At GigaOM there is an interesting survey going on under the title "Does your house VoIP?". Om Malik asks:

Regardless, time to ask the community what kind of a VoIP users are you? Cable kind, or someone who uses soft clients or do have still doing the Vonage styled ATA-based VoIP calling?

This cuestions finally made me get a general idea about all the services I use. And, god, it's a lot of them!

Actually I am using 20 VoIP accounts, out of couriosity and because of the different services they offer. But maybe I am subscribed to even more, but just forgot it. My goal is to make free calls and use arbitrage possibilities between the different VoIP services. I use the different VoIP providers on my desk phone that's connected to the Fritz!Box fon ATA and on my mobile phone, Nokia E61, that can hold several SIP accounts. Also I use Fring on the E61, because it can hold my accounts on Skype, MSN messenger, Google Talk and also one SIP account.

Here is why I use so many different services:

Voipstunt: For free or super cheap calls worldwide. This services I use most. It's installed on my desk phone and on my mobile phone, Nokia E61. So I can make free calls from Wifi hotspots.

Sipgate: Is use Sipgate as an answering machine. Incoming calls to my ATA are forwarded for free to the Sipgate mailbox if not answered in 30 seconds. For that purpose we have two Sipgate accounts at home.

Tpad: Because of their BreakIn numbers worldwide. My friends from Peru can call me so in Berlin for the cost of a local call without having a computer.

Truphone: To check it out on my mobile phone and because of their new offer that gives me landlines nearly worldwide for free in the next two months.

Several services for testing purposes and out of couriosity: GMX, Voipbuster, FWD, dus.net, Sip2sip.info, Ekiga.net, Openwengo, iptel.org, Rebtel, 4S newcom ...

Voxalot: Every time my Fritz!Box fon ATA gets too full, because it can only hold 10 VoIP accounts, I move the one I don't use to call out anymore to Voxalot. This service works like an ATA in the net: It's logged in to the VoIP services I don't use so much anymore. So I can keep them and receive calls on their SIP addresses or phone numbers. For instance if somebody calls my unused Gizmo account (I have several of them) my Voxalot account in my Fritz!Box fon ATA rings.

Gizmocall: I have set up a special web link to my address at Gizmo Project. So people can call me unlimitedly from a web page.

Ageet: That's probably the world's smallest PBX. It works as a Activex plugin in Internet Explorer and has a link from my website. If people open this page the PBX loads and they can call me from their browser. This was really cool until I discovered Gizmocall one week later.

The large quantity of the services I use is not so much a sign that I might be tech crazy. It's just an indication of how much the VoIP sector is still evolving. The industry consist of thousands of different companies that offer basically the same: Cheap phone calls over the internet. But if you look closer you see that they differ in the added services: cheap break in numbers, calls from a website, use the old PSTN number as VoIP number, administrate your other VoIP accounts,...

So probably I will have soon 30 VoIP providers. For instance I am interested in a Peruvian VoIP number that my friends in Lima can call for price of a local call. Tpad is already doing a good job with their callin number and the extension. But sometimes this does not work and a real Peruvian phone number would be much more elegant. But still the Peruvian VoIP market is underdeveloped and these numbers are too expensive to me.

Labels: Ageet, Betamax, Fring, Gizmo Project, Gizmocall, Google Talk, MSN messenger, Nokia, Sipgate, Skype, Tpad, Truphone, VoIP, Voxalot

                                      

I have been playing quite a lot with the Gizmo Project in the last days. Its a SIP-Softphone which is much easier to install than the standard, X-Lite. My friends from abroad use it to call me for free. Now they you can use it also from the website GizmoCall. On first sight you don't even have to install a software. But in fact you do. And that's not always easy. I tell you my impressions.


FIRST DAY:

Now the GIZMOCALL website is finally open for everyone, but it does not work for me as a Linux user. I just got this comment on my screen:

Gizmo Call does not yet work on Linux computers. We like Linux and we use Linux and we’re going to make Gizmo Call work for Linux. Adobe just recently released Flash 9 for Linux which Gizmo Call requires which is why we have been delayed in releasing Linux support for Gizmo Call. You may want to try the Linux version of Gizmo Project available at http://gizmoproject.com which works on most Linux distributions. You can also try the Nokia n800 Linux tablet which runs Linux and Gizmo Project. Go Linux!!

1.) Now I am booting my wife’s Windows machine.

2.) The Gizmocall website requires me to download a plugin.

3.) Now I am trying to call my German mobile phone. For quite a long time it says "Waiting for the Flash plugin". So I better shut down Firefox and open it again.

4.) OK, after the restart it looks different, because of the loaded plugin I suppose.

5.) Dammit! Again it wants me to install the plugin. Maybe last time it did not work because I had no administrator rights. But it said “setup complete” to me during the installation process. Will change into Admin mode now.

6.) Yes, you have to be Admin if you do it for the first time. The Flash player asks me for permition to use my microphone.

7.) Now it is already the 3rd time I have to install the plugin. Will try it now with Microsoft Internet Explorer.

8.) It always says "Waiting for the Flash Plugin". Yet it is the 4th time that I have to (re-)install it.

9.) I will reboot the Windows PC now. I could not make any phone call still. Not even to a landline. The Flash website does not let me put in the phone number.

10.) Hopefully after the reboot it will be better.

11.) Oh my god! The reboot takes very long. Hopefully Gizmo did not screw my system? Malware?

:)

12.) OK, my fault. I just switched off instead of reboot. Now the PC is booting again.

13.) NOW IT WORKS! (mostly)

14.) RESULTS OF MY FIRST TRIAL

14.a.) Call to my landline:
Excellent
(But why does this eat up my free minutes? This landline is an ENUM number which directs to a SIP adress. Withe the Gizmo Project software I can call it for free. Why not from the Gizmocall website?

14.b.) Call to my SIP address:
Great
(But why does this eat up my free minutes? Calls to SIP adresses must be free!)

14.c.) Call to my mobile:
Bad
(Eats up my free minutes but my mobile phone does never ring. Why this?)

15.) MY OPINION:

Summing it all up: Great service! Can be a Jajah killer. Reminds me of Ageet (http://www.ageet.com/us/agephone/webobject.htm) and their smallest software PBX, which actually is a ActiveX plugin. But Gizmocall does not work only with Internet Explorer. And also it is free to everyone, unliky Ageet which is only being sold to companies.

Great work! (After all the first time user hassle I had to suffer.)


SECOND DAY:

As I told you before I had to install the plugin 4 times. In this morning I wanted to use Gizmocall. And what does it say to me? "Reinstall Plugin!" What the … is this? Why does it want me to install the plugin again and again? Does my Windows XP forget it? Is the plugin crappy? At first I was very enthusiastic. Not so much anymore.

LATER DAYS:

Now it works just fine. But I read many other comments from people who had the same problem and had to install the plugin several times.

Labels: Ageet, Gizmo Project, Gizmocall, VoIP