice level fluctuating, synced to his facial and hand gestures. Yet I saw no stress in Clinton's face nor heard any in his voice, despite what SAM suggests. They have a "Skype Me" button to a profile named "clintondenial". If you've downloaded and installed SAM, you can record the call and try the VSA feature yourself. (There's a 10-day free trial, the installation's simple, and SAM is very easy to use, as is the VSA feature.)

Keep in mind that lie detector tests are often disallowed in court in the US. Still, there are a few other presidents and prime ministers I'd like to VoIP and record when KishKish comes out with their real-time version of SAM.

VoIP Roundup - Tue Aug 08/06

Looking for work in the VoIP field? 2it Consulting is looking for a Pre-sales Engineer with Cisco VoIP/ IPT (IP Telephony) experience for one of their clients in the Sydney, Australia area. [via IT Wire]

Jajah has added Australia and New Zealand to its list of free-call countries that can have free phone-to-phone calls using Jajah's VoIP bridge. [via m-net]

The Philippines government has an interest in VoIP and wants to build intranets for its use. Several government agencies are said to be buying switches for installation. Once the VoIP intranets are built, the next step will be to hook into commercial telephony networks in the Philippines, but not until they offer VoIP services as well. [via Inq7] This is an interesting approach, and one I assume the VoIP-over-municipal-WiFi project in Taiwan is considering as well.

Apparently, Skype will have an official version available for MS-Windows Smartphone 2003-based mobile smartphones/ PDAs. (Note: there is already a Skype client for Windows Pocket PC-based devices.) The bonus for owners of dual-mode phones is that they'll have a choice of Skype over either Wi-Fi or 3G - a sort of DIY converged service. [via Red Herring] It'll be interesting to see how fast they'll come out with a Mobile Linux version, once Mobile Linux for PDAs actually exists.

First there were Skype-certified Wi-Fi phones, now Alpha Networks is offering Google Talk-enabled Wi-Fi phones. Google's GMail will also be supported. [via Asterisk VoIP News]

VoIP Call Quality To Landlines Really Does Suck

I've increasingly been taking advantage of Skype's free calling to landlines within Canada and the US lately. To date, I've probably made calls to six or seven people at four different phone numbers. It appears that VoIP calls made to my Internet hosting provider's support line are of the worst quality. At least on their end.

With the exception of one call, I hear the person I'm calling (on a landline) clear and crisp. But last night, while trying to resolve some domain name issues, the hosting company rep repeatedly had to tell me that she was picking up only every other word I said. The conversation ended up taking twice as long as I'd hoped. For Skype calls to other people, though, the callee stated that they thought I sounded distant or maybe in some sort of booth. Quality wasn't great, they said, but it was passable.

On the other hand, a Skype-to-Skype VoIP call with someone half-way across the world was clear as a bell, with a single audio artefact - a slight buzz for a millisecond - and a slightly reduced volume. The other party literally sounded like he was in the same room as me, hence barely a noticeable delay. The person's voice, however, did drop in volume a few times. Which might have been what had happened with my voice when I called my hosting company.

This all contradicts what I said previously about call quality, supporting Brix Networks findings. I think there are a number of factors to consider when determining what kind of VoIP quality you'll experience. There are ways to improve call quality, but if one party is using a landline and the other a computer, quality may be poor.

My observation so far is that if you want to involve VoIP, pc2pc seems to have the best call quality, provided you have a broadband Internet connection. Phone2phone with a VoIP bridge usually does as well. (I tried with Jajah, which offers free calling between registered users. However, I only called myself, with a phone in each ear, so that's not a true indicator.)

VoIP Roundup - Fri Aug 04/06 - Press

Here's a summary of some of the VoIP-related PR we've received recently.

Actiontec Electronics and Azlan have signed a distributor agreement for the Actiontec's VoSKY family of Skype-certified products. Azlan serves resellers in UK and Ireland. VoSKY products include: Chatterbox (plug'n'play USB speakerphone for Skype), Internet Phone Wizard (PSTN/ Skype multiplexer for traditional handsets), Call Center (extends Skype to mobile phones), and VoSKY Exchange (a PBX add-on that multiplexes PSTN/ Skype calls for all phones in an office).

These Actiontec products have already been out on the market for some time. I haven't seen any of them in action, but I'm salivating. Could call center really work on my frustrating Treo 650 (on a CDMA carrier, 1xEV-DO)? VoSKY Exchange could be just the thing to make SOHO/ SMB owners salivate. This information was sent to us by a PR agency, but if anyone associated with VoSKY is reading this, feel free to to send some of this stuff over for, uh, testing. Yeah, that's it. And review, of course.

VoiceOneT is now offering the VoIP-related Click4Me.Net web service. Registration is free, and registered members can talk free from any combo of phone, mobile, or IP phone. Visit Click4Me or Labs.VoiceOne. There is also Click2Me for cell phone users, which requires registration at Click4Me first, and provides a web interface.

Click4Me works similar to a service like Jajah. Unlike Jajah (as far as I'm aware), you can show your availability status. Users can also keep their phone numbers private, block specific callers, or reqire special PINs (Personal Identification Number). Apparently you can also embed the service into web pages, web ads, and emails through the use a hyperlink. The email thing sounds like a great killer app.

Festoon Unity Video + Voice Bridges Skype + Google Talk

Festoon Inc, formerly called vSkype, has relaunched with two voice-related offerings. One is Abazab, which lets you collect video comments on a website or weblog. The second, Festoon Unity, is a WoIP (video + VoIP) bridge between Skype and Google talk.

Festoon Unity runs in the background, activated by a button from either Skype or Google Talk. The callee must also have Festoon installed, as well as Skype or Google Talk. The nice thing about Festoon Unity is that it really does unify Skype and Google Talk, or so they say. I haven't convinced anyone to download it yet, but apparently you can call from Google Talk to Skype.

Hot damn! VoIP intercompatibilty. To a degree. Although there's no mention of Sightspeed or Gizmo Project, both of which are based on the open source SIP standard. But hey, it's a start, and the alliances are forming. Unity is supposed to be supporting AOL, Yahoo! Messenger, and MSN Messenger by some time this year.

On their what's new page, a number of features, both useful and frivolous. Besides intercalling between Skype and Google Talk, the new version (beta) has better lip syncing, faster video, and better audio quality. They also now support most proxy servers, including SOCKS and HTTP. And for conference calls, they've improved group audio for better conversation flow. For the kids, they have video effects collectively called EyeCandy, which basically lets you paste your face in cutouts and pretend you're someone else.

Abazab, which is Festoon's new offering, isn't VoIP, but it does let website owners and visitors communicate with voice and video comments. Festoon is very similar to Grouper [Mashable, Techcrunch], and is aimed at squarely at bloggers, particularly the social spaces of MySpace, Xanga, etc. As long as you have a website/ weblog where you can add HTML code containing a Shockwave/ Flash player, you can use Abazab.

Both Abazab and Grouper look like a whole heck of a lot of fun, and advance the cause of a read/write two-way sort of web. And Festoon Unity advances the search for the holy grail of text/ VoIP IM clients. Bravo.

VoIPing For Profit - Jyve Talking

Like Ether, Jyve is an Internet-connected voice commerce application that lets you consult via phone calls and earn money. Unlike Ether, Jyve is directly plugged into VoIP. In fact, it's an application layer over top of the Skype VoIP IM client.

Jyve's another great idea, like Ether, but they've gone a step further by creating a free searchable , structured directory of "experts" who will consult with you via Skype at a given rate. You can search for listed experts by categories and sub-categories, or by tags. (Ether has a community forum, but no consultant listings that I could see.)

If you're an expert yourself, you can signup, setup, and list yourself on their site, under a variety of categories. They create a "Click & Buy" billing account for you. You can then download Skype and Jyve buttons to post on your website. These buttons display your availability. (Jyve availability can be configured differently than Skype availability.)

Once you get a Skype call from a potential client, you generally spend a few minutes negotiating a price, then use Jyve to switch the free call to a paid call. I think that this feature alone makes Jyve a potentially better service than Ether, since the latter requires two separate numbers to pull this switch off. It's seamless in Jyve - or at least in theory. If you're unavailable for consulting, clients can leave you a voicemail or an email by clicking on the appropriate button on your Jyve listing page.

Jyve-Skype calls can be pre-paid, or metered by the minute, or in blocks of time, etc. You can also sell digital content via Skype's file transfer feature. For example, you may want to record conversations and supply a copy to your clients at a later time. (To send free screen snaps, use TechSmith's free Skype profile for SnagIt. You can also run live screen sharing using WebDialogs Unyte's free Skype plugin. I'm just not sure you can meter either of these for profit. Warning: to use SnagIt for Skype, you must already have SnagIt installed. If not, install the Snagit 30-day demo first, then the Skype profiles version. If you've previously tried the demo and passed the trial date, you're probably out of luck.)

The major drawback to Jyve is that it's purely web- and Skype-based. The calling party also has to be using Skype. So you cannot take calls from a regular phone/ mobile through Jyve. Thus the smart consultant will set up both Ether and Jyve accounts. And like Ether, you're not limited to just talk-only consulting. There are all kinds of professions, including writing, listed in the Jyve experts directory.

So what does Jyve get out of this? They take a 20%, which is higher than Ether's 15%. But in any commission-based industry, 15-20% is pretty standard, unless you're Elvis and your agent is Colonel Tom Parker - in which I case Tom gets 60%. Hmmm. Gives me an idea: Elvis-By-Skype. Need an Elvis to perform for an event? Hook up your speakers to your computer and Jyve-Skype me. Though I think I'd much rather perform Led Zeppelin's Communication Breakdown, or maybe Blondie's Call Me (in Spanish?). Though I'll throw in Electric Light Orchestra's Telephone Line. Hint: voice commerce can be used in a lot of ways, particularly for musicians to communicate with fans, besides corny references to musical communication.

Sandhills Software Skype Add-ons

Sandhills Software  [via AsteriskVoIP News] is offering three Skype-related products. The first are not explicitly VoIP offerings but instead use voice processing.

SkypeTransfer is US$19.99 and lets you transfer calls to someone in your Skype contact list. SkypeAttendant, is US$29.99 and  automatically answers your SkypeIn or Skype to Skype calls using voice-to-text recognition. (To be honest, maybe I've lost my mind, but from the live demo of these two services, I cannot tell the difference.) There are 30-demos of these two packages.

SkypeMusicShare is US$9.99 and lets you share songs with your Skype buddies. There's also a Delta Jukebox that lets you play songs from your Windows Media Player library using voice commands. This sounds like fun, but the live demo button on their website just replays one of the other demos. There is a 15-day trial download. [If fledgling bands/ musicians want to talk to their fans and share their music simultaneously, they should follow the example of the Coldplay and Skype promo.]

So I download and installed all three demo versions to my laptop (Win XP). (From what I can tell, there are only Windows versions.) SkypeMusicShare and its included Delta Jukebox both gave me run-time errors. SkypeTransfer didn't seem to work; I tried to test it with a friend. I didn't bother having me call back to test SkypeAttendant.

It's unfortunate that these didn't work for me, as their general concept is sound, and the Delta Jukebox would have been fun. If I've understood their very brief description correctly, SkypeAttendant would likely be particularly useful in an enterprise VoIP setting.

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.

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.

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]

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.

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.

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.

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]

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.

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.

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.

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.

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]

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.

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]

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.

IW's IPdurm brings Skype calls on cell phones

Integrated Wireless (IW) Distribution has launched the much-awaited IPdurm Mobile Skype Cable. Integrated Wireless Distribution is one of the recognized distributors of VoIP devices; the devices are highly productive for the SME and consumers. Its latest IPdrum is an IP related solution that connects Skype to a mobile phone enabling users to make and receive Skype calls from their own mobile phones wherever in cellular coverage.

That's why Daryl Chambers, Director of Integrated Wireless Distribution noted,

Until today, Skype users needed to sit in front of their PC to make and receive Skype calls. Now you can receive and make Skype calls wherever cellular coverage exists, allowing users to take advantage of all that Skype offers while on the move.

IPdurm that brings Skype telephony to any mobile phone is currently supporting Windows XP and accessible with Nokia and Sony Ericsson base phones.

Via: [Ferret]

Skype faces hurdle in S. Korea

The Ministry of Information and Communication (MIC) of South Korea has directed the VoIP service provider Skype not to sign up new customers as long as it meets the e-business codes 19 and 59.2 provisions for VoIP service. 

MIC explains that Skype has been operating its international phone services without the approval of the MIC's director. It also alleges that customer prepaying for Skype service (as fixed by Skype) is a violation of the countries local regulation.

However, it would be too early to make a comment that the Korean government is deliberately opposing the Skype service. Skype will be back into operation after proper registrations. It is discussing the issue with the MIC for an amicable solution.   

Via: [ZD Net]

Skype helping US Military

Skype is offering VoIP services to the US military service members and their families. For which it has joined hands with RadioShack Corporation and the Veterans of Foreign Wars of the USA. Skype bridges the communication gap of the US military service members and their families. It offers them to make voice calls from one Skype account to another without any charge through Skype starter. In addition to it, the leading VoIP service provider offers US customers one hour free international calls to landline phones in 30 countries of the World.

Via: [Tom Keating's VoIP and Gadget Blog]

Oregan makes Skype Services available in TV

Oregan Networks has added a new feature for the delivery of Skype message alerts and caller ID to TV centric devices. The company's Oregan Media Browser allows instant Internet and IPTV services.

Oregan Media Browser is an embedded software product based on established open standards for web content authoring and distribution. The customers can access Skype messages and calls while watching digital broadcast of IP television with options to accept or reject. The company asserts that the Skype service is the most attractive services available for online users. By delivering Skype applications on TV, Oregan is likely to dominate the market.

Via: [VoIP Magazine]

eBay Announces Pilot Integration Of Skype

eBay has announced the pilot integration of Skype. From 19th June, eBay sellers would have the option of adding a SkypeMe button to item listings in 14 select categories. Prospective buyers would be able to contact the sellers via voice or instant messaging. As of now users can add a SkypeMe button to their personal profile but not to the individual items put up for sale.

Given below are the categories which have been selected as eBay is of the opinion that instant communication of such goods would help the sales at the items are either complex or local delivery is required.

Via techcrunch

eBay To Merge Skype Into Its Auction

eBay would come up with a plan to integrate Skype’s VoIP service into its U.S. auction business. The company is planning to encourage eBay sellers to embed Skype calling links into auction pages in a few product categories which includes real estate, cars and diamond solitaire rings.

Already the click to call features by which eBay customers can contact sellers via text message, video or voice conference has been the major selling point of eBay’s acquisition of Skype in October for as much as $4.2 billion.

Via dvhardware

Skype Plans Hardware Certification Center in China

Skype is planning to establish a testing and certification center in Taiwan because of the large number of applications for Skype product certification by many Taiwan based makers. As of now Skype has only one testing and certification center at its headquarters in Tallinn, Estonia and a commissioned testing center in Beijing, China.

As per Skype statistics, VoIP services have a penetration rate of 27% ion Taiwan which is higher as compared to 13% in China and 4% in U.S.

Via digitimes

Skype as Standard on Dell Laptops

Skype would now be available as a standard on the new Dell XPS M1210 and M2010 laptops. This would be a better option-using Skype would be less annoying as compared to a mobile phone as its voice quality is better as compared to an average mobile connection. People would not have to strain their vocals and if they have to say something personal they could always use the instant messaging option for conveying that.

Certainly it would emerge as a better option for making calls as compared to cell phones.

Via inflighthq

Dell in Bed with Skype

Skype and Dell have struck a deal that will result in Skype's VoIP software being pre-installed on all new Dell XPS notebooks. The Dell XPS M1210 and M2010 are available worldwide. According to TMCnet IP Communications:

"As the leading notebook supplier, Dell is committed to delivering cutting-edge technology that provides voice and video connectivity virtually anywhere," said Brett Faulk, worldwide marketing director, consumer notebooks for Dell in a statement. "Teaming with Skype, the trend setter in Internet communications will provide our customers the very best experience when reaching out and staying in touch with friends and family around the world."

Read more: Skype Teams with Dell for Faster VoIP Calls

Skype Certifies Polycom Communicator

Skype has certified Polycom Communicator for use with its VoIP software and is co-branded with Skype for sale. The Communicator has a high quality, full duplex hands free voice communications with high fidelity wideband audio quality capabilities and special POlycom technology for improving audio quality and reducing feedback.

It can also be utilized as a high fidelity speaker and it operates as a standard plug and play USB speaker. The phone would be available worldwide through Polycom certified channel partners and through skype’s website at a price of $129.

Via voip-news

Skype Fixes Security Bug in Its Software

Skype has upgraded its internet telephony software in order to fix a security bug which could expose sensitive data. This flaw could result in an attacker construct a Skype hyperlink which when clicked on by the target would send a file from the victim’s computer to another Skype user.

Secunia had termed this issue as moderately critical as this bug could be exploited by attackers for bypassing certain security restrictions and potentially disclose certain sensitive information. An upgraded version of Skype was released with the flaw fixed.

Via zdnet

More for Business Users From Skype

Skype has decided to offer new features for businesses but it would not be developing a specific VoIP product for the workplace. Some of its capabilities have been geared towards business users such as features that enable multiple users to share an account in order to pay for services. It has also entered into partnerships with other companies for its business users.

According to Niklas Zennstrom, Founder and CEO, Skype:

We will continue to bring out features useful to business users. What we’ve not done is an enterprise-wide solution, and that’s not our intention.

Security questions had led to some businesses banning Skype and some vendors had even offered applications for blocking it. With this the company is trying to a better job communicating about its security.

Via macworld

Free Call Promotion Launched By Skype In U.S. And Canada

Skype has announced a marketing stunt that would allow its users in U.S. and Canada to make free calls to conventional wireline and mobile phones. Earlier users in both the countries were required to pay for calls from their PCs to traditional phone. Skype wants to accelerate usage in the North American market where the adoption of its voice over internet technology has lagged other regions of the globe.

This offer would be available till the end of the years and the coverage includes calls within the United States and Canada. Calls from North America to conventional phones in other countries would be incurring charges.

Via voip-weblog

Skype makes calls free

In an effort to increase membership, Skype has introduced free calls facilities to its customers. Now the customers can make free calls from PCs to phones within Canada and the US for the rest of the year.

By providing free services to the customers Skype can hit the market and collect revenue in the long run. Skype has not earned much profit for its services in North America. It charges only 9 cents per month per user. So Skype has decided to provide free services for the rest of the year.

Via: [Marketing Shift]

Skype Announces a Joint Solution for Global Calling in 150 Languages

Skype, Voxeo and Language Line Services have together announced a joint solution that would make it easier for individuals and businesses to communicate cost effectively from English into 150 languages Making use of an innovative mix of internet calling technology and world class personal interpreter services, this would give Skype users the ability to talk to anyone and anywhere world over at any point of time without taking inti regard the language.

Skype users would be on the phone in up to a five conversation with other Skype users and a live, professional Language Line Services interpretor.

Via voip-weblog

Skype starts Skype 1.4.0.49 for Mac OS X

Skype has launched Skype 1.4.0.49 for Mac OS X software for Intel-based Macs. This software is based on universal Binary system. By using this software, the skype users can communicate among themselves.

It also receives and forwards calls from regular phones. At the same time it lets the users to show Skype status on the Site and also in email signatures.

Via: [MacNN]

Skype credit to be available at Sainbury’s stores in UK

Skype and Sainsbury’s have struck a deal that would enable customers to buy Skype credit in the form of eVouchers at across 500 Sainsbury’s stores in UK. It would also be keeping a stock of Skype certified hardware which would enable users to start using Skype. This eVoucher would enable Skype users to call mobile phones or landlines from their computer and they get immediately connected to whom they are calling. Free Skype PC to PC calls would always be available.

According to Adam Zeiderman, commercial manager, Sainsbury’s home services:

We are delighted to be the first retailer in Europe to sell Skype eVouchers in our stores. We think our customers will welcome the convenience of being able to purchase inexpensive worldwide internet calls when they shop. This will complement our existing telecommunications offer. Combined with our experience selling mobile phone top-up cards, we anticipate that the system will integrate seamlessly into all our stores.

via responsesource

eBay To Incorporate Skype’s Internet Voice Technology

eBay would be incorporating Skype’s internet voice technology, this was announced by eBay CEO Meg Whitman. This would facilitate easier communication between buyers and an sellers on the site and generate new revenue streams with a pay per call advertising system.

This move was expected as ebay bought Skype last year for $ 2.6 billion with an additional $ 1.5 billion on the line if the company meets its financial goals by 2008. The new pay per lead system would likely welcome advertisers in a variety of vertical categories such as real estate, travel and auto.

Via adotas

Skype Faces Accusation in South Korea

Skype is being accused of illegally drawing subscribers in South Korea without registering with the government. Skype and its Korean partner Auction violated domestic regulations by going ahead with their Internet phone business without getting approval from the government.

As of now only free of charge calls between PCs is available to Skype subscribers in Korea as the company is still to install proper payment system out here. In case the companies are found guilty of the charges they would be subjected to a maximum of 150 million won in fines or three years in prison.

via hankooki

"Skypecasts": 100-person Internet conferencing

Skype continues to innovate with its service. I think it is doing so to penetrate the business segment. Sounding much like "Podcast", Skype has now launched "Skypecasts", which provide free audio conferences for up to 100 participants.

The current conferencing feature in Skype only supports up to 10 people, all of whom can speak at the same time. However, in the new "Skypecast", a host moderates and controls when someone can speak.

The "Skypecast" service begins on May 3 in an "early preview" form.  Users can find Skypecasts on the Skype Web site. In addition, all the conferences will be listed on the website publicly.

Although, Skype says that using Skypecasts, people can discuss shared interests and hobbies, I am positive that business users will take up "Skypecast" enthusiastically.

Via VoIP-Weblog

VOIP wars: an update

Sometime, we reported on a suit filed against Skype by a technology company for, of all things, racketeering charges. In 'peaceful' Sweden, a bitter war is brewing between telecoms group TeliaSonera and its rival Tele2.

The two companies have been fighting since 2000. The case is now in the courts and is about how much the two rivals should pay for routing each others' customers' calls through their networks.

Now, TeliaSonera says that the latest court ruling means that Tele2 must pay it $136 million (1 billion Swedish crowns), but Tele2 said more rulings had to be made and that instead, TeliaSonera would be paying it sums.

Via Reuters

Analyzing the Skype/Polycom deal

Recently, VoIP major Skype made a deal with conferencing provider, Polycom to work on creating a Skype-enabled portable speakerphone.

Point # 1: Polycom dominates the speakerphone market. It has a 90% share. This deal gives a leg up to Skype's plans to enter the lucrative business segment. You might say allying with Polycom has given a Skype a solid seal of approval for the business users.

Point # 2: The quality of business VoIP might also improve. Polycom is known for high-end conferencing products.

Point

Via TMCnet

Skype now has more than 100 million users

Peer-to-peer Voice over internet protocol service provider Skype says that it now has more than 100 million registered users worldwide.

Interestingly, Skype had 54 million members back in September 2006, when online auction site eBay bought it out for $2.6 billion. That means that Skype will more than double its member-base since that buyout.

Skype is moving into newer markets. It targets the business users more aggressively. Recently, Skype also announced that it would sell music from its website.

Finally, roughly 5% users are logged into the Skype VoIP service at a time.

Via USA Today

SkypeIn feature for Australian users

Now, a piece of good news for Australian Skype users who are travelling overseas. Skype has launched SkypeIn. So, friends, family and colleagues of Skype users traveling abroad can just dial their SkypeIn number to talk to them. In addition, they would only be paying for the cost of a call to their Australian phone number so travelers are able to avoid costly roaming charges.

A 12-month subscription to the new SkypeIn service costs approximately $50 ($EUR30). Customers get an Australian phone number to allow incoming calls from mobile and fixed-lines that are answered by the Skype user. Subscriptions also come with free Skype voicemail that lets users record up to 10 minutes of dialogue.

A 3-month subscription costs $16 ($EUR10).

Via ComputerWorld

Lavalife Singles Chat for Skype users

The Lavalife World Chat service for Singles was introduced recently and it can be great way to meet like-minded people. You do not need to worry about talk time, as VoIP is much cheaper than the regular landline calls.

The Lavalife World Chat service for singles features the ability to create profiles from personal voice recordings, listen to other profiles and exchange voice messages. Users can also join the Lavalife World Chat room for live talk sessions with singles from all over the world.

Lavalife for Skype is free for a limited period and users can activate it by dialing +9907LAVALIFE in the Skype software.

Via TMCnet

Digitrad introduces the First Live multilingual Interpretation Service on Skype™

Digitrad, a VoIP solutions company based in France, has introduced the Live Interpreter by 1TouchConnect™ Service. This multilingual interpreter will be included in Skype's new services package Skype for Business.

The Live Interpreter service enables the business user to conference with non-English speakers using Skype. The Live Interpreter supports the following 'on-the-fly' translations - from English to French, German, Spanish, Italian, Portuguese, Russian, Japanese, Vietnamese, Korean, Cantonese, Mandarin Arabic or Farsi.

To use the service, users have to call the specific language live interpreter and then conference-in the third party on a Skype™ call (PC to PC) or on a SkypeOut call (calling traditional land or mobile lines).

Via Newswire Today

Users can buy music from the Skype site

Skype is doing the right thing by trying to monetize its brand (in this case, its site) in creative ways. Now, Skype has formed a deal with EMI Music Publishing, a song rights company. Under this deal, Skype can sell EMI's music on its new retail website. Skype can use song copyrights from EMI's catalogue to sell music as downloads and ring tones.

It is also a first for the music industry. Skype can sell the music to buyers worldwide. The normal practice so far has been that licenses are given out on a country-by-country basis. This in turn hurt the songwriters, as they could not easily collect payments for their work. EMI has more than one million copyrights,

Skype has also made a deal with the Warner Bros' group of record labels.  However, Skype has not yet announced a launch date for its new online store.

Via Times Online

Expert says Skype still undetectable

ExtremeVoIP gave Art Reisman, Chief Technical Officer of APConnections to see how easy it is (or not) to detect and block Skype.

We wrote earlier about software and methods to detect and block Skype in Corporate Networks. So what did Mr. Reisman find? He reports that Skype traffic is indeed difficult to block and detect. Mr. Reisman gives tow main reason for this:

- Skype calls are not self-evident from the detected stream.

- Skype's apparently distributed topology masks key factors such as who has set up the Skype call.

Via Zdnet

Skype defends Chinese censorship

Skype was prepared for this from the moment it set its eyes on the lucrative Chinese market. Even if it turns out not so lucrative, having a Chinese presence is must for firms with global ambitions.

The Financial Reports that Skype admits its Chinese partner, Tom Online, censors text messages that contain references to the Dalai Lama, the banned Falun Gong spiritual group and other sensitive items.  However, Skype says Tom Online is only doing what it is required to do by law.

Google accepted the same compromise when it launched its Chinese search service.

Via TMCnet

Speakables for Skype released

This is one more reason to cheer for Mac users to cheer. San Francisco-based Speakables has introduced Speakables for Skype.

Speakables work with Apple's voice recognition application in Mac OS X. Using Speakables, users can create a Skype contact list and then can make calls by just calling out the person's name. Moreover, Skype users can also disconnect ongoing calls by voice command.

Users can download Speakables for Skype (for Mac OS X 10.2 or newer) for no cost the Speakables website.

Via ComputerPartner

Skype on Palm Handhelds

Now, we can officially say that VoIP on mobiles and handhelds has entered the mainstream.

Recently, EQO Communications has introduced EQO Mobile for Skype for devices running on the Palm Operating System. Using EQO Mobile for Skype, users can make and receive VoIP calls, send Instant Messages to friends and others. They can also look at their friends’ presence information over the Skype network.

This software will also support Motorola ROKR, SLVR, and RAZR handsets.

Via PDABlast

Skype Buys 2 VOIP outfits

Skype Technologies, now a part of eBay, has bought two VoIP companies. These two outfits are Sweden-based Sonorit Holding and its U.S. subsidiary, Camino Networks, for about US$27 million in eBay stock. Consider this, therefore a paper–money buyout.

Skype bought out Sonorit and Camino so that it could add these outfits' online voice engineering technical staff to its workforce. Engineers from the acquired companies will design and develop future versions of Skype's voice-over-IP (VoIP) product.

Interesting information: Sonorit and Camino are both involved in IP related lawsuits.

Via CIO

Cell phones and web browsers will feature VOIP

VoIP provider, JaJah plans to challenge the brand leader Skype. It has chosen a novel and potentially lucrative way.

While other VoIp service providers have not thought seriously about providing VoIP on mobile handheld, JaJah has reportedly done a deal with an yet unnamed Mobile Operating System and will come as an integrated service from June this year. Additionally, JaJah will be a standard feature on the Opera Web Browser. This too will be available for June onwards.

Via PCMag

VOIP on Mobile Handsets

EQO Communications announced has just released EQO Mobile for Skype(TM) on the Palm TREO 650 and Motorola ROKR, SLVR, and RAZR handsets.

This benefits users of all the popular brands of mobile phones. In its press release, EQO says that more than 3.3 million TREO devices have been sold. Worldwide. Moreover, the RAZR is presently the most popular phone handset in the world. It has a 6.1% share and 6.2% share of sales in the US and European mobile phone handset markets, respectively, EQO quotes, citing research data from Telephia.

Via PRNewswire

Trivia Quiz: Who designed Skype's Visual Identity?

A great idea needs a great presentation to make it big. Google has simplicity, for example. We all have become familiar with Skype's success story. However, we also register Skype's brilliant visual imagery wherever we are looking at its online presentation. Do you know which company is behind that brilliant look?

It is a Copenhagen-based design company called "11Design," which developed the communication strategy, platform and visual identity for Skype and for other online successes such as TDC and Bullguard.

The folks over at 11Design say that their most important task is to find the essence of their client's potential and then communicate it in a visual identity in the most effective and recognizable manner. Interesting, we are waiting for the next Skype though.

Via MarketWire

Is eBay's Skype Buy doomed?

Not exactly, but this news is sure to ruffle some feathers at eBay. Om Malik writes about a scoop by Andy Abramson who has found that Streamcast is suing its rival Skype for alleged RICO violations. RICO stands for Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations Act. Why and how? It is still not clear. 

StreamCast is credited with the development of the Peer to Peer Technology called Morpheus. Streamcast alleges that Skype is involved in corrupt business practices. We gad heard about tech companies suing each other over IP issues but this is a new one. Stay tuned for further developments in this matter. We will keep you posted.

By the way, the folks over at eBay would be worrying. Just when they had started to monetize their $4 billion (and change) …

Via GigaOm

The Firebox Skype phone

Priced at £29.95, the Firebox VoIP handset is a basic USB microphone and speaker.

The Firebox Skype phone is easily set up on Windows XP systems. On the hand, setting it up on a Mac system requires a bit more time.

Sound quality: This VoIP phone sounds like an average mobile connection. Enough said.

Techdigest smartly points out that manufacturers of phones like this Firebox model should sell two in one pack. This helps to increase the number of VoIP users. Now, why didn't I think of that before!

Via TechDigest

Skype CEO not happy with European Startups

We all know about the risk-averse Business Environment in Europe that is totally opposite of risk-happy business ethics prevalent in the United States. It is a wonder how an innovative company like Skype could bloom in a European business environment. The main quality about the European Business Environment is that the system in general is risk-averse.

In the United States, entrepreneurs are encouraged to learn from their mistakes and failures, a taboo in Europe, both of them. Niklas Zennstroem, co-founder of Skype is right in saying that European Governments must foster a culture of risk-okay Entrepreneurship. The present state of things are not good. Innovation must be given all the chances it needs to make a mark.

Via BizReport

No VoIP in China for two more years

That is what Tom Online, the Chinese internet portal that has a joint venture with Skype, says. Reportedly, the Chinese government will not issue VoIP licences until 2008.

Chine is one of the biggest markets for VoIP. Skype is enthusiastic about the potential and it is in talks with various operators in that region. Buy this piece of news may be a dampener for Skype's ambitions in China.

One of the reasons behind the Chinese government's strategic decision may be be the obvious fear of Chinese Telecom fixed-line telecom operators that Skype and its kind may strangle their revenue.

Via myadsl

Detect and control Unauthorized Skype with help of SurfControl

First, what appears to be the problem with Skype? One, Skype uses indiscernible encryption and can work through virtually any network address translation (NAT)-based firewall. Two, Skype is highly difficult to detect at the exit point.

Users can set up calls on dynamically changing, random port numbers using randomized communication protocols - either UDP or TCP - in varying packet sizes ranging anywhere from 115 to 190 bytes per packet. Third and the worst thing, users that install Skype can agree to become Supernodes –

(Supernode) is a communication node that other call nodes can route through. The nodes involved in call setup are obscured by a blast of traffic that occurs in the second or so that a Skype call is established.

So, how do you control Skype software installation or use? You can run daily
scans on all your PCs – which consumer precious time and resource.

SurfControl new Enterprise Threat Shield (ETS) can target and remove the Skype application when found on the company network as well as prevent its installation and use within a restricted company environment.

Enterprise Threat Shield (ETS) contains the unique signature for the Skype application which enables organizations to customize network policies to limit its use to authorized employees and only during authorized times of day.

Using ETS, you can also control the use and duration of a Skype-based call, and/or prevent Skype use altogether.

Moreover, if a user attempts to access Skype for media file sharing, you can customize ETS to deny the file transfers, providing an additional safeguard against intentional and unintentional user- created threats.

Via PRNewswire

YVoIP trails Skype by a big margin

Surprise, surprise! Yahoo's own VoIP offering does not fare well on Yahoo's own Search! On Yahoo Buzz, you will a section called the Buzz Game where you can "buy and sell" "shares" in a verity of things including search terms – all based on how much buzz you think these items will create.

YVoIP, short for Yahoo VoIP, trails behind Skype and Vonage respectively. Russell Shaw at Zdnet throws up an obvious guess that Yahoo still, do much work on building a brand for its VoIP offering – a brand that can challenge the equity of Skype and Vonage.

Via Zdnet

JaJah aims to challenge Skype

JaJah is an Austrian-VoIP start-up that wants to challenge Skype. By the way, Om Malik informs that Skype's client sucks up 95% of the CPU power on a MacBook and a PC.

Now, Om Malik says that Sequoia Capital has invested in JaJah and wonders what will be so special with JaJah. It is a tough market for a new entrant to make a mark. Even if you have superior VoIP product, how can you challenge Skype's first-mover brand image? Interestingly, JaJAh's U.S. headquarters are situated at Sequoia offices.

Via GigaOm

EQO's new Mobile Instant Messaging for Skype

EQO's new Mobile Instant Messaging for Skype software is available for free as a Beta product to users. This software supports more than 40 Models of J2ME-capable
Mobile from Nokia, Motorola, Sony-Ericsson and others.

The beta version of the mobile IM software can be downloaded from EQO's site at http://www.eqo.com.

Via PRNewswire

KX-TG9000 cordless Skype phone from Panasonic

Announced at CeBIT, Panasonic's KX-TG9000 cordless Skype phone, uses
a DECT cordless phone base station. Like other phones in Panasonic's KX-TG9000 series phones, this model handles calls through your traditional landline or Skype's P2P network through your broadband internet connection. Like Panasonic's recent products, this phone also supports free calls between Skype accounts, SkypeIn, SkypeOut, Voicemail. What's more, you cab also choose whether your outgoing call goes through Skype's network or your landline connection.

Via Engadget

New noise canceling 1.3 Mpix Skype camera from Creative

Creative has introduced a new noise canceling 1.3 Mpix Skype camera at this year's CeBIT.  The noise canceling camera has two microphones and it is able to cancel background noise.
The camera is priced on the expensive side. It will cost $/€99.

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Skype is fumbling its Skype for Business launch

Russell Shaw at Zdnet is unhappy about the way Skype has gone about with its 'loudly announced' Skype for Business services.  Businesses account for around 30 % of Skype users.  Skype for Business is aimed at small businesses - less than 10 employees.

Mr. Shaw thinks Skype has made hash of things. For example, the Skype website is blurry on details about the service. Moreover, Mr. Shaw asks,

Where's the hardware? - No pointers on the site to these products

Why is there no separate Skype 2.0 for Business software?

Too much in a hurry, huh?

Read More

How eBay is finally using Skype

Gigaom reports that eBay is already using Skype some European countries like Switzerland. On the Swiss eBay, buyers can talk to sellers via Skype, and also with eBay customer service.
So, this is how EBay is going to recoup its $4.1 billion buy of Skype.

Via GigaOm

Analyst firm warns against Security dangers with Skype

An analyst from the Burton Group has warned businesses of the security dangers in using Skype in a report entitled 'Debunking the Hype about Skype'.
What's the danger? Well, Skype's proprietary software allows unrecordable conversations with people outside the company. Now, this is a big risk. Your employee may be giving details of the latest confidential meeting to your competition

Read More

Essential 'Skype Tips' for Americans calling from outside the U.S.

It is no secret that making a call to the home country from foreign countries is a big bother. Everyone, including big carriers are out to fleece you.  If the prices aren't high enough, the plans can be confusing too. We have already heard about AT&T fleecing U.S. soldiers in Iraq.

For starters, Skype costs just around 2 cents a minute rate to the USA. Moreover, if you use SkypeIn, a service which is still being tested, you can call your own dedicated Skype phone number, using a country and available area code which you have chosen. SkypeIn will cost you $12 for a three-month subscription and $38 for a year. It includes voice mail.

Read More

Intel's mistake with with Skype

Many analysts are sceptic about Intel's VOIP plans now that it has allied with Skype.

First, Intels' plans for limiting

Skype's conferencing code to Intel only will backfire as the company is involved in a bitter antitrust dispute with its main rival, AMD.

Second, such 'exlusive' sounding marketing plans are out of fashion. The customers are smarter now. They don't like to be locked to a particular platform.

Third, it is hard to believe that you can indeed limit Skype's advanced software to Intels' processors only.

Via [VoIP Central]

Qpass expands its agreement with Skype to offer Personalise Skype

Qpass is expanding its current agreement with Skype to offer Personalise Skype which is a service that allows Skype users to include branded music content from iconic UK dance music record label Ministry of Sound. Ministry of Sound is one of the first major record labels to take advantage of this new distribution channel. Personalise Skype which Qpass runs as a fully managed service allows Skype users to customize and download pre recorded music, ringtones and voice clips.

"The Ministry of Sound brand has a global following and we are always looking for new channels which can expand our reach into new markets." said, Matt Dicks, Head of Media, Ministry of Sound. "In partnering with Skype, Qpass has helped to create an exciting new distribution channel for the music industry which can only grow and we are delighted to be involved."

via   [PhoneContent]

Hutchison 3 Group and Skype enter into an agreement on Skype communications on 3G

Hutchison 3 Group and Skype have entered into an agreement to enable Skype communications on 3G. The two companies would be giving users the freedom to enjoy Skype anywhere they go, whether they are at their home, in office or on the move while on Hutchison’s 3 networks. Hutchison views Skype as an attractive value added service which provides customers with more choice and hence accelerate the uptake of the Hutchison’s 3G services. This partnership would enable Hutchison to directly tap into the 75 million people using Skype across the Hutchison territories and promote to them the benefits of using Skype on Hutchison’s networks.

via  [ITNewsOnline]

Jajah to give tough competition to Skype

Jajah plans to give tough competition to Skype by offering VoIP telephony services at low prices. The service would work with a regular telephone and not require downloading of software onto a computer the same way as required in Skype. The company was co founded in 2005 by two Austrian high tech entrepreneurs roman Scharf and Daniel mattes. The company is headquartered in Menlo Park, California. The company is trying to bust software and hardware limitations which have prevented the use of VoIP for conversations with landline phones.

via   [VoIPCentral]

Would Skype explode on the mobile scene in 2006?

According to a prediction by Skype, it would explode on the mobile scene in the year 2006. Skype has released the Skype for Pocket 2.0 which is a new version of the software for Pocket PC devices that allows Skype callers to make free voice calls anywhere their device can connect to a high speed internet connection. This would serve as a significant component of Skype’s mobility strategy. It would further the goal of the company to extend Skype use beyond desktop computers. The company wants to simplify mobile internet calling for all of its users. Skype has also entered into an agreement with Hutchison 3 to enable internet communications from 3G mobile phones.

via   [WirelessWeek]

Top Global announces world’s first 3G mobile wireless Skype solution

Top Global has announced the world’s first 3G mobile wireless Skype solution based on company’s MobileBridge platform. The company has developed and patented the flexible MobileBridge platform which serves as a router that links 3G network and and LAN/WLAN networks which enables customers to enjoy the flexibility and convenience of wireless internet in truly mobile and remote environments. The 3G mobile wireless Skype MobileBridge can work anywhere within cellular coverage. It does not limit to a café, office, home or open public Wi-Fi hotspot either. There is no change in the Skype experience.

via  [PrWeb]

Skype launches SkypeWeb

Skype has launched SkypeWeb which is a web presence feature that has been already integrated into more than 50 websites in 20 countries around the world. It allows people to see Skype users’ online status and call or chat with them from any website with a simple click of a mouse. SkypeWeb has integrated Skype seamlessly into any website. It allows web administrators to easily enable all site visitors to talk freely over the internet. Companies which have been using SkypeWeb in their websites have already started getting the benefits of increased ease of communication and interaction.

via  [VoIP Central]

Trendnet launches Skype handset that connects via Bluetooth

Trendnet Today has launched a Skype handset which connects via Bluetooth. This TVP-SP1BK ClearSky VoIP Bluetooth Phone with Bluetooth Adapter also includes a wireless handset and compact Bluetooth adapter. It supports all of the popular Skype standard functions such as Call List, Contacts, Conference Call, SkypeOut etc. It is powered by a rechargeable Lithium-ion battery which provides a six hour talk time and over 60 hours standby time. The bundled USB Bluetooth Adapter supports enhanced data range and makes use of Class 1 radio technology in order to extend coverage distance up to 100 meters. The shipping for the product would begin next month and it would be available for around $ 100.

via   [TG Daily]

Skype teams up with a number of companies for new products

Skype is planning to consolidate its position in the VoIP market with a number of deals with electronics industry companies in order to make internet calling easier for consumers. The company has struck a number of deals with companies. Along with Creative it launched the Creative Skype Internet PhonePLUS. With D-Link it introduced the Skype USB Phone Adapter. With Ipevo it launched Ipevo Fly-1 Cordless Handset, and then came Kodak Photo Voice followed by Panasonic cordless phone which allows users to make and receive Skye calls and VTech USB7100 Phone. Now it needs to be seen what wonders these deals work for Skype. Lets keep our fingers crossed.

via  [TechDigest]

Skype and Intel collaborate for internet based voice and video communications

Skype and Intel are planning for internet based voice and video communications. The engineers from the two companies would be collaborating on optimizing Skype 2.0 for use with Intel’s dual core processor systems which includes Centrino Duo and Pentium D PCs. Intel and Skype are also planning to tighten integration with Intel’s new Viiv technology. The first fruit of their efforts is the availability of free, ten way voice conference calling for up to ten people in Skype 2.0. Earlier the limit was 5 way conferencing. Although efforts to date have focused on audio improvement and adding the ten way calling feature, further optimization of Skype 2.0 for video conferencing is in the offing.

via [ABCNews]

Eqo Communications brings Skype buddy list on the cell phone

A solution has been devised by Eqo Communications which enables users to use their cellphone to call members of Skype buddy list. Their mobile internet phone service does not make use of the Skype network but uses a J2ME app that allows a user to know whether his buddies are online and call them without knowing their phone number. The person then gets a message on his phone that they have an incoming call and choose whether or not they want to accept the call.

via  [engadget]

Skype and Google funding wireless communications start up in Spain

Skype Technologies and Google are funding a wireless communications start up in Spain which partly grass roots social movement is seeking to encourage users to share internet access with their users. The funding is believed to be about $ 21.7 million.  This backing would offer legitimacy for Fon which wants to create a block by block network of shared wireless links around the globe by turning users of local Wi-Fi access into people sharing wireless access. It would allow users of not only laptops but also cell phones or portable gaming devices to share wireless connections offered by others.

via  [Reuters]

Skype’s audio conferencing service to permit five hundred callers

Skype Technologies SA is planning to offer conferences with 500 callers through an audio conferencing service. Currently the VoIP service permits only five users on a call at any given moment but an expansion would occur when Highspeedconferencing.com gets certification as a Skype service which is expected in the coming weeks. The audio conferencing service will offer a cheaper substitute for conventional conference call services. The standard service named High Speed would cost $ 0.035 per minute and allow hosts to use a phone keypad to manage volume, announcing participants and locking out any additional callers.

via [VoIPCentral]

Bundled VoIP package affecting Skype’s market

According to a report published by Sandvine, Internet telephony products along with broadband services are becoming more popular as compared to third party products. In Europe, Skype’s VoIP service has been overtaken by broadband subscription package sold by America Online, BT and Wandoo during the fourth quarter of last year. Branded VoIP accounted for 51.2 percent of all VoIP calls while Skype accounted for 45 percent of VoIP minutes during the last quarter of 2005. The broadband take up has risen with the inclusion of VoIP within broadband packages. The survey was conducted by monitoring the VoIP traffic trends of 700,000 broadband households from a group of service providers with six million subscribers.

via [ZDNet]

Skype and Warner team up for ring tones on internet phone services

Skype Technologies and Warner Music Group plan to announce a licensing agreement that would put ring tones on internet phone services. Skype would be selling the song snippets as an alternate for traditional phone rings for $ 1.50 each. The service would start in another two months. Initially Madonna would be promoted as a featured artist.

via [VoIPCentral]

Skype certifies Sennheiser multimedia handsets

Skype has certified a wide range of Sennheiser multimedia handsets which it believes offer high speech clarity and flexibility required for making Skype internet calls. Sennheiser communications is offering a wide range of headsets created for use with computer and are perfect for making web calls with crystal clear sound quality and acoustics. For example the PC 20 monaural style headset has two 3.5 mm mini plug jacks for easy access to the computer, a noise canceling microphone for speech clarity and a boom for optimal microphone positioning. The other headsets which have been certified by Skype are PC30, PC110, PC120, PC130, PC135, PC140, PC145, PC150, PC 155, PC160, PC165 and M145.

via [ smarthouse ]

Is Skype 2.0 a virus?

Using Skype 2.0 on Windows XP SP2 produces a Data Execution Prevention (DEP) warning. DEP is a new kind of security mechanism in Windows XP SP2 that prevents common security exploits from launching. In order to solve this problem, one needs to click on the change settings button in the warning dialog box and modify the DEP exception list. One can see Skype in the exception list with an empty checkmark next to it so the next step would be to check the box and hit the OK button. After completing these steps Skype would no longer trigger DEP warning. One thing needs to be kept in mind that turning off DEP protection for Skype can create security concerns. It has been seen that Skype had its own share of vulnerability issues in the past and it is imperative that Skype solves this problem as soon as possible.

via [ zdnet ]

New version of Skype 2.0 is better

The new version of Skype’s Net phone calling software Skype 2.0 has overcome the problems found with the earlier versions of the software. The improvements which have been made in Skype 2.0 are free video calling and the ability to arrange contacts into groups like friends, family and colleagues. The improvements have been made in response to the criticism of the earlier test version of the software. There have been around 222 million downloads of the software and this has enabled Skype to become one of the best known companies offering free software that enables internet connection to double up as local, national and international phone line.

via [ mybroadband]

Kodak and Skype introduce Kodak Photo Voice

Eastman Kodak and Skype have released the latest innovation in digital storytelling, Kodak Photo Voice. This new service will enable the users to hold internet phone conversations around the globe and also share their photographs online. The beta version of Kodak Photo Voice can be downloaded freely from www.kodakgallery.com/photovoice. It will enable two people to simultaneously view a customized slideshow and discuss verbally about it. A person can select photographs from a PC or Kodak Easy Share Gallery album and can then compile the photographs into a Kodak Photo Voice Presentation and call the other person via Skype in order to watch the slideshow live.

via [ itwire ]

Can Skype function as hearing aid?

This is certainly good news for those people who are hard of hearing. The equipments required are Pocket PC with Skype connected to WiFi or wireless router and another computer having Skype connection. Ensure that the microphone plugged into the other computer is sensitive. The amazing audio quality of Skype sound on the Pocket PC and the other PC ensure that even a pin drop is heard in the room with ease. This will help in avoiding hearing aid in the house and provide audio quality which will solve the problem at least for a few things.

via [ mathaba]

Photo Sharing via VoIP

VoIP is not just voice over web, it was just an initial phase. The VoIP Communities idea is fast growing with new and innovative means to use the technology are coming up.

Latest offering is from Kodak and Skype – Photo Sharing. This service will allow users to chat with Skype and display their favorite pictures simultaneously to their friends. You need to download Kodak’s EasyShare Gallery application from the Kodak’s official website and be a Skype User. Users can easily create a photo presentation by selecting photos from their PC,a dn the presentation is shared among both parties. Photos are only viewed and not actually transferred which is seen as a drawback by some. The service is in beta right now and free to use by Skype Customers.

via [ABC News]

Skype 2.0 out of Beta

With so many products specifically for the Skype in the current going CES 2006, it was not unlikely to hear some announcement from the Skype camp too. Skype 2.0 is out of beta now and will be available for download from Skype's site at 1300 hrs Eastern Time (18:00 GMT), according to an overnight email from Skype's PR agency SparkPR.

Though right now only Windows 2000 and XP versions of the software are currently available to download. Skype 2.0 biggest improvement over its version 1.0 was its video calling feature and better call quality. Mood Messages and contact filing system have also been added. 

via [The Inquirer]

WebDialogs Unyte for Skype

WebDialogs Inc. has released the beta of WebDialogs Unyte for Skype. WebDialogs Unyte has been certified by Skype as a secure sharing plug-in, which can be used for improving the quality of voice conferences. It is easy-to-use and facilitates the sharing of documents, applications, etc between the users. businesswire.com reports:

The Beta Program offers Skype users the ability to "Unyte" with up to four participants.

Read More: WebDialogs Launches Skype Certified Application Sharing

Skype to launch a new series of products at the consumer electronics show in Las Vegas

Internet phone services would become more user friendly as Skype has announced that it has developed a series of new products by partnering with several consumer electronics manufacturers.

This would enable Skype to gain a competitive edge over VoIP services provider Vonage and other traditional phone services providers.

A new cordless phone would be launched which would make it easier for the users to switch between ordinary telephone calls and those which travel over the Internet. Similarly a new standalone handset has been developed which would enable to make free Skype calls over the Internet without requiring a PC connection.

It has also developed in partnership with D-Link a new phone adapter named DPH- 50U which would enable the Skype services to be used over a traditional phone. Also, a new cordless handset and speaker phone has been developed by Ipevo which is an existing manufacturer of Skype enabled handsets.

[EFYTimes]

Netgear and Skype in partnership

Netgear and Skype are expected to make an announcement at the Consumer Electronics Show, which could be regarding collaboration between the two companies. Netgear could start headsets and adapters for Skype users. businessweek.com reports:

One thing is clear already, however: The news won't please Cisco, Netgear's direct competitor.

Read More: Netgear + Skype = Major Trouble for Cisco?

Skype and Coldplay together

Skype has roped in the band Coldplay for a marketing campaign under which users can leave a voicemail behind and one lucky caller will get a call back from the band.

DPH-50U - USB phone adapter

D-Link and Skype have come together to introduce the D-Link Skype USB phone adapter (DPH-50U). The instrument enables users to use their wired or cordless telephones to make free calls using the Skype software. Users can switch over to a Skype call in the midst of a conventional call by using a feature similar to call-waiting. It enables conference calls between conventional phones and Skype; the adapter features a lighted display that informs whether the incoming call is a Skype call or a PSTN call. yahoo.com reports:

"Our mission is to make Skype easy and fun to use for consumers everywhere," said James Bilefield, vice president of business development for Skype.

Read More: USB Adapter From D-Link Makes Free Skype Calls Even More Convenient

Ascalade and Skype in an agreement

Skype has signed a development agreement with Ascalade Communications Inc. under which Ascalade will develop telecom products that will be certified by Skype. The first product is already available in Europe and North America; it is from the Companion(TM) series of PC-based VoIP cordless phones developed by Ascalade. The phone includes features like color screen and polyphonic ring tones. The phones offer good voice quality and use Digital Enhanced Cordless telecommunications (DECT) technology. Users can access their voicemail via this phone even when they are away from their computer.

Security with Skype

Skype’s foray into the corporate arena has raised security concerns regarding its VoIP service. According to the Info-Tech Research Group, even though Skype provides end-to-end encryption for its calls, IT administrators find it difficult to monitor Skype calls. Compliance regulations prevalent in several industries mean that companies deploying Skype will violate corporate policy. abcnews.go.com reports:

Tom Berson, a principal at Anagram Laboratories, has also conducted a review of Skype's encryption.

Read More: Skype Security Questioned

Skype 2.0 beta

In order to run Skype 2.0 beta, the client needs to be downloaded and installed. Skype 2.0 features an uncluttered interface and one-click access to features such as conferencing. The beta is better integrated with the Skype online store for the purchase of ringtones and avatars.

The new version also provides find me/follow me features and the facility of calling up multiple phones simultaneously. Skype’s partnership with Six Apart allows users to embed links for Skype calling in their blogs. pcmag.com reports:

Four premium services round out the Skype offering and make it much more flexible to use as a dedicated phone service (you cannot get emergency 911 service via Skype, so you can't totally give up your landline or cell phone).

Read More: Skype 2.0 beta

SEC and Skype in partnership

Sennheiser Electronic Corporation (SEC) and Skype have entered into a partnership under which Skype has certified SEC headsets as exceeding the Skype standards of audio quality. The Skype website will sell selected headsets from the SEC range. news.ecoustics.com reports:

“We already know that our designs set the world standard,” continues Bach, “and it’s gratifying to be similarly recognized by such an important innovator in our field.”

Read More: Sennheiser, Skype Team Up For 21st Century TelCom

Orb V4S for Skype

Orb V4S is a free voice messaging system for Skype. V4S stands for Voicemail for Skype. It has been launched by Orb Networks. V4S allows users to manage voice messages from a PC or mobile that support streaming audio.

The V4S software uses the PC as a voicemail server for storing Skype messages. Requirements for Orb V4S include Windows XP, an always-on broadband Internet connection, and Skype version 1.3.057 or a later version. news.designtechnica.com reports:

When the system received a message, V4S notifies users via an email message or a text message to a mobile phone.

Read More: Orb V4S Adds Free Voice Messaging to Skype

Read More:

Skype on Linux

Mandriva, which is a Paris-based Linux distributor, has stated that it has successfully integrated the Internet telephony software from Skype into Linux. Linux is an open-source operating system. The Mandriva Linux 2006 is now available with a customized version of Skype at no additional cost. Discovery/Lx for the Linux beginner, PowerPack for the advanced computer user and PowerPack+ for small offices are the three editions of OS available.

Plug-in from Santa Cruz Networks

Santa Cruz Networks has released a new plug-in that will enable customers of Skype and Google Talk to communicate with each other. Festoon, which is an application developed by the company, will have a new feature called Festoon Unity by early next year. This will enable the application to support AOL IM, Yahoo Messenger, and MSN along with Google Talk and Skype. pcworld.com reports:

Festoon, which users can download for free, currently enables customers of the Skype and Google Talk voice-over-IP services to make video calls, but only to other users on the same platform.

Read More: Messaging Goes Multimedia

China Netcom not partnering Skype

China Netcom has stated that it is not planning to promote VoIP by joining hands with Skype. The company feels that even though there are subscribers of Internet VoIP, it is still too early to decide if the Internet will be able to handle the traffic load of a commercial VoIP service.

Skype not easy to pin

In Skype transmissions the size of packets within the same stream can vary between 115 to 190 bytes in a packet. The identification of a Skype stream based on packet spacing is rendered difficult as the VoIP packets have variable spacing that varies from 27 milliseconds to 40 millseconds. networkworld.com reports:

The nodes involved in call setup are obscured by a blast of traffic that occurs in the second or so that a Skype call is established.

Read More: Spotting and stopping Skype: Good luck

Security issues with Skype

The recent issuing of patches by Skype has only served to heighten security concerns regarding the deployment of Skype in an enterprise environment. According to some experts, a major factor in the popularity of Skype is its ease of use and one reason for this is that it is non-standard. Even though Skype uses SIP, most of its codes are closed and proprietary. Those who feel that the security fears regarding Skype are overblown state that several software vendors, Microsoft included, release security patches from time to time. Skype is also a member of Forum for Incident Response and Security Teams (FIRST). The forum advocates transparency. voipplanet.com reports:

Some believe the best way to ensure continued strength is to make encryption source code public and expose it to a barrage of attempts at breaking the keys. Others –Skype included—believe it's better to closely guard the technology and submit it for peer review, which Skype has done.

Read More: Skype: Big Bad Wolf? part 2

Skype 2.0 beta launched

Skype is offering a videophone in the beta release of Skype 2.0. This will put it in a better position to compete with the likes of AIM and MSN. The beta, which was released on Thursday, contains other features such as creating contact groups, mood settings, a different user interface, and calling up Outlook contacts. The beta also provides the facility to start a phone call from a blog or a website. On2 Technologies is providing the video compression technology being used for the Skype video service.

Skype has entered a licensing deal with On2 technologies for the existing and yet to come versions of the TrueMotion video codec of On2. Skype had planned to release its beta in August; its delay meant that AOL was able to introduce the video service first. Skype has an arrangement with Logitech regarding the marketing of Skype-certified webcams.

Skype announces GM for North America

Henry Gomez, who has been one of the foremost corporate communications and government relations executive at eBay, has been designated general manager of Skype North America. The job responsibilities will involve marketing, PR, business development, product integration, government relations, etc. voipplanet.com reports:

"Skype is tremendously successful around the world, and we now plan to bring greater focus to North America," Zennstrom said in a statement. "Henry's deep knowledge of the market and its consumers, as well as his expertise in building brands like eBay, makes him uniquely suited to lead our North American business."

Read More: Skype Takes Another EBay Exec

Image problems for Skype

eBay’s acquisition of Skype has put the free P2P service in the limelight. However, not all this attention has been of the positive kind. According to the Canada-based Info-Tech Research Group big enterprises should refrain from using Skype as the service has some serious security and compliance shortcomings such that even a rookie hacker can pose a serious threat to a company’s network.

Butler Group, which is a UK-based analyst firm, has stated that computers on the Skype P2P network can be used as virtual PBXs. This will affect their speed, performance, and bandwidth consumption. voipplanet.com reports:

Recent releases do make it possible for network managers to turn off the instant messaging (IM) and file transfer functions in Windows Registry as a way to reduce peer-to-peer traffic over a company's Internet connection. But that's as far as it goes.

Read More: Skype: Big Bad Wolf?

Product partnerships to further growth

The recent product partnerships that Skype has entered into confirm the company’s objectives to move into embedded services. eweek.com reports:

This is Skype's second partnership, coming on the heels of the announcement last month that it had teamed with IPEVO, a Silicon Valley-based subsidiary of PCHome Online, to offer Skype devices in the United States through IPEVOs Web site.

Read More: Skype Thinks Outside the PC Box with Partner Push

Security concerns regarding P2P communication

The rise in security concerns regarding peer-to-peer communication has prompted IT administrators to block services such as Skype while vendors are beginning to focus on the security issues. The Cisco Security Agent is just one of the many applications that companies are deploying in order to detect and block the use of Skype. Further information regarding security with Skype is available here.

Skype has made it clear that its VoIP tool is not enterprise grade. Its proprietary technology used for traversing NAT is not considered safe by experts. However, Skype maintains that it does not have any immediate plans of changing the technology which has facilitates easy VoIP communication without having to reconfigure routers and firewalls. Even though Skype offers few monitoring and auditing options for businesses, it can be used for reducing long-distance communication costs, especially to places where the IT infrastructure is better than the telecom infrastructure.

An alternative to Skype’s proprietary solution is the ICE method which employs Simple Traversal of UDP through NATs (STUN) and Traversal Using Relay NAT (TURN) protocols. ICE is being considered by IETF and has found favor with Microsoft Corp and Cisco.

Skype-certified Bluetooth headset

Motorola and Skype have announced the release of a Skype-certified Bluetooth headset solution. The solution has been released in America and is called the Motorola Wireless Internet Calling Kit. tmcnet.com reports:

To experience wireless communications, users plug in the Motorola PC850 PC Adapter to equip traditional laptops and PCs with Bluetooth technology, load the required software onto the PC and follow a simple, step- by-step procedure to establish the cordless connection between the PC and Motorola H500 headset.

Read More: Motorola and Skype Bring Mobility to Internet Voice Communications

Skype targets SMBs

Skype is looking at furthering its presence among SMBs. It states that around 30% of its users are already using the tool for business communications. SMBs in countries such as India and China are adopting networking tools rapidly and Skype wishes to target this market. By the year 2008, these SMBs are expected to spend $ 200 million over networking gear.

According to Skype, regular use of Skype by enterprises can help bring down telephony costs to an appreciable extent. In order to promote its premium services, Skype has launched Skype Groups; this service allows an individual to purchase and sell the premium service to other Skype users.

Skype to retail with RadioShack

Skype Technologies and RadioShack have come together in a partnership under which the consumer electronics chain will offer Skype Starter Kit to customers through its outlets that number more than 3,000. The kit will enable users to use Skype; it comes with a headset, and 30 minutes of SkypeOut. The deal should help Skype in introducing its service to the mass market. Till now, users could obtain the Skype software by downloading it from the Internet.

The success of Skype, which has around 66 million users and adds 180,000 everyday, has led to the entry of several big companies into the VoIP market. Sony has recently announced a Web-based phone service. Yahoo has been offering PC to PC phone service for quite some time.

Skype’s entry into retail should enable it to change customer behavior and introduce them to the benefits of Internet telephony.

Security with Skype

Skype offers a range of services that include PC-to-PC calling, voicemail, call forwarding, etc and is highly popular. However, its presence behind the protective firewalls of an enterprise is becoming a cause of concern for IT administrators. voipplanet.com reports:

VoIP packets, the Internet Security Intelligence Briefing (ISIB) noted, lack clearly-recognized signatures that allow administrators to distinguish it from data packets carrying trojans.

Read More: Researchers: Skype, VoIP Are Hot And Risky

Brightpoint Inc.

Brightpoint Inc. will make available ECCB devices that will include Skype-certified Simply Phones. These phones are USB handsets that enable users to make VoIP calls without using a headset. According to the understanding between Brightpoint and ECCB, the products will first be distributed in the Americas.

ECCB has chosen Brightpoint as its distribution partner because of the well developed distribution network that Brightpoint has in the Americas. The objective of this deal is to promote Skype in the Americas and make people aware of the simplicity and cost-effectiveness of VoIP telephony via Skype.

Skype in the enterprise

Even though Skype has never stated that it is a product meant for the enterprise, many companies have started using it since it is free. In doing so, they offer their machines as supernodes for Skype. silicon.com reports:

Which brings us to the deeper trend at play here - something IT directors have every reason to be cautious about: the migration of software into the enterprise that was never designed for the enterprise.

Read More: Give Skype a break

Security with Skype

According to Info-Tech Research Group, voice over IP applications like Skype may not be fully secure for use in businesses. Awareness of the security implications regarding Skype is quite low. Skype can bypass firewalls and has shortcomings that can be exploited by hackers. Skype is gaining popularity in the same way as IM once did. Its threat potential may not be any greater than that of email or IM but the fact that it is a new technology may make setting up defenses a little tricky. Post acquisition by eBay, Skype may offer more VoIP products. This necessitates a greater attention to security than before.

Now that eBay has bought Skype, it is expected that the company will offer more VoIP products, so the need for heightened awareness of Skype security is even more vital than before the acquisition. File transfers using Skype should be discouraged. Verso Technologies, US, is providing a product that regulates Skype usage.

Linksys CIT 200

The Linksys CIT 200 Portable telephone allows users to make Skype calls without using a PC. It was a little odd to be interrupted mid-conversation by my familiar email notification. The person on the other end doesn’t hear it, but if you don’t want your pc bleating at you while you’re on the phone, you might want to disable sounds coming from various running programs.

Ericsson and cellular operator TeliaSonera will test UMA technology, which facilitates seamless handoffs between cellular and wireless LAN networks. This allows users to access wireless VoIP and cellular networks from a single instrument. Nokia too has been conducting tests with UMA.

Reviews of Skype

We talk a lot about Skype here--but how much do consumers like it? A few reactions:

VoIP Reviews Online reviews Skype and compares the top 3 VoIP providers
Skype's not yet up to all the hype @ SFGate.com

Skype Groups

Skype has launched a new service, Skype Groups, which will allow companies to create Skype accounts for its employees. This will facilitate the bill-paying process for the companies. The results of a survey of 400 subscribers of Skype Groups revealed that half of them used it for free conference calls and more than 60% used it for international calls. eweek.com reports:

New toolbars for email programs and Internet browsers, introduced last week, allow employees to call their contacts straight from their PC with a few clicks, using Skype.

Read More: Skype Targets Businesses as Growth Accelerates

Security loopholes

Skype Technologies S.A. has released two advisories regarding security vulnerabilities that can result in DoS and system access attacks. Since Skype is a widely used application and operates from behind firewalls, the threat to security is magnified.

The revelation regarding the security problems with Skype can have far-reaching implications for the company with a user-base of 60 million users, of which 30% are paid users. According to Secunia Inc. these security risks are highly critical and users are well advised to download the relevant patches as soon as possible. Skype for Windows Releases 1.1.*.0 through 1.4.*.83 is vulnerable to these threats. Skype for Windows Release 1.4.*.83 and prior, Skype for Mac OS X Release 1.3.*.16 and prior, Skype for Linux Release 1.2.*.17 and prior and Skype for Pocket PC Release 1.1.*.6 and prior are vulnerable to the DoS attacks.

A boundary error that occurs when Skype-specific URI types like "callto://" and "skype://" are handled can lead to a buffer overflow resulting in arbitrary code execution. This may even crash the Skype client.

Free voice calls

eBay is looking to use voice as a tool to combine its online payment, online selling, and web-based communications businesses in order to emerge as number one in all three. Meg Whitman, CEO, eBay, feels that Skype will play a major role in driving the cost of net telephony to zero. By the end of September 2005, Skype had 57 million users. Skype is expected to generate revenues of $ 60 million and $ 200 million for the years 2005 and 2006, respectively. zdnet.com reports:

Seeking to justify eBay's $4 billion purchase of Web-based communications phenomenon Skype Technologies, Meg Whitman countered criticism by a financial analyst during the company's quarterly conference call by agreeing with some of his points.

Read More: eBay chief foresees free voice calls for all

IRCbot

A new variant of the Trojan IRCbot, also known as Fanbot, has been uncovered by MessageLabs. It imitates Skype 1.4. If it is executed, the Trojan displays an error notice. It installs itself in the sysdir%remote.exe and stops shared access and the Windows updates. This is the first time that Skype has been mentioned in a phishing attack.

VoIP-enabling devices

There are several devices available that VoIP-enable existing phones. Internet Phone Wizard (IPW), developed by Actiontec, is one such device. It provides access to a VoIP line that uses Skype and a POTS line. The IPW does not require a power supply; it is powered by the USB port, which it uses to connect to the PC. The IPW has dimensions 4.5 X 3.25 X 1 inch. Its three ports include two RJ11 ports for an incoming line and the handset and the USB port mentioned earlier.

The IPW can be used to make calls on any of the two lines and one can be put on hold to receive a call on another. At present, the IPW works only with Windows XP and 2000. The device has a flawless design and is a useful addition for Skype users. It is priced at $ 70.

PhoneGnome, developed by TelEvolution, is similar to IPW as it provides a POTS and a VoIP line. It has the advantage of being compatible with any SIP-based service and it acts as a gateway to other SIP providers. However, it cannot work with Skype and Vonage. This is because Skype uses a proprietary protocol and Vonage does not permit gateways to other VoIP providers. The PhoneGnome requires a separate power source but can work without a computer. It has two RJ11 ports for an incoming line and the handset and one RJ45 port for a broadband connection. However, the PhoneGnome requires a POTS line for initialization. The PhoneGnome is a standards-based service priced at $120 and includes features such as voicemail and email blocking. Its rates for calls to POTS lines are comparable to that of Skype.

P2P blockers and Skype

Commercial peer to peer blockers that enable corporations to manage the access to P2P services are available in the market. This helps in managing traffic that carries hidden payloads. networkworld.com reports:

While attempts to prod Skype into changing its ways had little success when it was a stand-alone private company headquartered in Luxembourg, as a wholly owned unit of an American public company that likely will change. But what has to happen?

Read More: Can Skype be a good corp. citizen?

Skype and its users

Skype can use the LANs and WANs of its users as mini servers for routing traffic that neither originates nor terminates at the user’s end. networkworld.com reports:

Let's quote the Skype Web site on what that means: "A true [peer-to-peer] system, in our opinion, is one where all nodes in a network join together dynamically to participate in traffic routing-, processing- and bandwidth-intensive tasks that would otherwise be handled by central servers."

Read More: Skype: Hazardous to network health?

Pay per call with VoIP

Skype’s acquisition by eBay has led to speculations about using VoIP for pay per call (PPCall) similar to the pay per click advertising model. The manner in which eBay plans to use Skype for a PPCall service is not very clear but VoIP definitely has a role to play in the PPCall market, which could lead to further growth in the performance-based advertising model. PPCall can be used for offline marketing as well. This is of interest to small and medium sized businesses that may not own a website. Also, pay per call enables advertisers and business owners to learn from potential clients in a more direct manner as compared to pay per click.

In June 2005, a report published by the Kelsey Group stated that by 2009, revenues from leads originating from the web and clinched by phone will touch $ 4 billion. A majority of SMBs would prefer to pay for calls rather than clicks. The major players in the PPCall market include eStara and VoiceStar, which interact with the advertisers. Companies such as Ingenio Inc. and Jingle Networks Inc. provide free directory assistance service to its consumers. eStara, which is a push-to-talk service provider (P2Talk) has Verizon’s SuperPages and Amazon’s A9 online as clients for its hosted pay-per-call service.

VoIP enables businesses to cover out-of-station markets such that the prospects do not have to run up long-distance call charges. This is made possible by the local inbound numbers provided by VoIP that can terminate at the businessperson’s premise in another town. The VoIP network allows the PPCall vendors to log calls and report the results. VoIP has led to a drastic reduction in the cost of telemarketing advertising initiatives. This is because service providers such as eStara can access inbound local numbers provided by VoIP vendors, which is unlike the scenario in the past when a business would have to wait for a long time to get a number from a telephone company and the costs of connections to another exchange would be quite high.

Even though VoIP is important for the PPCall market, Skype may not give eBay an advantage over competitors as its SkypeIn service is available only selectively. Skype will help eBay to target its existing base of customers with relevant ads. On the other hand, companies like eStara are in a position to offer their customers a wider range of services including tracking responses to ads irrespective of the medium. They can track PC-to-PC and PC to landline calls.

GIPS and Skype

Global IP Sound (GIPS) has been providing voice-processing support to Skype since 2003 and has signed a contract for four more years. GIPS, which has experience in managing mobile applications, will work toward enabling Wi-Fi-equipped handsets with a preinstalled version of Skype. GIPS has designed VoiceEngine Mobile, which is similar to VoiceEngine. VoiceEngine eliminates delay, acoustic, jitter, etc.

Skype 1.4

Skype 1.4 is now available to the general public. The product was in the beta stage since August 2005, it was code-named Aviator. It offers better voice quality and has been launched at a time when VoIP is going mainstream in a big way and everyone from Internet companies to cable operators keen on jumping on to the VoIP bandwagon.

Skype 1.4 has a call forwarding option that allows users to forward the call to another Skype name free of charge and to a landline or mobile number for a small fee. Skype’s partnership with companies like American Greetings, Qpass, etc will allow users to download pictures and ring tones and add personalization buttons. Skype’s move to provide these offerings that start at $ 1.20 is probably based on the research by Arc Group that places the market for ring tones at $ 5.2 billion by 2006.

Skype 1.4 has high compatibility with Microsoft applications, for example personal contacts from Outlook can be directly imported to the Skype buddy list.

Blocking of VoIP traffic

Verso Technologies is an Atlanta-based company that has introduced a tool that allows cable operators to select the network traffic they wish to allow. voipplanet.com reports:

Although the FCC has at least once fined a broadband provider for blocking VoIP traffic, the long-term picture around this issue in the United States is far from clear.

Read More: Keeping Skype @Bay

eBay and Skype

Meg Whitman, CEO, eBay, states that eBay's acquisition of Skype will help it to leverage Skype’s technology to further the growth of PayPal and eBay. However, according to some business analysts, the manner in which eBay and PayPal operate does not justify the purchase of Skype. This is because VoIP will probably not add much to the already established online trading system that eBay has perfected.

Also, eBay and PayPal target the consumer to consumer and business to consumer market; if the company wishes to move into business to business as well then Skype may not be the right choice as Skype too does not spring readily to mind when discussing business to business VoIP. Moreover, even though eBay has acquired Skype and its base of over 50 million users, it will still have to face serious competition from Google and Microsoft.

Google has introduced Google Talk Beta, which has the advantage of running on the open SIP and will allow Google greater interoperability. Google may team up with Earthlink and SIPphone. LCS 2005 is Microsoft’s venture into providing VoIP services to businesses. Microsoft has also purchased Teleo, which is a VoIP provider. Yahoo was already providing PC to PC and PSTN call facility to the users of its IM, its purchase of Dialpad Communications will allow it to add VoIP calls facility to its IM service.

One advantageous manner in which eBay can leverage its purchase of Skype is to employ its knowledge of the preferences of its customers and target them accordingly using VoIP.

eBay may acquire Skype VoIP

Previously there were rumours that Yahoo and News Corp planned to acquire Skype, the leading VoIP provider. Now it is said that eBay is interested in acquiring Skype VoIP Messenger. Skype is valued around $3 billion. According to Wall Street Jounal news, eBay and Skype reached an important stage of the talks.

The reason behind eBay's interest in Skype is that eBay-owned PayPal is one of the preferred ways of buying Skype Out credits. Over the past few years, eBay has become a direct competitor with Yahoo and Google in the commercial search and auction market. As Skype is associated with Chinese market with its VoIP service, eBay has taken interest in it to gain strong foothold in the Chinese market. searchenginejournal.com reports:

Some locales the big three are competing highly in are Europe, Japan and China. Skype has also been involved in the Chinese market, and is accepted internationally as the method of making Voice Over Internet Protocol calls, which makes it even more enticing to eBay.

Read More: eBay In Acquisition Talks With Skype VOIP

Skype is to enter into a VoIP Joint Venture in China

VoIP major Skype Technologies is planning to expand its VoIP market in China. It is entering into a joint venture with Chinese wireless Internet company Tom Online Inc. The new joint venture company will develop and distribute a simplified Chinese version of Skype's VoIP software. Also, it will introduce premium services for the Internet users and service companies in China.

The companies will work together to integrate Skype's PC-to-PC VoIP service with Tom's more than 70 million wireless users. The companies also plan to explore Tom's mobile and Skype's Internet experience to develop new communication features for wireless Internet platforms. They joined hands for the first time in November 2004 to develop a simplified version of Skype. Skype already has established its stronghold in Chinese market, as china is one of its three op markets. cbronline.com reports:

China is home to the world's largest mobile phone market with more than 360 million subscribers. Internet usage in the county is expected to swell to about 154 million in 2007.

Read More: Skype to create VoIP joint venture in China

JAJAH is serious competition for Skype

A free new software known as JAJAH enables users to make audio and video calls from PC to PC, to SIP-enabled phones, smartphones, and mobile phones. JAJAH apparently provides better audio results and uses less bandwidth than Skype. In fact, JAJAH does not require broadband connectivity, it does not slow down other programs, and does not take up a lot of disk space. The reason for this is that JAJAH's proprietary codec requires less than half the bandwidth that other codecs require. Its codec requires 4 Kbytes / s and hence the software can run even on a dial-up connection. JAJAH also supports the following codecs, Skype - bandwidth of 112 Kbit / s; G.711 - bandwidth of 64 Kbit / s; GSM - bandwidth of 32 Kbit / s; G.729 - bandwidth of 8 Kbit / s. It offers features such as live text chat with mobile phones, real-time text message translation, call forwarding, conference calls, searching Skype users and adding them to a contact list on JAJAH, end-to-end encryption, voice mailbox, etc. JAJAH offers calling to landlines and mobiles at very low rates. JAJAH is a P2P networking software that uses a proprietary protocol and also supports protocols such as SIP, H.323, POTS, and IAX2.  Calls to standard telephones in the US, Netherlands, Sweden, France, Italy, etc are at or below 2.5 cents per minute. Calls to Brazil, Greece, Israel, etc are at or below 1.7 cents per minute. These rates are inclusive of taxes. Currently, only a JAJAH version for Windows is available, the video quality is not very good and the frame rate is not high, adding contacts is a little tedious as both the nickname and email address of the desired contact has to be added, navigating by using the various tabs is a trifle tedious.

Skype signs deal with E Plus

Skype has sent a strong signal that it intends to diversify beyond providing PC-based VoIP solutions by signing up with E-Plus, which is Germany's third largest mobile network. The deal will allow the 10 million users of E-Plus to make free calls using Skype on the E-Plus global network. Skype is also collaborating with mobile handset developers like Motorola to come up with instruments that support Skype. Skype CEO Niklas Zennstrom has stated that the company intends to increase the number of Skype-enabled devices, such as Wi-Fi mobile phones and set top boxes, so that in the future its technology is an integral part of applications that are developed. vSKYPE is a new software that allows video conferencing through the Skype network. It is a result of Skype allowing access to developers to its application program interface (API).  By tying up with wireless ISPs such as Boingo and Livedoor, Skype plans to develop Internet telephony with the help of WiFi.

German Operator, E-Plus tied up with Skype to provide VoIP service

German operator E-Plus announced a tie-up with Skype to offer VoIP service. This move will enable customers to avail VoIP over wireless calls at a flat rate. E-Plus has been placed third among the Telecom Operators in Germany. It always eyed to expand its network throughout the country by providing the latest features to the customers. It scored a point over the rivals by choosing VoIP software developer Skype to develop its infrastructure.

E-Plus is currently owned by Dutch telco KPN. It will bundle the Skype software with its flat rate data subscription for US$50 per month. This service is expected to be launched in the coming October. telecoms.com reports:

E-Plus said that it would only offer Skype software for its VoIP service and that the offering would also be available over its UMTS network. Skype said that it already has more than 2.8 million fixed line based users throughout Germany and added it is working with a number of mobile handset and headset manufacturers, including Motorola, to offer a range of Skype-ready devices.

Read More: E-Plus signs up Skype for VoIP offering

Skype joined the fray by opening VoIP and IM platforms

The tussle to gain supremacy on VoIP has begun. After Google's announcement of introducing VoIP and Instant Messaging services, another VoIP leader, Skype Technologies announced that it would open its VoIP and IM platform to the online communities and developers. It became crystal clear that these two companies are going to be at loggerheads in the near future. Other companies like Microsoft are also like to join the business battle.

So far, Skype has dominated VoIP service with 51 million users. The users have adopted its sharp IM feature. CEO of Skype made it clear that the company will make the popular features available to the online users and communities. It has a plan to create the largest open instant messaging platform in the world. informationweek.com reports:

Skype said it is opening up SkypeNet and SkypeWeb Application Programming Interface (API) as part of its Skype Developer Program. The company noted that "a thriving community" of developers already has been working on Skype add-ons.

Read More: Skype Opens VoIP, IM Platforms

VoIP and Skype: Talk..Talk.. To Your Heart's Content

At last the freedom to talk as long as you like has surfaced on the horizons of the communications world. No more forwarding of your calls and reroutings. No more in betweens. Only you and your listner. And the icing on the cake is that it is free. VoIP has revolutionized the communications world by offering users the ability to make what were once considered long-distance phone calls for a fraction of the cost.

With programs like Skype, talking is literally free for users making calls to anyone within the US, EU, and increasing other locations. Other programs offer users the ability to make calls using the very telephone hardware that they are used to using. The price for making such calls is so far below the traditional rates that users are incredulous. It seems this has been the greatest barrier to the growth of VoIP, individuals simply do not believe that such a good deal can honestly exist.

-Rambabu Arle

Skype Washes Hands Of E911

With the FCC's recent ruling on E911, European VoIP provider Skype claims that it should not be held as an emergency service to its customers.  Skype's spokeswoman, Kelly Larabee claims that Skype is not a replacement to an existing telephone line and should be regarded as an "enhancement".  Therefore, they should not be expected to provide E911 services in compliance to the FCC ruling.  In other words, they don't want to pay to have the system installed for their 4 millions American clients and focus more time on their other 36 million worldwide.  Let me illustrate this fact:

Larabee stated that, “there are ways Skype could enhance emergency services. For instance, text messages or e-mails could help persons in distress to communicate in some situations."  Right.  Like I'm just going to sit around and wait for a 911 technician to pick up their cell phone and read their TEXT MESSAGES.  Is this woman serious?  Do you know how long it would take to text, "People are coming to kill me!” under the circumstances?

American VoIP companies played the "enhancement" card, and they got regulated.  Either step up to the plate, or take your European software elsewhere. According to TechWeb:

Vonage, the largest U.S.-based VoIP firm, has forged agreements with landline telephony operators like Verizon Communications and SBC Communications to insure that 911 emergency service is provided.

Read more: Skype Positions Itself as 'Enhancement' VoIP, Not Responsible For 911 Service

A Call To The Trenches

The price wars that everyone has been predicting may be on the horizon.  As Vonage and Skype increase in size and accessibility, they are continuously reaching out to bigger and better markets.  What does this market look like?  The World.  With Vonage mainly dominating North America, and Skype with their share of the international market, it is only a matter of time before the mud starts flying.  With Skye's new service plan called SkypeIn, they are planning to attract people to replace their old telephone systems with VoIP.  Additionally, Vonage is beginning a break into the international sector with sales in Mexico and the United Kingdom.  With AOL's soon entrance to the scene, it will make for a very interesting next couple years.  Even though a few of you may have already picked sides in this inevitable battle of VoIP giants, remember that competition means better prices and service.  According to Internet Week:

To date, the two services haven't targeted each other directly, and some subscribers use both services. Competition is certain to compete as the volume of callers using the Web grows and as each company increases services and marketing in international markets.

Read more at: Vonage And Skype Turn Up The Heat--On Each Other

Payday For Skype

Skype has finally decided to enter the money market and offer a pay subscription for their VoIP services.  The decision came after they logged 100 million downloads from their website.  A service called Skypeln is one of the two services now being offered by the company.  Skypeln will enable people to forward cell phone calls to a Skype number when roaming.  This will save people a great deal of money on long distance and roaming charges on people's cell phone bills.  Skype Voicemail is the second pay service and allows people to manage voicemail messages saved through VoIP communications.  Skypeeln will cost around 39 dollars a year and the Voicemail will be roughly 19 dollars for a year. According to BetaNews:

According to Skype's internal numbers, it has more than 35 milllion registered numbers, and claims 150,000 new users sign up daily.

Read more at: Skype Launches Pay Services fo VOIP

MSN Joins The VoIP Family

With the latest version of MSN Messenger 7.0, Microsoft has followed suit with most other instant messaging services and added VoIP connectivity along with a few other features.  Microsoft's took interest in Skype and how people made use of their VoIP service before implementing it themselves.  Some future plans for the messenger were allowing people using VoIP services to connect to PSTN telephone Networks.  While Microsoft has made the right move to allow MSN users access to VoIP, it may be a little too late.  With AOL already offering a full phone service, and many upstart companies on the rise, Gates and Company may surely miss out.  According to Internet News:

"From our initial research, the main driver for people is really PC to PC audio, but obviously we're definitely investigating PSTN termination," Holden said. "We don't have any short term plans at the moment but its definitely on the investigation path."

Read more at: MS Adds VoIP, Video Calls to Messenger

Skype Adds SMS Feature

Last week, Skype debuted their new short text message service (SMS) that allows its users to both send and receive SMS messages, making Skype the only instant message software that has closed the SMS loop. Yahoo!, AOL and Microsoft's IM clients only allow their users to send SMS.

Read more: Skype launches free SMS service

Motorola Developing Wi-Fi VoIP Cell Phones

Motorola has announced that they are currently developing cell phones that will be able to make calls over Wi-Fi networks. The phones will work on both the GSM network and over Wi-Fi using VoIP software provided by Skype. According to CNET News:

Because the phones would steer calls away from cell phone networks, combination cell and voice over Internet Protocol phones could have a profound impact on the wireless industry.

VoIP calls, connecting via a Wi-Fi network to a home broadband connection, can be made for free or at prices sometimes half of that for a cell phone call.

Read more: Motorola phones to call on Wi-Fi, VoIP

WiFi i-Mate Skype Phones

i-Mate will begin distributing mobile phones that double as VoIP phones in Europe, the United States, and Asia by March. The phones will be packaged with Skype's VoIP software. According to silicon.com:

The i-Mate phones are based on a Microsoft operating system and contain radios capable of using both cell and Wi-Fi networks. When you're in a Wi-Fi hotspot, the internet phone software lets you dial other Skype users for free, or pay per minute for calling traditional phones.

Analysts have long suggested that the net/cell phone tandem could prove a potent weapon that net phone, mobile and broadband providers could use to steal customers from the nation's major local phone companies.

Read more: Phone your i-Mate on net-enabled mobile

Skype VoIP Now for Linux & Mac

Skype has released their popular VoIP service software version 1.0 for both Linux and Mac OS X v10.3 or newer. Although a beta version had previously been available for download, the final version allows for cross platform use. According to eWeek:

All of Skype's features, including its global address book, the ability to manage "presence" across different locations, and the ability to send files, have been included in the shipping versions, according to Skype. An additional service called SkypeOut allows Skype users to connect to mobile and landline phones for the price of a local call.

Read more: Skype Releases VOIP Software for Mac, Linux

Businesses Discover Skype

Skype is mostly used for personal VoIP calls. But now business customers are beginning to turn on to Skype to help increase communication at lower costs when employees go on the road. While currently there are over 23 million Skype users, the company expects the number of users to be over 140 million by 2008. According to ZDNet:

Employees at Ruhrpumpen, an industrial pump manufacturer in Tulsa, Okla., started using Skype last summer to communicate with co-workers and business partners in Asia, Central America and Europe. The company has even put a directory with Skype contacts on its intranet. About 70 people out of the 1,000 that work for the company are registered Skype users.

Read more: No-cost Skype strikes chord with businesses

Skype VoIP Threatens European Telcos

As more people switch to broadband telephony company Skype to handle VoIP phone calls, traditional European telcos are feeling threatened.

From the Register:

According to research outfit Evalueserve, the European telecoms market is more vulnerable to Voice over Internet Protocol (VoIP) providers because of per minute tariffs and high roaming charges.

With 13m users worldwide and numbers growing by 80,000 a day, Evalueserve reckons Skype could have between 140-245m subscribers by 2008.

It forecasts that incumbents could see revenue fall by as much as 10 per cent because of the surge in demand for internet telephony with profit predicted to slide by at least 22-26 per cent.

Read more: Skype VoIP threat to Euro telcos

Skype to Add Video Conferencing

Skype, a peer-to-peer Voice over Internet Protocol (VoIP) service, will add video conferencing, short messaging system (SMS), and voice mail in 2005 in the Taiwan market.

According to DigiTimes:

In addition, PChome recently completed the development of USB phones for a variety of Skype’s VoIP applications in cooperation with an unnamed Taiwan-based manufacturer, said Luo. The product is currently awaiting verification from the headquarters of Skype Technologies in Switzerland.

Read more: Taiwan market: Skype to add video-conferencing service in 2005

Tom Online, Skype to Offer VoIP in China

Chinese web site operator Tom Online is teaming up with Skype Technologies to offer a Chinese version of Skype's VoIP service. The new service is called Tom Skype.

According to ITworld.com:

While Skype is primarily used to make voice calls, the joint statement by Tom Online and Skype downplayed this capability, instead describing the software as a "communication tool and instant messaging (IM) service." By comparison, a Skype statement issued in July to announce the launch of a cobranded Skype application with PCHome Online Inc. in Taiwan described the software as "Internet telephony software." [...]

The subtle difference in language used to announce the Skype deals with Tom Online and PCHome Online highlights the sensitivity of offering VoIP services in China, where telecommunication services including Internet telephony are highly regulated and controlled by a handful of companies.

Read more: Tom Online makes VoIP move in China with Skype

Will Skype VoIP Overtake Traditional Telephone?

Federal Communications Commission (FCC) Chairman Michael Powell expects that Skype's VoIP software, because it offers high-quality peer-to-peer voice communication for free, will inevitably change the world.

According to ZDNet:

Because of its peer-to-peer architecture, Skype requires absolutely no infrastructure and only minimal capital investment compared with phone companies that own their own lines and switches. Rather, Skype's 750,000 daily users create the network on the fly, sharing computer resources to manage traffic flow and ensure call quality. Skype claims its network can grow organically without the need to add new equipment to support increased traffic demands.

Read more: Can Skype live up to the Net phone hype?

Skype Launches Mobile VoIP Software

Skype Technologies, a leader in peer-to-peer VoIP technology, has officially launched Skype for Pocket PC 1.0, allowing Wi-Fi-enabled PDA users to make unlimited free telephone calls from anywhere with wireless access.

According to NewsFactor:

This is essentially a mobile version of the company's global VoIP service based on peer-to-peer software, and also delivers instant messaging without voice over GPRS wide-area networks. Conference calling is also available. [...]

"Skype is delivering VoIP to the masses," said IDC analyst Alex Slawsby, "providing voice communications on a mobile device or a PC."

Read more: Skype Delivers Mobile VoIP