Showing posts with label Betamax. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Betamax. Show all posts

Saturday, September 12, 2009

Why Skype maybe right about killing its Extras developer program and being careful with APIs

So Skype kills its Extras developer program and everyone in VoIP and his dog is up in arms. I am not to happy either, but I think I understand the VoIP market leader: Skype has to be very careful because Skypeout is by far not the cheapest solution for internet phone calls. Competitors like Sipgate or Betamax always stress this point in their press releases. E. g. on August 5th, 2009, I got this email from the Betamax company Voipbuster:

As it is now becoming more and more clear that Skype’s services will not be available much longer because their software license will expire, it is now the time to switch to VoipBuster. [...] To make sure everyone can still use Voice Over IP at even cheaper rates than Skype, Voipbuster has lowered loads of destinations.

Sipgate basically said the same with its lates press release on August 19th, 2009. Everyone wants to eat from Skype's lunch.

If Skype allows developers to treat the call function as a service inside of other applications, it can only loose. When people can make their Skype calls on Facebook, Outlook, normal phones or wherever, they will use Skype only for inbound calls and for the free Skype to Skype calls. Outbound calls to phone networks (PSTN) will be channeled over Skype competitors who offer cheaper prices for their SIP services.

With some VoIP tinkering, I have already achieved most of this: I receive Skype calls on my normal phone, which is connected to a small PBX device (Fritz!Box), outbound calls to the PSTN go over cheaper competitors. So Skype never gets money from me. The only thing that is still missing are Skype to Skype calls from my Fritz!Box. They would be possible if Skype was more open, they way I already make and receive Gizmo5 calls on this box (which, BTW, doesn't earn money from me either).

If Skype allows that too - they will never see me again, although I would be a daily freerider on their network. I would not pay for Skypeout (as I already don't do) and I wouldn't even open their software on my PC, which they could at least use as a screen for visual advertising.

I repeat my concerns: If Skype opens too much, they can become the dumbest pipe of all. Other companies and services would channel their calls for free over Skype's gratis P2P network. Gizmo5 already does it with their OpenSky service: It let's you "call Skype or receive Skype calls" on SIP devices (at least they say so). Gizmo5 thus piggybacks its service on Skype's network and charges its users $20 per year for OpenSky. Skype gets nothing, that's the disadvantage of not having an own phone network but APIs. Truphone, Nimbuzz and Fring offer similar Skype services for mobiles.

I guess the new Skype owners have already considered this.

Monday, March 30, 2009

Why Truphone's new flatrate prices might be a bad idea

Truphone announces new flatrate prices. Gigaom had the news first, but my comment doesn't show up. So I answer with a blog post. I am afraid that this is a bad move of Truphone.

TruUnlimited for Landlines
For people who need to communicate regularly with colleagues, friends or family around the world, the TruUnlimited for Landlines monthly plan gives unlimited calls to landlines in 38 countries for just £10 / $17 per month. As a bonus, the plan also permits calls to mobile phones in some top destinations such as the USA, Canada, China, and Hong Kong at no extra charge.

TruUnlimited for Mobiles
For people calling mobile phones more frequently, the TruUnlimited for Mobiles monthly plan provides subscribers with unlimited calls to mobiles and landlines in 64 countries for just £25 / $40 per month.


Does anybody remember Wifimobile? They offered the same and probably went bust, at least there is nothing to be heard of them anymore.

Wifimobile started at the same time as Truphone with a similar business: VoIP calls from Nokia handsets, using an own VoIP software for Wifi. Later they introduced VoIP calls outside of Wifi via callthrough numbers, similiar to Truphone Out+ which got introduced 4 days later. Read my regarding blog post about their feature competition: Funny feature race between Truphone and Wifimobile

Wifimobile's distingushing business case from Truphone was free unlimited calls to landlines in 40 countries for $14.99/€10.99/£7.99 - which they started to offer in May 2007, similar to what Truphone announces now. They never could get enough clients because Truphone took their breath away with their introductory offer: free calls to most countries, which Truphone extened for more than one year.

Free is even cheaper than flatrate!

Wifimobile was dismayed, every time Truphone extended its introductory offer. They had no VC to compete with that. Finally Wifimobile had to surrender and went to per minute prices on a prepaid base, similar to what Truphone offered in the last months. I covered that too in a blog post: Wifimobile again outsmarted by Truphone's free offer

From Wifimobile there is nothing to be heard anymore. No PR and their website has changed. Now they offer only the callthrough option which makes them look like a cheap calling card provider. Their founder concentrates on a business which offers cheap roaming SIM cards, similar to Truphone's SIM4travel.

Why would Truphone introduce a feature which didn't help their competitor? Are those new iPhone and Blackberry users really that price insensible?

We all know that you can get the same unlimited free calls to landlines for only €2.50 ($3.31) from Voipzoom and Voipbuster. These Betamax companies undercut every price. TruUnlimited for Mobiles is only attractive for very happy users. You have to make a lot of calls to mobile until it pays off.

Tuesday, September 2, 2008

O2 Germany unblocks Rebtel

Just a fast news break: O2 in Germany is not blocking the phone numbers of Rebtel anymore. Their blog says "Victory! Rebtel is officially back in town and we’re planning on staying for a loooong time without any unexpected interruptions." I just heard the good news from my contacts and already did some Rebtel calls with a German SIM card from O2. Rebtel's CEO Hjalmar Winbladh is very happy that the pressure from thousands of Rebtel users made this breakthrough possible. He had had asked to write emails to the boss of O2 in Germany, Mr. Jaime Smith Basterra (jaime.smith@o2.com) or call the O2 support desk on 0049 179 55 22 2. Hjalmar told me in an email:
"We are very grateful for the overwhelming support we have received from our users. They proved that together we can make a difference. O2 would not have changed their mind without our users mailing, visiting and calling O2's CEO and customer support. Thank you all Rebtel friend! People can now stay in touch their loved ones again and afford to pay for it. We hope this has shown other operators that people do not accept being told who they can call and if they can use VOIP-services or not. We will continue to support our users and offer some of the world's lowest rates and best quality calling."
It cannot be overheard: Rebtel is happy, but they also send a message to incumbent telco operators to never try that again. Actually not only the Swedish company was affected. There are still more callthrough services and chatlines which see their numbers constrained by O2 and E-Plus in Germany. Their numbers are blocked or "limited", which is an especially nasty trick that user handytim explains in the web forum Telefon-Treff.de: "The numbers are not blocked, only limited. In my test I could only establish 1 connection out of 100 trials". While blocking of certain phone numbers is illegal for mobile operators, limiting seems to allowed to save their bandwith. One has to ask what's the difference to a blockade if really one of 100 calls comes through.

The affected companies are listed in a Google Spreadsheet which forum user Vesko keeps up to date: Budgetmobil, DialNow, Calleasy, voipwise.com, nonoh.net, VoipBusterPro, yipl.de, Chat House, Bluerate, Speed-Chat, partyknack.de, 030chat.de and Phonecaster. As you might notice there are several Betamax services among them. If the company wasn't so reluctant to talk to its users, Betamax could make a similar call for help.

Thursday, August 28, 2008

Why Truphone and Gizmo5 applaud that Nokia turns it's back on mobile VoIP

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

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

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

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

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

Monday, February 25, 2008

Before you call Betamax a scam, read the Terms of Service!

In the last weeks I received many messages from people who want to start a lawsuit against the VoIP company Betamax from Cologne, Germany. They feel betrayed by the mothership of Voipstunt, Voipcheap, Sparvoip, Lowratevoip, Nonoh and other offers. Something must have gone wrong with their billing or they believe that Betamax wrongfully charged too much. Aside from the problem that Betamax themselves are apparently victim of a scam, I can only say that for me everything works flawlessly. But I get the impression that many users don't understand the company's Terms of Service. This morning a Betamax user called Robert wrote:
The company I work for happens to be in Moscow so I call them regularly. Why do they suddenly want to charge me for these calls? It doesn't make any difference whether I call the U.S.A., Italy or Russia. They are all free and perhaps I call Moscow three times a day but perhaps twice a week.

I told him to first look at the website http://backsla.sh/betamax. There you can always see the latest prices and you will realize that with most Betamax companies you can call Russia's landline phones for free, within a Fair Use Policy (FUP) of 300 minutes per week. This FUP seems very fair to me. I never exceed it, so Betamax' normally works like a flatrate for me.

In fact I am very surprised about their cheap prices for Russia, because I know that connections outside of St. Petersburg and Moscow are very expensive to buy in wholesale markets. Therefore e. g. Rebtel users have to pay $0.019 Cents to Moscow and St. Petersburg landlines - but $0.079 Cents to other Russian cities. So Betamax' $0.00 Cent is a great bargain. For the German company it makes a big price difference whether they terminate calls in the U.S.A., Italy or in Russia. Although it might be difficult to explain to the average user like Robert.
Now I see that calls, which were originally free, are now being charged under the 'fair use policy'. This I don't understand.

There can be two reasons for that:
1.) Robert calls for more then 300 minutes per week.

2.) He shares his IP number with other users, so that Betamax thinks that it's only one user. That's what happened at Voxalot, a virtual internet PBX: All Voxalot users had the same IP number to Betamax. Therefore they jointly exceeded the FUP very fast. Voxalot managed to strike an agreement with Betamax to pass the original IP number, so that every user now has his own FUP.

So, if Betamax charges for actual free calls, there might be a technical problem. Otherwise it seems a great bargain to me to get 1.200 minutes per month from Betamax for just €2.50. (Taking into account that that you have to pay €10 every four months to get the €0.00 to Russian landlines.) People should also consider what user satphoneguy wrote in Voxalot's forum:
having lived in many parts of the world I think that a lot of what is happening is relate to cultural differences and expectation of customer service. from what i have read the vast majority of complaints are coming from the USA. here in the USA it is somewhat expected that if you are unhappy with a service or feel deceived by misleading marketing that you should be eligible for refund on what you spent. most American companies do indeed give 100% refunds to their customers no questions asked when they complain. i do know from having lived overseas that is not the business etiquette everyplace. there are a number of reasons why many people may feel deceived since the betamax 'fair use policies' are not very clear. in particular concerning additional charges for use of SIP devices on some services. it is all exasperated in that americans also feel that every company should have a customer service line where they can call with questions(or complaints) or at very least email support with a quick turnaround to response(same day)

i do have to say though that it seems many people who complain about numerous betamax companies continue to try the others. this is very similar to what i dealt with working for a very large retail company - some of the biggest complainers and returners of products for refunds were also some of the biggest shoppers; i would see them on nearly a daily basis.

i personally have never had a billing issue with betamax. although in recent months my only funded account is nonoh; since the rates are so much less for the mobile destinations that i call than with any of the SIP options and i have unlimited calls to NA and most landlines through another provider.

Many people in Europe accept a lousy service, as long as it's cheap. But others expect a great service although they pay nearly nothing. That's just not possible to deliver for a company. Good service always has its price, especially in a country with sky-high wages like Germany. People who want more than just plain phone minutes should subscribe to companies like PhoneGnome, Packet8 or Sipgate which have real hotlines by phone and email for their clients. That's what I also told Robert, who finally admitted:
I suppose, like most people, I never fully read the 'Terms of Use', although in these terms there is no exact reason mentioned and more than that, there is no exact time limit per country or city mentioned where this might be relatively easy as an adder to the price information.

Please always have a look at the small print at the end of every Betamax web page!
* Max 300 minutes per week of free calls, measured over the last 7 days and per unique IP address. Unused free minutes cannot be taken to the following week(s). If limit is exceeded the normal rates apply. With your FREE DAYS you can call for free to all the destinations listed as free! When you have no FREE DAYS left the normal rates apply. You can get extra Freedays by buying credit

They say it very clear that free calls are limited to 300 minutes per week and IP address. That's not too difficult to understand, isn't it? What still remains a mistery to me, is the sentence „When you have no FREE DAYS left the normal rates apply“.

What are these normal rates after 300 minutes? I couldn't find them either.

Friday, February 1, 2008

VoIP provider Betamax apparently victim of a scam

It seems that the VoIP provider Betamax has to be relieved from fraud allegations which spread across the web in the last weeks. Alec Saunders had pointed to a story from MyVoIPProvider.com which said that the mother company of Voipstunt, Voipbuster, Voipcheap, Nonoh and much more VoIP services was fraudulently charching money to credit cards and Paypal accounts of members and nonmembers. MyVoIPProvider.com had issued a public warning:
Over the past 18 - 24 months we have had dozens, if not hundreds of complaints about the Betamax group, all from users and even non-users trying to find an outlet to vent their anger or trying to find a means of contacting the company in Germany.

In all cases the modus operandi is the same: Users who have never used the VoIP services of any of the Betamax VoIP websites find that small amounts averaging between between US$10 and US$35 are charged to their credit cards. In every single instance the credit card charge description was - BETAMAX VOIP CREDIT COLOGNE - (Cologne is the English name of Köln - the apparent headquarters of the group in Germany) and Betamax are the beneficiaries of these fraudulent charges.

At the Voxalot forum most of us couldn't believe these charges, since most of these penny pinchers there are quite satisfied with Betamax' offers. Of course their customer service is terrible. If you have a problem there's no one to call and the email support is just a joke, as I already told in "WTF is Betamax (VoIP)?". But then, there are heartbreaking stories to read in Ebay's user forum for Paypal:
jlmoore0 (7 ) View Listings | Report Jan-31-08 05:43 PST 22 of 28

I have never heard o Betamax GmbH & Co.KG HOWEVER I have just been charged £383 on my credit card by PAYPAL. I stopped my credit card & contacted Paypal - who tried to imply that someone in my household had used my account!! This seems incredible owing to the amount of complaints about this company. I am not impressed & when resolved won't be using paypal again!!

Unfortunately it turns out that Betamax is not responsible for all the wrongdoings but a victim itself, as a Paypal representative declared yesterday:

ericj@paypal.com View Listings | Report Jan-31-08 14:08 PST 23 of 28

Hi All,

If you are seeing fraudulent charges in your PayPal accounts, your login information has been compromised. Please contact us ASAP and an agent will assist you with reporting the fraudulent transactions and resetting your login information.

Its also important to keep in mind that while this company is showing on the charges, they are a victim as well. It's quite unlikely they are behind the fraud itself. Rather it would be the spoofers who gained access to your accounts.

I apologize for the inconvenience and will pass this information onto the necessary individuals for review.

Thanks,
Eric


Betamax was caught in a trap: Their terrible customer service has made the fraud charges highly believable, although they are not very plausible. Few people wondered how Betamax could have charged a Paypal account secretly a second time, when the customer only gave a one time authorization. Even more unlikely was the allegation that they charged people who didn't even know the company.

From where should they have had these credit card data?

It seems that the company and these poor people fell victim to a phising attack. But I have to repeat my claim to Betamax: Please be more open! Get a press department! Talk to your customers!

Don't leave room for conspiracy theories!

Wednesday, January 2, 2008

Worldwide free calls through a security breach

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

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

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


UPDATE:

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

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

Wednesday, September 5, 2007

Funny fight between Ooma and PhoneGnome on FierceVoIP

FierceVoIP has an interview with Andrew Frame, founder and CEO of Ooma. We can learn something, but it's mostly PR blabla for Ooma. Much more interesting are, again, the comments to this article.

Maybe Andrew shouldn't have answered the question "How is ooma different from PhoneGnome, aside from the physical aspect?". It causes an outrage of devoted PhoneGnome users, calling his answer "completely misleading" and presuming that he didn't understand how PhoneGnome works.

In steps Dennis Peng, director product management at Ooma, making an even more comprehensive comparation of the two devices. He asserts that PhoneGnome doesn't have two phone lines, like Ooma does, but just "one and a half". What does that mean? Maybe a half phone line is shorter than a full line? Peng gets it worse from the next commentator who says "Dennis, with all due respect to your position at Ooma, you need to do a little more homework", before he strips down his argumentation.

Too sad that most comments are anonymous, because they give pretty much insight and are funny to read. I hope that Mr. Blog himself, PhoneGnome's CEO David Beckemeyer, will find this article soon and also leave a comment.

I was personally shocked to read that poor Americans pay $65-70 monthly just to get two phone lines from AT&T and PhoneGnome. With the necessary broadband connection it sums up to $100 every month.

I just pay $40 monthly for broadband and VoIP, of course having two phones lines. Two people can call my Sipgate number at the same time. If the first phone is already in use the other rings. Also twofold dial out is possible. Betamax' SparVoIP allows this without hassle, using my Sipgate number as caller ID and letting me call my favourite countries for free for just $3 per month. On top of that I can use 10 different VoIP providers on my Fritz!Box, having lots of inbound numbers from different countries and arbitrating for the best price on outgoing calls. At Voxalot I can install 30 more providers.

I can switch easily if one provider goes belly up or messes with their rates, without getting a new box or changing anything hardware-wise. Ooma guarantees only three years of free service and nobody knows what happens to the box if they go bankrupt.


UPDATE:

David Beckemeyer, designer and proprietor of PhoneGnome, aka "Mr. Blog," aka former chief technology officer and co-founder of EarthLink, has officially requested the opportunity to respond to Andrew Frame's comparison of Ooma and PhoneGnome.

You can read more about that in today's FierceVoIP article "ooma versus PhoneGnome". But his response will not be featured untile the Monday, Sept. 10 edition of FierceVoIP.

Too sad we have to wait so long.

Sunday, September 2, 2007

WTF is Betamax (VoIP)?

Most VoIP users probably know the company Betamax from Cologne (Germany) or one of their more than 20 cheap brands like Voipbuster, Voipstunt, Voipcheap, Sparvoip, Voipwise, Webcalldirect and their latest tongue in cheak attack against Jajah, called Nonoh.

Betamax undercuts nearly every price in VoIP, as you can see in this regularily updated comparison. It already happened that one VoIP company proudly sent me a personal e-mail to announce that they just had lowered their prices to Lima (Peru) landline to 4 Euro Cents. I just yawned and told them that at Betamax I get the same for just 1 Cent. And even they could have offered cheaper calls to Peru if they would have used Betamax' wholesale brand, Voice Trading, as provider where Lima landline cost only 2 Cents of an Euro.

Betamax is no insider tip anymore, as you can tell from thousands of postings in the corresponding internet forums. I guess they are one of the world’s biggest VoIP providers, but nobody knows that for sure because Betamax is so tight-lipped. Betamax' press releases are spare and their customer support is often lousy, as you can learn from many posts in internet forums. My e-mails to Betamax never got an answer. The German webzine Onlinekosten.de tells in its articles that the user forum on the Voipbuster website is difficult to find and that Betamax was reluctant to give any information.

Many people already felt betrayed because Betamax' pricing changes rapidly and the free call routes, which made them subscribe to the service, suddenly have to be paid. At least most customers nearly never need technical support because Betamax' VoIP worked great in the last years. With one short exeption that I covered on my blog: Too many phone calls? Voipbuster's server on fire (Friday, February 16, 2007).

So probably thousands of people are using Betamax. But does anybody know them?

I think that's an important question, because telephony is a matter of trust, especially in times when everyone can start his own phone company for just $199. Until now Betamax is the only VoIP provider that actually gets money from me, because normally I am an advocate of free phone calls. But sometimes cheap prices go together with a big drawback on the long run. Nobody wants his calls to be wiretapped and most people want to be sure that their payments don't go into a money laundering machine.

Betamax' website only states that they are not publicly listed and that "Betamax is a privately owned company. Betamax was founded in 2005 in Germany by a group of marketing experts and received funding from private investors and venture capitalists." I find it really funny how they try to prevent any contacts:
I want to contact Betamax. How?
We are busy developing our products and are a small company. To be honest we have little time. If you still have questions about Betamax, please contact us at service-at-betamax-dot-com.

A little bit more public relations work from Betamax would be great! I would really love to get better press releases and to read an in-depth story about Betamax soon. I still remember the time when they introduced Voipbuster in Germany. They gave us the calls for free, but wanted our bank account data. You had to send them one Euro from your bank account to start to make unlimited calls. This seemed suspicious and many people feared some kind of phishing or another big scam.

But until now Betamax turns out to be a reliable company. Only that they give no face to the customer and the media, which leaves room for conspiracy theories. The recognized VoIP blogger and entrepreneur Pat Phelan even says:
I couldn’t agree more with you on Betamax/voice trading/voipstunt/Nonoh and their almost reversal to norm role of press releases, press contacts and very little public interaction, as a carrier myself and someone who would have strong contacts in large European telcos. I can tell you that Betamax has its own rumour mill around it most of which I would not even dream to write here.

You can imagine that Pat's comment made me really courious. But he doesn't tell me much more, only that in Ireland they use Colt Telecom as provider.

So what do YOU know about Betamax?

Every comment is very welcome, especially if it comes from the Betamax people themselves. Maybe after all I have to be the person who writes the missing in-depth story.

Monday, August 20, 2007

oneFone's mobile VoIP is slick, but wiFon's seamless handover is even cooler

In the last days I played with Wifimobile's oneFone VoIP client for Nokia's E- and N-Series and liked it very much. Business Development Manager John O'Prey had invited me for a free trial.

The oneFone client is so easy to use that at first I did everything wrong. You just have to start the program and then you should forget it until your next call. Instead I pushed many buttons, because I didn't know how to dial a number. The program's contact list contained only four SIP addresses, which it had harvested from my address book. But how to dial other numbers? I didn't find a button and searched so much that that the program hung itself up.

I should have read the manual! In an email John explained to me:
To dial a landline minimise oneFone to the background and dial as normal. You can also dial directly from your contact list. Let oneFone run in the background and use your phone as you normally would.

And it really works like this. You start the program once and then let it disappear by hitting the "Back" button. Afterwards you can forget it. When you dial a number, in the same way as you always do on your mobile phone, the program kicks in and establishes the call over VoIP. Before the call really starts a voice says "Thank you for using Wifimobile". That's to indicate that this call will not appear on your normal phone bill but goes for free over Wifi. Unless of course that you make the oneFone call over 3G. I did that once and it cost me only 3 Cents of a Euro. The quality was acceptable, it nearly sounded like a normal GSM phone call. But taking into account the high data costs in Europe I recommend to use only the "Auto WLAN" mode which prevents VoIP calls over 3G.

The entire oneFone application seems like a least cost router for mobile phones. Comparable to Cellity the program kicks in only if it can connect the call cheaper than your cell phone contract. The website explains it:
Only £15.99 €11.99 £7.99 Per Month

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

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

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

The list of free countries covers probably every destination you need. I was happy to see that even Peru is free. What I really like about oneFone is how inobstrusive it is. You just don't notice the program anymore, once you have it enabled. They don't even give you a login to their website for a call history list. Calls go over oneFone free of charge, covered by the flatrate tariff, or they go over GSM and appear on your cell phone bill. So why keep track of them.

Also you don't need to give a new phone number to your pals, like you have to do as a Truphone user, because oneFone uses your normal cell phone number as caller ID when it establishes the call. So the company can directly work on an international scale, other than Truphone which has only UK or US numbers and still has to apply with the regulators for numbers from other countries.

Both companies give Wifi calls between their members for free. But oneFone's presence application, where you can see if your friends are online for free on net calls, really works. Other than Truphone which recently had to disable the presence feature in their client because "it was hammering the servers and becoming less reliable as more people upgraded and began to use it".

John O'Prey told me some more points which "distinguish oneFone not just from Truphone, but all providers who use the Nokia client":
  • oneFone is a self developed and wholly owned stand alone VoIP client and Works in all Nokia E and N Series phones
  • Presence is fully supported and operational
  • Support for automatic roaming between WLAN and 3G
  • Automatic selection of best Internet Access Point
  • oneFone works in far more NATed environments than the Nokia client
  • Adhoc conference support coming in a few days

By not relying on Nokia's own VoIP client they circumvent the mobile incumbents' agreement to lock down alternative VoIP providers. A smart move.

But would I really recommend oneFone? Not necessarily.

£15.99 / €11.99 / £7.99 per Month is quite a lot of money for Wifi phone calls from a mobile, given the fact that Truphone gives nearly the same countries for free until the end of 2007. And with VoIP from Betamax, which you can also install on your Nokia E- or N-Series, you get 120 days of free calls for just €10. My personal costs for mobile and fixed line telephony are together not more than €10 per month, although I am a busy journalist with family in Peru. So people have to think good if they really need Wifimobile's offer. After all it's a normal VoIP flatrate and, e. g., with the bellshare flat you get more or less the same for just €5,99.

Also I think that the proprietary oneFone client could do much more. Look at what they do at Eteleon! Their wiFon client allows a seamless handover between Wifi VoIP calls and GSM. During a phone call it continuously checks the strength of the Wifi signal. If it drops under a certain point the software tells the Eteleon server to continue the call over GSM. The German webzine Teltarif has tested the handover and was quite pleased. wiFon even gives a free fixed line number from your local area, so that also your friends can save money when they call you on your mobile.

Monday, August 13, 2007

Voipbuster offers free SMS from mobile phones

The Betamax company Voipbuster now offers free SMS from a mobile phone. I have just checked it out and it works great. You just have to install a small Java applet on your cell phone. Voipbuster routes the message as so called "UrlSms" over their servers. The SMS is free, besides of a little 3G data traffic. I have just sent two totally free SMS over Wifi from my Nokia E61. The messages arrive within minutes and seem to be a tiny bit slowlier than normal SMS.

1) How to install:
  • On your mobile go to http://gsm.voipbuster.com/ (on some mobiles you need to choose 'download application' on some phones you can just go to the webpage).

  • download and install the application, start the application (for most mobiles: in the menu, go to applications)

  • in "settings" fill in your VoipBuster username / password and your mobile phone number

2) How to send SMS:
  • start the application (for most mobiles: in the menu, go to applications)
  • go to options --> sms
  • you can select the person you want to send a sms from your mobile phone contacts through options --> add from contacts
  • type your message and hit SEND!
  • your mobile phone will ask you to open a data connection. This uses just a tiny bit of data traffic.
  • Voipbuster charges you nothing! Yes --> NOTHING!
Again I wonder how Betamax will refinance this service. But they already surprised me a few times with such offers. Normally they don't last too long and then become paid services at cheap prices. I guess it's just an introductory offer.

Thursday, August 9, 2007

Why isn't the US the "land of the free" also in VoIP?

I don’t understand the US American market of VoIP devices. The PhoneBoy tells terrible things in the VoIP Weblog:
It seems that the VoIP providers are just as bad--or worse--than the mobile phone carriers in the United States, which generally don't let you take your phone to a competing provider. Unlike with US mobile phones, where there are two standards, pretty much all customer premises VoIP hardware speaks SIP, the lingua franca of VoIP. Just recently, I threw a Vonage-locked Linksys ATA/Router combo that Vonage refused to unlock for me. What a waste!

And Garrett Smith explains "How to Unlock SunRocket Gizmo For Use With InPhonex".

"Poor Americans", must I say. Why do they accept ATAs that are locked to just one provider? Because they don't know it better from their mobile telephony? Why do Vonage or Sunrocket users have to throw away their hardware and cannot simply use it with another company? Why doesn’t PhoneGnome admit that “Free calls between PhoneGnome members” is a normal feature that is available with every other VoIP provider. It’s called "on net calls" and nothing special.

In Germany we use open devices, such as Fritz!Box, where you can install up to 10 VoIP providers of your choice. One of them can be PhoneGnome, because it also supports the open SIP standard, but it doesn't have to be the only one.

With intelligent ATA dial plans you can assure to make only free on net calls and to always use the cheapest provider for your other calls. People use to play around with the cheapest routes of the various Betamax brands, depending on where they are calling to, and they like to install several of them at the same time.

In the USA, in contrast, VoIP devices are commonly locked to just one provider. Like cell phones that you have to throw away when you change the provider.

Is this really the "land of the free"?

Wednesday, June 20, 2007

So Jajah is already worth 2.9 billion dollars

The Swiss investment company Qino Flagship has announced that they bought more than 1 million stocks of Jajah (2,81 per cent), thus holding now nearly 8 per cent (directly and indirectly) of the internet callback service company. That's the interesting news of today.

But what even more my interest was captured the background information: Jajah is already worth 2.9 billion dollars, calculated RRS Capital Strategies Services from Vienna yet in may after the investments by Deutsche Telekom and Intel. They deduct this virtual price from Jajah's user data and the conditions under which Skype had been sold to Ebay in 2005. Based on that Qino's first Jajah investment of 56.000 Euros is already worth more than 100 million Euros. I couldn't find much information on RRS since they don't even have a website, but just a phone number and an email address. But their numbers have been quoted on some trader websites.

Jajah plans to go public on Nasdaq next year, said founder Daniel Mattes in an interview. That's when Intel, Deutsche Telekom, Qino and others get their money back. The company is just a year old! Skype cost Ebay 4,1 billion dollars, but at least they had an own advanced technology. Jajah instead can be copied easily.

The 2.9 billion dollars rating is quite impressive for Jajah's rather simple internet callback service that you can also have in similar shape from companies like Nikotalk, Smart2Talk, Raketu, MINO, Webcalldirect (and all the other Betamax companies), Sitòfono - and probably soon from Yahoo. Sometimes even for free, like at Peterzahlt.de.

Or you can build your own Jajah at Voxalot.

Wednesday, May 23, 2007

Sipgate is blocking Voxalot but not Fring. That's not fair!

Sipgate is one of the best quality VoIP providers I know for Germany, Austria and the UK. They give free inbound numbers and, with rare exceptions, they always work. Last friday they were down for a half hour, but this was no big problem.

Until people started to realize that Sipgate behaves strangely since then. As I tested Sipgate is blocking all the free "always connected" web based PBXes I know:Voxalot, PBXes.com and simplyConnect. That's really annoying since those websites do a great job. You can deposit there all your login data for the many SIP accounts you got from different companies. Then you need only one account, for example Voxalot's, to receive phone calls to all your different VoIP numbers on one device. Also you can define dial plans for least cost routing. Then Voxalot uses for instance provider A for phone calls to country number 1 and provider B for country number 2, always taking advantage of the cheapest connection.

Thats nice for VoIP devices which can hold only one SIP account, such as certain mobile phones or the Fring software, which recently got very important for mobile VoIP users in Great Britain. With Fring you can avoid the problem that for Orange UK and Vodaphone UK are blocking VoIP on the brand new Nokia N95 mobile phone. As an external Symbian program Frings makes SIP calls possible on these crippled N95, but holds only one SIP account. Which should be Voxalot or something similar if you have different providers. I already use more than 20 VoIP providers.

It seems that Sipgate doesn't like the described least cost routing, since their prices aren't cheap compared with other providers. Poor Sipgate! Mean Germans use them only to receive calls on Sipgate's free incoming numbers, but for outgoing calls they use free VoIP services from companies like Betamax. Nothing is cheaper than free, and even Sipgate's flatrate for Europe cannot compete with it. Maybe Sipgate did not like it that the their Voice Mail answered all calls to my dozens of different VoIP accounts that I have installed at Voxalot. Even if you called my FWD or Gizmo account the Sipgate Voice Mail kicked in. This was a nice feature since I had to deal with only one Voice Mail box for all my VoIP and fixed line calls.

It seems that Sipgate wants to work like a normal PSTN telco and tries to be as much separated from the SIP world as possible. Only if people use Sipgate for their outgoing phone calls and do not free ride their services they can sponsor the free incoming numbers. I, for instance, use Sipgate's number and Voice Mail yet for years but never paid them any money, since all my outgoing calls go for nearly free over the Betamax company Voipstunt. People from England do the same, as you can read in Voxalot's forum.

I suppose that Sipgate prefers to be their clients only VoIP provider and therefore it blocks more and more interoperability options. This started already months ago when they began to block phone calls from other VoIP providers to their SIP adresses. SIP to SIP is normally free. But now the only option is to call the phone number of a Sipgate user, which is only free within the Sipgate network or for calls from their spare peering partners.

The hottest discussion about the PBX blocking I found in Voxalot's forum. Sipgate clients are disgruntled that they cannot use the service with Voxalot anymore and give tips about alternative providers. One user even threatened the Sipgate support to cancel his account and got surprised that they did not try to hold him back, but explained in a polite way how to do it.
Originally Posted by sipgate
You can delete your account under "Settings" -> "Contract".
Best regards,
Frederik van Koningshoven

Sipgate's official explication is the following:
login details must not be given to 3rd parties. the provider mentioned above (note: voxalot is ment) attracted attention due to nonserious business practices. for our customers safety we try to remedy potential abuse through this corporation.

Other Voxalot clients got a clearer answer from the Sipgate support:
Originally Posted by sipgate
we block Voxalot and similar services, because our customer has to give them the login details.
This is a security problem.
Best regards,
Frederik van Koningshoven

Later it got more personally against Voxalot:
Originally Posted by sipgate
Unfortunately, we don't consider them as trustworthy.
This decision will not be changed in near future.
Best regards,
Frederik van Koningshoven

Poor Voxalot! What did they do? How should the company behave in this situation?

Voxalot's support worker Martin says that he "would be interested to know if this is an across the board "security rule" or if simply Voxalot was "singled out".....". An interesting question, because Fring seems to work very well with Sipgate, although Fring also requires the user to give his Sipgate login details to a 3rd party.

Why isn't Sipgate blocking Fring as well?

In fact this is a general problem: With every time more services moving into the web people have to provide every time more secret login data to 3rd parties. It reminds me of a former post that I wrote in april in Voxalot's forum, "Theoretically Voxalot could steal all our VoIP minutes".

But it's not only Voxalot. It's also PBXes.com, simplyConnect, Fring, Barablu, Nimbuzz, Talkster, Mobivox, Iskoot, Skip2PBX,... Dozens of companies are in the same situation. There has to be a more intelligent solution than just blocking Voxalot. What's missing is a secure way to share login data.

Maybe OpenID is the answer?



CORRECTION: Sipgate now at least seems to work OK with PBXes.

Thursday, April 26, 2007

Free calls from Pakistan to the UK and other countries - even without VoIP

It seems that Tpad is getting serious about their toll free inbound numbers. Their forum tells that they have set up their fist toll free number in Pakistan.

Tpad's idea is the following:
We are making toll free because we realise that families and friends in poorer countries cant afford to make international calls. So we are trialing a service that lets you foot the bill for both parties. We expect you to forward calls to your landline / mobile so thats where we make a bit of money.
Well, I whish them luck that they really „make a bit of money“. As I told before, this service can also be used for something really different: Free phone calls from Pakistan to the UK and other 40 countries, whithout even having an internet connection.

I am waiting for the first Pakistani to set up his Tpad account as incoming number in a hosted PBX (which you can get for free at PBXes.com) and offer free calls to the UK and other countries. He would just have to program a calltrough rule in the PBX. Then he could charge his fellow Pakistanis a modest price for these international phone calls, since they cost him nothing. He doesn't even need a computer or internet connection since the calltrough does all for him. An old landline phone would be enough.

For the outbound leg of the calltrough he could use a VoIP carrier whose identity I won't reveal here to not cause them trouble. But it's a nice, reliable company which offers free calls to more than 40 countries. Whithout even having to buy 120 freedays for 10 Euros, as he would have to do at Voipstunt. He just needs to set up the accounts and can start the free calls. From his phone booth in Pakistan he would dial the following:
Tpad's toll free inbound number + BREAK + Tpad Account number + BREAK + PBX PIN Number + BREAK + Number to call
I admit that it seems complicated to dial three other numbers before the phone number. But he could program a redial for these first numbers, which are always the same. After the PBX PIN his clients would hear the sound of a free phone line. Too bad that VoIP prices to Pakistanian numbers are still quite high. Because local calls could really be a big business with this scheme.

What do we learn from that?

If you use the SIP standard right then nearly all international calls can be local calls, even if you don't have an internet connection. Thanks to the local break in numbers of Tpad and Sipbroker. I recommend everyone, who travels a lot and suffers from high roaming costs, to use these numbers.

And as we saw today: these calls can soon be totally free.

UPDATE:

Here you find a comprehensive explication how to install it step by step: Placing VoIP Calls from any Old Regular PSTN Phone (VoIP CallThru).

Friday, April 20, 2007

Tpad to involuntarily offer free phone calls worldwide?

It seems that the fellows at Tpad are eager to open the telecommunications industry's Pandora's box a little bit more. If they really follow this trail, it will be one step more to a worldwide breakdown of phone call margins. A sickness that's highly contagious from VoIP companies to incumbent carries to even mobile operators. I sometimes feel like an epidemic doctor and today I found another sign of deterioriation at the patient: Tpad, which offers local break in numbers for its VoIP services in many countries, wants use toll free numbers now.
Do you know what that means?
Free phone calls from nearly every country to every country!
Jajah, Rebtel, Truphone, Vonage and the like can go home then. And Tpad pays the phone bill. No need for a computer, a Wifi phone or an ATA. Just plain 0800 numbers that everyone can call for free from his landline or cell phone. Even people who don't have a computer or technical skills can make their calls for free.

The setup is quite easy. Just define your Tpad account as incoming number in a hosted PBX, which you can get for free at PBXes.com. Or you install the free Asterisk in your webspace. Unfortunately my preferred company Voxalot doesn't provide the necessary features yet, but they are working on it.

For the outgoing calls I recommend Voipstunt, which offers free calls to 40 countries, or another company of their mothership Betamax. After that you can virtually throw away your computer, ATA, Wifi phone or whatever you have used for VoIP. Just call the toll free Tpad number of your country, then dial your Tpad account number, your PBX calltrough PIN and the number you want to call. The call enters on the free Tpad number and will be connected for free via Voipstunt.

Well, I admit that this seems a lot of numbers to dial. But you can automatize it by installing the mobile callthrough manager from Runningmobile on your cell phone. Just tell the program once your account numbers and then start making your phone calls. The cell phone behaves as always, only that it dials in the background some more numbers, which you don't notice.

You can even share this free service with your friends. Just tell them which toll free number they have to dial and how it works! Of course you should setup some rules in your PBX to prevent that someone calls a country that isn't free. I for instance have as of today 248 freedays in my Voipstunt account. This means 248 days of free calls to any regular landline in: Argentina, Australia, Austria, Belgium, Canada, Chile, Denmark, Estonia, Finland, France, Germany, Hong Kong (+mobile), Iceland, Ireland, Italy, Japan, Liechtenstein, Luxembourg, Malaysia, Monaco, Netherlands, New Zealand, Norway, Portugal, Puerto Rico (+mobile), Russian Federation, Singapore (+mobile), South Korea, Spain, Sweden, Taiwan, United Kingdom and the United States (+mobile). And the rest of the world they offer quite cheap.

If that's not enough and you also want to do free calls to mobile phones then install Tpad as incoming number in a PBX with free calls to cell phones, such as 4S newcom's. They can equip their IP PBX with SIM cards of all mobile phone providers of your country. Of course with flat rate tariffs, so that you can call all mobile phones for free.

In fact the described free calling service is in itself nothing new. Vonage also offers similar toll free numbers, but only for subscribers of their service, which costs 25 dollars a month. Tpad's accounts are free.

Reviewing this scheme I start to doubt that Tpad will really implement these toll free numbers. I understand why they are planning it: So that people can use Tpad for their calls without even having a computer. Tpad is very strong in countries like Pakistan and India where many poor people live. The company counts on that these clients will use Tpad also for the outgoing calls to the PSTN. And therefore they sponsor the toll free number.

But that's not necessary if you know to creatively use the SIP standard.

Monday, April 16, 2007

Why mobile and landline phone calls will soon be free

Thomas Anglero is one of the big VoIP experts. He was a senior executive adviser with Telenor AS, CEO of Free World Dialup, VP of Vocaltec Communications and CEO of TrulyGlobal. So we might expect from him only a positive view on the the VoIP industry. Also because he is still attached to it as CEO of Nuclei Networks, a VoIP service provider in emerging Balkan markets.

But his latest blog entry sounds more than depressed to me. Under the emblematic title „VoIP's tragedy was foretold by Hamlet“ he writes:
VoIP is a 1/3 of penny numbers game with margins so low that micro-credits used in Malaysia by mobile operators have higher margins then VoIP. Think about this...

At Fall VON last year, the head of Yahoos! VoIP service told a story about how the head of accounting called him into a meeting to question his reasons for continuing its VoIP business. She informed him that the average margins for Yahoos! services are around 80% and his VoIP business was almost impossible to calculate...she asked, "why are we in 'this' business?"

Sad words. But only from a company's standpoint. The clients might think differently.

I suppose this actual development is just the way it goes and we are on the verge of a big paradigm shift. Phone calls aren't meant to cost anymore. They will be free. Like emails disappeared the written letter and the payment for the postage stamp. I would love to see it and already realize it on a smaller scale, by convincing my friends to use VoIP so that we can make free on net calls.

And there is more to come: If you use the SIP standard cleverly every phone call can be free, even mobile calls. One way to achieve this is the fwdOUT™ Phone Sharing Network.
The fwdOUT™ Network is a system that matches callers with other users that can complete the call for them at no charge. The only catch is that to make some calls, you have to let others use your phone. fwdOUT™is free and not to be used for commercial purposes.

For Instance, Erik lives in New York City, and he gets free local phone service, his family is in Holland. Joe is an expatriate from New York living in Holland that calls New York on a regular basis. Using the Free World Dialup Phone Sharing Service, Erik shares his number. Joe also shares his number. When Joe calls New York, he uses Erik’s line and Erik uses Joe’s Line. The sharing is not done on a one-on-one basis, members share with the entire community and accumulate credits when their line is used. These credits can be used to place calls through other member’s phones. Free World Dialup maintains the tallies so that no line is used more than the owner has permitted.
Critcs said that fwdOUT™ doesn't work good. There are too many dead routes, because only few people know it. But the idea is brilliant and with a little grassroots marketing it can become bigger. I think that it's no big problem that you need an Asterisk server to become a member of this free call fraternity. Asterisk is every time easier to install and there are pre-configurated packages. Also you don't need a full fledged personal computer anymore to run it. Asterisk can run on small, fanless, quiet industrial PCs that spend few energy. There was even a competition to install it on an Apple TV. Another way is install Asterisk on your web server, which you can get für 3 Dollars a month. But the most elegant way seems to me to use the web based Asterisk PBX that you can get for free at PBXes.com.

Other companies, like 4S newcom, are working on the mobile edge. For costumers they can equip their IP PBX with SIM cards of all German mobile phone providers. Of course with flat rate tariffs, so you can ring the PBX and it calls you back for free. Once connected you can, theoretically, use the fwdOUT™ service or every other VoIP provider which connects you to the world for free. For instance Voipstunt, which offers free calls to 40 countries and the rest of its destinations very cheap. Voipstunt is one of the many brands of the German company Betamax. Their prices are so cheap that people from all over the world use them. I recently read comments in a forum by a Brazilian who does all his local calls with Lowratevoip, another Betamax company. Having compared lots of VoIP providers in the last time I suppose that they are a real menace to the industry, undercutting nearly every other offer.

So what will this all lead to?

I would no be surprised to see some kind of „war“ start very soon. It's the big incumbents and the mobile operators against the thousands of small VoIP companies. First signs are how Vonage gets pushed out of business with a lawsuit by Verizon and the crippled Nokia N95 which Vodafone and Orange sell to their costumers in the UK. People where quite surprised to see that they cannot use VoIP on their branded N95, which normally can.

But to me this mutilation seems quite reasoned. From april 2007 the City of London will become the biggest wireless Internet hotspot in Europe. This means that in Europe's most important finance and economy center the people can call for free or very cheap by using VoIP on their cell phones, circumventing the traditional mobile networks.

The big winners will be SIP phone companies like Truphone or Sipgate. Where there is bandwith there you can make calls. It seems that the standardization of VoIP in SIP has opened a Pandora's box for all telecommunication companies: With SIP you can tie every phone system together, as you see in fwdOUT™ and 4S newcom's IP PBX. More and more bridges are being built to make free phone calls. The people like it and companies can soon only charge modest prices for the bandwith. Voice will become "just another application", as techies use to say. Or, as a comment on Gigaom states:
It’s becoming a tired catchphrase, but it’s no less true for its’ repetition: All voice is converging towards free. It’s just another service on your dumb pipe: It makes no more sense to pay a per-voice call charge than it does a per-website visit or a per-email fee. I don’t regard myself as a bleeding edge adopter, but these days about 85% of my calling is on-net (Either Skype or one of the zillion SIP networks that operate here in Oz). It’s a bit cumbersome (Prefix dialling for the SIP network, then the users’ own 86 digit SIP phone number), but I’m viewing that as a temporary aberration.

I’d say the days of PSTN arbitrage (which is really what the VOIP providers are) are coming to an end. I’m cheering FON and others on too, so that soon enough the days of GSM arbitrage will be over too.

LG
Paying a phone bill is so 80ies style!



(Read my next blog posts „More tricks for free phone calls“and „Tpad to involuntarily offer free phone calls worldwide?“ to learn more.)

Thursday, March 29, 2007

Why I use about 20 different VoIP providers

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.

Monday, March 12, 2007

The MagicJack doesn't seem magic to me

At the VoIP Weblog and in GigaOM's VoIP sections they talk a about a new VoIP device, called the MagicJack, which caused me some trouble this weekend. The device is by far not as appealing to me as to the others, and so I got some criticism in GigaOM's comment section. Paul Kapustka describes the MagicJack in his blog post „MagicJack, Simpler VoIP than Skype?“ like this:
According to the just-live MagicJack website, the main “magic” appears to be an oversized-looking thumb-drive thingy with a USB connector on one end, and an analog phone jack on the other. Greenberg’s column says the total price for a device and a yearly subscription for all-you-can-eat dialing in the U.S. and Canada should be between $50 and $60 $29 and $39 the first year, $19.99 a year thereafter; so far, no other details have surfaced on how the pricing, connection and billing actually work, and whether it won’t be another free-calling fiasco.
I directly checked the MagicJack's website for more details and was disappointed. What is so great about that MagicJack? I don’t see a breaktrough. It lets people make phone calls only while their computer is switched on. When it’s off they cannot even receive calls. The MagicJack is basically a softphone on a USB stick, bundled with a $60 dollar a year VoIP contract. - That seems quite expensive and uncomfortable to me.

E. g. with the VoIP provider Voipstunt I have unlimited calls to USA, Canada, Germany, UK and other 30 countries - for about 36 dollars a year (= 10 Euros for 120 days). I have Voipstunt installed on my analog telephony adapter (Fritz!Box), which connects my normal phone to my DSL connection. This means that I can make those VoIP calls and receive calls when my computer is switched off. It’s works like normal PSTN telephony, but is much cheaper.

I am really not impressed by this MagicJack. It seems as uncomfortable as Skype to me, which annoys me much because it works only when my computer is switched on. Maybe they want to address clients which don’t understand VoIP. But to me it seems too uncomfortable and its contract too expensive. Looking for solutions from abroad the USA they would have found much better and cheaper solutions, for instance the one I use: Fritz!Box + Voipstunt from Germany. A reader called Andrew Jed answered:
Didn’t anyone listen or read?!
The initial cost will be $30 - $40 for the magicJack device…with FREE unlimited local and long distance calls - through your analog phone (or headset on PC if your prefer). No subscription or fees the first year whatsoever. Each add’l year is planned at around $20.00.
And? What is so great about that? For about $40 I get one year of unlimited local and long distance calls as well, as I explained before. And I don’t even have to switch on my computer to make them. So the MagicJack would worsen my situation if I would change my at home configuration for it.
PLUS you can have your entire home wirelessly making FREE calls.
And so what? That’s what I do already with my configuration. I have a DECT phone connected to my Fritz!Box that let’s me wirelessly do free phone calls without the need to switch my computer in.
There is so much more. Making rash and unfounded comments prior to knowing the facts seems very, well, wrong - to say the least. Markus Göbel states in his web site he is a journalist?
Well, thanks for Andrew's appreciation of journalism as a profession. But maybe he doesn’t know: Even journalists can make mistakes. Moreover in this very case none of his arguments convinces me and I still think that I am right with every word I wrote in my comment.

Also I wrote an answer to a comment from Dan Borislow, the inventor of the MagicJack:
What makes the magicJack so different?

1.Ease of use.There is no other device in the world,where you plug into a USB,up and running in a minute with plug and play and you plug in a telephone.This is one of a kind.
Well I have already read about many similar USB stick devices that plug into a computer and then people can start talking via VoIP, without the need to install a software: Vonage V-Phone, MPlat FlashPhone or Sandisk’s Skype on a USB stick. OK, with the MagicJack you don’t need a headset but you can use your normal phone for the call. But is this really a breaktrough? When my computer is runnig and I am talking to a friend I just speak directly into my computer, which has a great microphone and sound with echo cancelation. For what would I need to pick up the phone that is connected to the MagicJack?

Borislow answered with some ironic comments:
When you went to go to in your backyard and swig down some Becks,do you bring your laptop outside with all those songbirds and talk to your favorite girl?
That’s exactly what I don’t like to do: Grab my laptop just to make a phone call. There is a device that’s called “telephone”. You don’t have to boot it. You can take it to the backyard and make phone calls. Only that it is easier to use as a laptop, weighs less and is just as mobile because I use a wireless phone. This phone is connected to my WLAN-Router/VoIP device (Fritz!Box) so that I have calls to 30 countries for free. I find this much more comfortable as the MagicJack.
What happened when you were finally making time with your girl, and Voip!Stunts only server caught on fire and she might have hooked up with somebody else by the time they restored their service? (we have 31 we use)
That was a better point from Borislow! I agree that Voipstunt can possibliy dissapear from one day to another. They are obviously underpricing. But the recent outage because of the fire was the first I experienced in two years and lasted only 4 hours. Too short to even sell this news to the media! Voipstunt is a very “no frills” service. They are just cheap and I don’t know if they give any kind of support. But for me they failed only 4 hours in two years.
Were you surprised when you started getting billed 13 cents a call,when the Voip!Stunt promo was over after 120 days?
That’s never happening. When the 120 days are over the countries I call cost about 1 Cent. I just don’t miss the 120 days. When there is no money anymore on my Voipstunt account the phone does not work anymore. In this case I have 9 other VoIP providers installed in my Fritz!Box (as fallback options and also because I a am a geek who tries out all the VoIP services). But normally I do a quick Paypal to Voipstunt and a minute later I can go on making phone calls.
Lastly, Fritz!Box told me that it is impossible to use Voip!stunt softphone on it. How did you do it.
Well I don’t know to whom Borislow talked and what is his technical background. But I suppose he knows how easy it is to configure a VoIP device like the Fritz!Box. You just have to type Voipstunt’s login name, password, registrar, proxy-Server and STUN server into Fritz!Box’ built in website and yet you can do the first phone call. This takes about 1 minute. It’s not “impossible” to use Voipstunt on a Fritz!Box. I do it every day. As well I use Sipgate, GMX, Tpad, Ekiga, Gizmo Project, FWD and others on the same device. As I said I try to check all of the interesting VoIP services.

I like the VoIP industry very much and see it with the eyes of a client. To me and to my buddies the most appealing point is to save money. VoIP should work like a PSTN telephony but cheaper. Just pick up the phone and make a call.

So the MagicJack misses the point. It shouldn't be connected to the USB port of a running computer, but directly to the DSL modem or the router. It could easily get it's energy from the router's Ethernet port. The entire phone software should be embedded in the device and not rely on the Windows XP of a computer. In this case people could make VoIP calls that feel like real telephony. They could connect their old phones directly to the internet.

But in this case the MagicJack would be some kind of Fritz!Box.

Free calls are still the VoIP killer app to me

Some days ago I had a litte blog comment conversation with Luca Filigheddu, a recognized expert in the VoIP space and CTO of the Italian VoIP provider Abbeynet. He had a written a blog post called „Jon Arnold on why VoIP has succeeded“. The two of them were looking for the reasons why the VoIP business is a success, but they seemed to see it too much from a company's point of view. So I want to add my humble opinion as a costumer and hardcore VoIP user to the discussion.

To me "free" calls as in "free beer" are still the killer application of VoIP. I am a normal user and freelancing journalist who is happy to bring down his costs per call near to zero. The telcos charge me anyway high basic fees for my DSL connection which is bundled with a fixed phone line I hardly ever use. Still there are no cheap DSL only offers in Germany. At least I make free or super cheap calls on this infrastructure, using several VoIP providers and an ATA, so I can talk on my old phone while my computer is switched off. I suppose that many users are thinking like me.

It seems that Luca doesn't like this point of view, although he says that he agrees. His answer:
Markus, I totally agree. But we are still far from the picture you are painting.
Are we really far from it? I am living it! I pay about 3 dollars a month to Voipstunt for unlimited calls to Germany, where I live, the US and most important countries. The rest is just plain internet access costs I would have paid anyway for surfing the net. Still Luca replies:
Ok, but you don't get more. Moreover, is Voipstunt related to your DSL provider ? Have you other services like presence, voicemail and so on ?

Naked "voice" is not enough. IMHO, of course.
Well I am quite happy with „naked voice“ and I don't need more. Voipstunt is not related to my DSL provider. I have to pay extra for DSL. What I need from VoIP is just a phone and an answering machine. Any special presence functions I don't need.

When I don't want to be contacted I tell my Fritz!Box FON ATA from the German company AVM to forward all calls to voice mail. Voipstunt doesn't even give me voicemail, but I use Sipgate's free voicemail: When I don't answer a call to one of my 10 VoIP numbers then Sipgate's voicemail answers and sends the left message as an email. When I don't want my phone to ring I send any call directly to Sipgate's voicemail.

I only use free VoIP services. Maybe I am the type of client that makes the old and new telcos (like Abbeynet) cry.