Tpad has cleaned out dormant accounts although they were in use

One of the most reliable VoIP services I know is Tpad. Not only that it worked flawlessly for more than one year, they even credited $10 to my account when I found an error this weekend. Needless to say that Tpad never got any money from me penny pincher, because I use their service only to receive calls.

Long before Jajah Direct, Wifimobile or Gizmocall started similar services, Tpad already had break-in numbers in 39 countries. It's an entire callthrough system: You can dial whichever of these 79 numbers and the number of my Tpad account to reach me for the price of a local call. That's much more reliable than the other services, which depend on the Caller ID to connect the call. In poor countries with bad networks this Caller ID often cannot be transmitted for technical glitches. I am permanently connected to Tpad with my SIP ATA so that my Peruvian friends in Lima can always call me for the price of a local call.

Today it's more than one year that I started to write about Tpad and I have used it since then. But some days ago I realized that my SIP devices could not connect to the Tpad server anymore. Not from my ATA, not from Voxalot, not from a Nokia E61, not from a Nokia N810. Other German friends had the same problem. What was wrong? I asked in their forum and learned that Tpad had cancelled my account because they thought I didn't use it anymore:

Tpad performed a cleanup of "dormant" accounts, without remembering that call records are only captured for calls that use the Tpad softphone. Since you use Tpad exclusively from an ATA or non-Tpad softphone, your call activity is not remembered. So, it is very likely that your account was improperly considered dormant and was suspended. Tpad should be able to restore it for you pretty quickly.

What really impressed me was that the forum admin immediately wrote "Send me a PM of your Tpad Number(s) and we will fix asap". What a difference to other VoIP services! His answer, apology and $10 to my account arrived the same Saturday. On Sunday they fixed the problem. What a great service!

I think I should charge some money to my Tpad account as a gesture of gratefulness. If only it was necessary! With $10 I can call for more than ten hours to Germany and this credit never expires. That's another big difference of Tpad to other VoIP companies.

Call me for free with Tringme!

Much has been said about startups like Ribbit, Tringme or Flashphone which use the Flash browser plugin for click to call widgets. Aswath Rao even declares 2008 the Year of Flash based VoIP Clients. I can only say that you don't have to wait till next year to call me for free using Flash. I love my Tringme call widget:

These calls are entirely free to you, because the caller speaks into the Flash widget on my website using a headset or the laptop's built in phone and speaker. On Linux the sound is a little bit weird. The automatic voice, which says "please wait while we connect your call" before every connection, sounds like a 45 rpm record played on 33. The phone call itself sounds like Mickey Mouse, but still the the words are understandable. On Windows everything works just perfect.

Also to me these calls are entirely free. Other than my widgets from Sitòfono and Voxalot where I have to pay to call the person who wants to contact me.

I achieve this by using FWD as SIP provider to power the Tringme widget. The Tringme account website says "Connect my phone and voicemail widget to Phone number or extension". Unfortunately it accepts only numbers and no SIP addresses in this input mask, but as a workaround I have simply put my FWD number there. In the "TringPhone SIP Settings" part of the account configuration I left my FWD login data. Which means that every Tringme call is in fact a free FWD on net call. You can probably do the same with Gizmo Project's SIP account data and phone numbers, as well as with many other VoIP providers.

Also there is another widget for people who don't want to talk to me, but just leave a voicemail.

Only seconds later I get a call and a voice says "You have a Tringme" before it plays the message. The Tringme widgets are much better than Gizmocall which also allows free calls from a website.

You could call me for free by simply typing http://www.gizmocall.com/mgoebel in your browser's address bar. This website also uses Flash, but additionally you have to install a plugin for Windows or Mac. For ten months yet Gizmo owes us a Linux plugin. Although the company's CEO, Michael Robertson, even has his own Linux distribution, Linspire.

But why bother? The Flash browser plugin gets more and more versatile and works on all platforms. It's a new way to disrupt the telco industry, circumventing the PSTN and offering a new option for free phone calls that so many people appreciate.

So, if you want, please give me a Tringme call!

And, before you ask: No, I couldn't get Truphone's Facebook application running, which should basically do the same like Tringme, only that it uses Java. After one week of tinkering I gave up. But congratulations for winning the "Red Herring 100 Global" Award.

Free Call Forward from VoIP number to mobile phone

Vinay presents a sophisticated solution which makes use of Voxalot as PBX and PhoneGnome as VoIP provider.

Its purpose is to let your mobile or PSTN phone ring whenever somebody calls your VoIP number. It also makes use of Sipbroker's access numbers so that friends from wherever in the world can call you for the price of a local call.

Although you can tell from the comments to Vinay's blog post that his solution is a quite difficult to understand, it's definitely worth reading. I would like to add that Vinay's solution rocks even more when you extend it with more inbound numbers from Tpad and Gizmo Call.

Another elegant solution for the same purpose could be the GSM gateway from 4S newcom:

Redirection of fixed office numbers to mobile phones works by routing an incoming call to an employee's desk phone to the employee's mobile phone, using the appropriate GSM channel on the above-mentioned GSM module. The call will then be completed at no cost.

The PBX from 4S newcom receives the phone call and forwards it to the cell phone over a built in GSM device which holds a SIM card with flat rate tariff, as you can read here.

Gizmo Call's free local numbers can last longer than 60 days without use

I wasn't happy with Gizmo call restricting its free local numbers to just some weeks if you don't use them. This seemed quite a bummer after I had managed, with lots of effort, to authorize the numbers of about 50 Peruvian friends to call me on the same incoming number from Lima. Since many still don't know or understand VoIP they would soon have lost this possibility, what annoyed me.

But fortunately I got this reply from Gizmo Call's CEO Michael Robertson:

Gizmo Call numbers last for 60 days

Markus,

Free local numbers last for 60 days. That's 2 months which seems a long time to not hear from a friend.

We don't have any plans to erase them at that point, so the number should last even longer. It's more about making sure we don't commit to say they will last forever and then someone gets upset because they don't last forever.

-- MR

This sounds OK to me. Given the small amount of calls between Peru and Germany I suppose that I will keep my number longer than just 60 days.

Thank you, Michael, for that!

If phone numbers are infinite, why is Gizmo Call's Michael Robertson limiting them?

Multi entrepreneur Michael Robertson is founder of MP3.com, Linspire and Sipphone (the mothership of Gizmo Call and the Gizmo Project) and other companies. I like his blog very much because he isn't only commenting other people's news, like the majority of bloggers does, but nearly always presenting new features of his products.

I am especially interested in his VoIP ventures, as you can see in my blog posts about the Gizmo Project and Gizmo Call. In the last days I played very much with Gizmo Call's free local numbers. And today I was quite happy to read Michael's interesting background article "Infinity Times Infinity - Telephone Numbers Should Be Free".

There he touts that in fact phone numbers should be free:

Phone companies have created an illusion of a limited amount of phone numbers to justify an unreasonably high charge for a simple telephone number. To buy a telephone number it costs $5-100 per month depending on the country. This is an artificial cost that is not in proportion to the actual costs of a number assignment which should be a one time cost of just pennies. The numbers should be allocated freely because the user will spend money in other ways that make it profitable.

He then explains how Gizmo Call nevertheless manages to give its users free local numbers for incoming calls, although the company itself has to buy them from the telcos.

First, we purchased business type telephone numbers that allow multiple channels. Just as a business can receive multiple simultaneous calls to the same number, each of the numbers in our system can as well. Secondly, we actually assign people the same telephone number and use Caller ID to determine where to route the call.

Gizmo Call purchased a limited amount of phone numbers, for a price that easily "can be covered as a marketing expense", and shares them between its users by taking into account the caller ID, so that there are unlimited call connection possibilities.

Specifically, we need to know the numbers you want to receive calls from in advance. It's very easy to type these into Gizmo Call. And we've created a convenient address book that keeps track of your local numbers for you so you can reference them at anytime.

As I told you in a former post I managed this way to authorize about 50 phone numbers of Peruvian friends. They can call my free local Gizmo Call number (+51-1-70XXXXX) and make my desk phone in Berlin ring. That's great because it feels like my own Peruvian phone number. And at the same time it doesn't take away anything from Gizmo Call's unlimited possibilities. This sole phone number can be used to connect an unlimited number of other people as well, because it takes the caller ID into account. Infinity minus 50 is still infinity!

Michael explains it much better with an example:

Let's say I have a friend in Finland named Markku who I call from Gizmo Call. On his phone he would see a local Finnish number. And you have a friend named Tommi in Finland who you call from Gizmo Call who sees the exact same number. If Markku dials the number our system remembers the Caller ID and knows he is trying to reach me. If Tommi dials the number then our system again uses Caller ID and knows he is trying to reach you. And if you're thinking through all the possibilities if two people call Markku the system is smart enough to always use different numbers.

As you see there are unlimited call connecting possibilities for just one phone number: Markku + Tommi, Markku + Johnny, Markku + Donnie, ... Limited only by the number of Caller IDs that exist in a country. So virtually unlimited.

To assign the same Peruvian phone number to my friends I had to make 50 phone calls to them. That was stressful but I thought this was a one time effort. But then I realized that I will loose this inbound number, that's assigned to a Peruvian friend, if he doesn't call me in six weeks!

Is this really necessary?

I think not. It's just annoying because it wouldn't bother Gizmo to give me this number for ever.

As Michael said: "Everyone except the cartel controlling telecoms knows there are unlimited numbers." And in the same way I don't take away the number from another person if it's assigned to me. Gizmo Call's servers can easily afford a database with millions of phone number combinations. So why is it necessary to loose my free local number, only because my friend did not call me for six weeks?

Could Gizmo Call please abolish this regulation?

That's what I directly asked in the readers' forum for Michael's article.

I don't like the idea to tell a friend my number, but after six weeks I have to tell him another, only because he did not call me. I mean: Most people don't understand what "VoIP" and "phone number multiplexing" means! They will just think that I am crazy because I change my phone number constantly and to every friend I give another.

Technically that's not necessary, I think. Infinity minus 50 is still infinity!

Jangl is the new Rebtel

"Jangl marries email to the phone" says Alec Saunders about Jangl's recent press release ("Jangl Upgrades a Billion Phones Instantly, Adds Ability to Call Anyone Online, Worldwide, Anytime") and sees it developing into a new presence application. GigaOM thinks of it more as the future White Pages for VoIP.

I see it more as a competition to Rebtel or to Gizmo Call's free local numbers:

Jangl “Call Anyone.” With “Call Anyone” simply enter someone’s email address at Jangl’s homepage to get connected. You’ll be given a phone number – local to you – to call them. During the first call, you’ll leave a voicemail, which Jangl then delivers via email. Once they receive that message, the recipient receives instructions to get a number – local to them – to call you back. This service still keeps your personal number safe, enables text messaging via SMS2 and the easy exchange of voicemails, too. Plus, Jangl works on any phone – even if your phone doesn’t normally allow you to call international numbers.

Doesn't this sound like Rebtel to you?

If you use this service right you don't have to make any international phone calls again. You can give free local numbers to all of your friends, whithout paying Rebtel's basic fee or bothering with Gizmo Call's numbers that are every time different and can disappear if you don't use them regularily.

I will directly check if I can get a Peruvian inbound number from Jangl so that my friends from Lima can call me for local prices. That's my favourite test for new inbound VoIP services.

What makes me courious is why GigaOM deleted my last comment on the new Jangle features. A technical error? Or did they get pressured by Jangle's CEO Michael Cerda, who also commented? Didn't they like what I had to say?

So I will just repeat it:

In times of VoIP every phone call can be free or a local call. No need for exaggerated per minute costs. The SIP standard has opened a Pandora's box for the telecommunications industry. People are tweaking given services, like Jangl, for their own purposes and establishing their own free networks. Voice is just another internet service like email and tends to be free. As I said: "Free calls are still the VoIP killer app to me".



UPDATE:

As I see now Jangle does not offer German nor Peruvian numbers. So I cannot use it. Which limited phone number provider do they use? A clear disadvantage, compared to Rebtel or Gizmo Call.

Forum for Gizmo Call's "Free Local Numbers" online again

In my former post "What happened to Gizmo Call's "Free Local Numbers"?" I complained that Gizmo Call's free local numbers did not work anymore. At least it seemed so since I cannot receive any calls anymore and the respective user forum on Gizmo's website had dissappeared.

Then I got this email from Clay Elliot, Director Business Development at Gizmo Call's mother company SIPphone, Inc.:

I saw your blog post about Free Local Numbers (FLN). I believe the forum you were trying to find was just temporarily down. This week we moved from beta into full release to the world so there was a bit of shifting. http://forum.gizmoproject.com/viewforum.php?f=15/ is up now.

OK, that's great. So at least the forum is online again. You can see it here. Even better is that the free local numbers are now out of beta and part of Gizmo Call's normal service.

But still I cannot receive any calls on my free local inbound number. I guess there is some trouble with my account. Or does anybody have similar problems?

As I told you in "How Gizmo Project's free local numbers save me 230 dollars annually" I use this service heavily to receive calls from my friends in Peru. It was really nice to have my own local number in Lima. They could call me by VoIP without even noticing that this service had to deal with the internet. Let's see what my trouble ticket to the Gizmo support brings.

At least there still is Tpad with its Break-In numbers and Tpad extensions as quite similar, but not as nice, alternative.

What happened to Gizmo Call's "Free Local Numbers"?

Where is Gizmo Calls's new feature "Free Local Numbers – BETA"?

(Remember: How Gizmo Project's free local numbers save me 230 dollars annually.)

The forum for this feature should be here. But this link leads into Nirvana, saying "The forum you selected does not exist". Gizmo erased every mention of this feature from its forum and all links in my former blog posts are dead. Here you can see how the forum looked like.

Also it seems to me that the free local numbers don't work anymore. I cannot receive calls from my Peruvian friends. Luckily they can use Tpad as an alternative.

What has happened?

Gizmo Call's free local numbers now every time different

I told you before how Gizmo Call's new feature, free local numbers, would save me lots of money. A great feature, but just for me. It seems that other users can't use it anymore in the way I did. I was still able to authorize about 50 different numbers of Peruvian friends and they all got the same Peruvian phone number assigned by Gizmo Call.

They all can now call the same number to reach me. It works like if I had a real Peruvian VoIP phone number - a service that would normally cost 230 dollars per year.

Sadly it seems that Gizmo Call changed their procedure and this small "hack" can't be repeated anymore. The last time I wanted to authorize more Peruvian phone numbers I realized that now every contact gets an other number assigned. Very clever of the Gizmo people.

And probably the right move, since such an inbound number would have normally costs 230 dollars per year.

How Gizmo Project's free local numbers save me 230 dollars annually

Although the Gizmo Project's free local numbers are still in beta they have made me very happy yet. I have used this new feature heavily for phone calls to Peru and now I have my own incoming Peruvian number, which normally costs 230 dollars per year at Gizmo Project.

How did I do this?

I've called all my Peruvian friends on all their home, mobile and work numbers from Gizmocall's beta website. It must have been about 50 phone calls. Every time I called a small window popped up that told me that the person could call me back on a certain number. And it was always the same!

Other users didn't have that much luck, as for instance the user jfinlayson tells:

You may have to dial quickly. Those two batches of calls I made were only an hour or so apart, and were assigned different numbers.

So I was very fortunate to be probably the only one who tried this service for calls between Germany and Peru. The batch of phone calls was even easier to make when my free minutes where eaten up. I just had to dial the numbers, Gizmo told me that I was out of money and the yet the number was assigned. When my friends are now going to call this number my normal phone will ring, because it is connected trough an ATA to my account at the Gizmo Project. No need to keep Gizmo Call's website open. Since I have authorized all their phone numbers with my calls it will feel like having a real phone number.

With only one restriction.

Maybe it was stupid of me to ask the following in Gizmo Project's forum:

Posted: 01 May 2007 19:39 Post subject: Re: Now it works great!

markus_goebel wrote:
Next question: Will my free local number ever change?

Or will it always stay the same for the Peruvian friends to whom it is assigned now?

The free local number your were assigned for your friend to use to call you will not change as long as your friend uses it to call you at least once every 60 days.

There will be rare cases where the number assigned has service problems and we would have to remove it from use. If that happens, you can place another free call to your friend to get a new Free Local Number they can use to call you.
_________________
Jeff Finlay
Gizmo Project Support

Oh please! Does it really have to be like this? I notice that they have altered their answer. Until some hours ago it still said that the number would be mine for ever. I guess that it was me that caused them the idea to restrict it on 60 days. Probably not every Peruvian friend will call me in the next two months.

But the others will have a cheap local number to talk to me.


UPDATE:

Yes, they are serious about their 60 days restriction, as the forum admin states:

I sent you a private message to let you know I had posted new information in my reply. The rules didn't change and they are the same for everyone who uses the service. I just wasn't aware of the requirement before.

Now you have an excuse to have more frequent phone conversations with your friends in Peru.
_________________
Jeff Finlay
Gizmo Project Support

Funny? I don't know. Soon every Peruvian friend who doesn't call me can't use this number anymore. Everything will end up in great mess where everyone has another number to call me. When they ask each other for my number everyone will have an other.

So I will probably go on using Tpad's system with worldwide inbound numbers and an extension for me. That's much easier to explain to not so tech savvy people and I can always stay with the same numbers.

New Gizmo Call feature: Free Local Numbers

The Gizmo Project works on a new feature that seems to be still in heavy beta, but sounds quite interesting: Free Local Numbers for their website Gizmo Call. As I am always looking for a free inbound number from Peru I browsed their forum and thought that this could be a solution.

What are Free Local Numbers and how do they work?
A "Free Local Number" is a new feature of Gizmo Call that allows people around the world to call you by dialing a local number from their mobile phone or land line which you can answer on your computer at no cost to you.
[...]
Here's how it works:
When you call someone using Gizmo Call, a number will display on your screen. This number is what we refer to as a Free Local Number, which will be a local phone number in either the same region of the person you are calling or a number in the least expensive neighboring region for them to call. The next step for you is to tell the person you called to call you back at the Free Local Number on your screen. Optionally, you can email the number or send an SMS to the person's mobile using Gizmo SMS. The Free Local Number will also appear in the caller ID history of the person you called. Once the person you called has this Free Local Number, they can call you anytime at no charge or at a low cost. You can receive calls on your computer, mobile, or land line phone. To receive calls on your computer, you must first be logged in to Gizmo Call. ...

There is a little more information at the „Free Local Numbers FAQ“. But I have to admit that yesterday I did not get it running. I called a friend in Lima from Gizmo Call. But on the website no „free local number“ appeared, as described, that he could have called back.

Gizmo says „The Free Local Number will also appear in the caller ID history of the person you called“. To prove this I dialed my German Sipgate number from Gizmo Call. The incoming caller ID was „00858XXXXXXX“. What kind of number is this? Which country has „00858“ as international code? Definitely not Germany. I suppose it is a net only number blog, similar to the numbers you get from the ENUM provider e164.org. At least I did not find a country for this code. North Korea uses 00850, but I don't think that Gizmo has a branch in Kim Il Sung's country.

So I went on trying and called my US-american Truphone number from Gizmo Call to have a little talk with myself. The protocol says that the caller (Me, but from the Gizmo Call website, where I was logged in with my login data from GizmoProject) had the number „00185886XXXXX“.

What number is this?

When I called it back I heard only advertising. A female voice said that the caller had used Gizmo Call to dial my Truphone number. Then she spelled the word „Gizmo Call“ before she started again with the same advertising text. Is „00185886XXXXX“ my free local number for my US number at Truphone? Why can't I call it then? I was still logged in at Gizmo Call when I dialed it.

To me it seems that Gizmo's new feature has a great potential but I don't understand it yet. Also it seems that they want it to work only with their website application Gizmo Call. As we know Gizmo Call allows only a few minutes of free calls from their website. This time shall be used to tell the callee your free local number so that he can call when the time is over.

But maybe this stuff will also work as inbound number for the Gizmo Project? How do they want to distinguish between Gizmo Project and Gizmo Call, which have the same login data? I have Gizmo Project installed in my Voxalot account. My aim is to use this „Free Local Numbers“ feature to ring my Voxalot account, which I can answer on my mobile and my landline phone. A normal Peruvian Call In Number costs 233 dollars annually at Gizmo Project. But maybe the new feature can be a workaround? Other people are also courious about the free local numbers, as you can see in this answer from „jfinlayson “ in Gizmo's forum:

They indicated that the would be rolling out a beta in "the next few days". I had assumed that when it is ready for testing that it would:

1) Accompany another announcement to that effect, and
2) Either be deployed on a separate server or require you to set a switch somewhere to enable it, so that other Gizmo Call users are unaffected.

That's traditionally what "beta" has meant, anyway. On the other hand, the software industry's definition of "beta" seems to have shifted in the past few years, thanks largely to Google, where most offerings are "beta" in perpetuity.

Meanwhile, the strange caller id you're seeing has me curious, too.

Even more interesting seems what Martin from Voxalot says:

We are currently working with the SIPphone guys on GizmoCall.

All I can say is watch this space.
__________________
Martin

He is the moderator of Voxalot's forum and a member of the staff. For instance he announces Voxalot's new features. So his voice is quite important and his words make me even more courious.

Stay tuned!



More info: Markus Göbel's Tech News Comments: How Gizmo Project's free local numbers save me 230 dollars annually

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.

Gizmo 3.0 (Voice for all IMs) is a right step - but could do even better

GigaOM reports that the Gizmo Project is getting even better. Since two days you can download the version 3.0 for Windows. Apple and Linux have to wait as always.

JUST RELEASED: How do you make Gizmo Project better? Add free calling to other IM clients to the service. And that’s exactly what SIPphone, the company behind Gizmo Project, has done with the just-out-of-oven Gizmo Project 3.0 soft client. You can now make free calls to people that use Yahoo Messenger and Windows Live IM networks, in addition to those who are using Jabber, Google Talk and Gizmo Project. (Where is AIM, damn it?)

The company claims that it is the first VoIP software client to tie multiple popular VoIP networks. Gizmo Project 3.0 include real-time file sharing which users to exchange files with other Gizmo Project 3.0 users, or send files directly to any major Jabber client.

To make a call, users simply type the username or ID of the person they want to call plus the network domain, for example, username@yahoo.com or username@hotmail.com. Gizmo Project 3.0 users can also call international Yahoo Messenger users for free in France, Spain, and many other countries, for example username@yahoo.fr or username@yahoo.es.

This sounded so interesting to me that I directly had to check it out myself. I have been waiting very long for such an integration. And I want to tell you why: I am living in Germany but I have a lots of friends in Peru. International phones calls are quite expensive for them. While I can call them nearly for free, using Voipstunt, they have to pay a lot to call my German number. That's why I am using the Gizmo Project.

Gizmo is installed on my analog telephony adapter (ATA) to let my Peruvian friends call me for free on my normal German telephone, which is connected to this ATA, while my computer is switched of.

Until some days ago they had to install the Gizmo soft phone on their computer to call me this way. That's quite a problem since most of them don't know the program, but they are intense users of Skype and MSN messenger. So it was a real relief when they started the website www.gizmocall.com. Now my friends can call me for free from their browser by clicking this link:

https://www.gizmocall.com/?call=markus_goebel

That's a lot better, but not yet perfect. Gizmo Call requires Adobe Flash 9 for Microsoft Windows or Apple Macintosh and you have to install a small *.exe as plugin to your browser. There is no Linux version yet. The call length is normally limited to 3 minutes per call and 10 minutes a day. But this does not apply to me, because the link establishes a call to my Gizmo Project address, which makes my normal phone ring. So the call does not leave their network and so it's free and unlimited.

With the new softphone Gizmo Project 3.0 I can call my friends on their MSN messenger address, which is normally username@hotmail.com. But much better would be, if they could call my Gizmo adress from their MSN messenger, which they are anyway using all day to text message each other. This would really be my personal killer application! Nearly all Peruvians I know use the MSN messenger. But they don't know about Gizmo or VoIP.

But sadly that's not possible. From the Gizmo Project you can call users of the MSN messenger, but not the other way around. That's because Gizmo uses only a one way bridge.

It might be interesting to you that Gizmo uses the address "service14@gtalk2voip.com" to bridge calls between the Gizmo Project client and the MSN messenger. This means that Gtalk2VoIP was not only the first company in the business of bridging instant messaging and VoIP. Gizmo is also using their infrastructure.

The address "service14@gtalk2voip.com" is a bridge. This means: You can call from the Gizmo Project soft phone to the MSN messenger, but not the other way around. The address "service14@gtalk2voip.com" is now a member of my MSN messenger contact list. When I call it or chat to it it does not answer. It would be so great if instead it would ask me the Gizmo-ID of the person I want to call. In this case people could really ring my phone from the MSN messenger.

I hope that the Gizmo people will put this function on their ToDo list.

I also tried a small hack to solve the problem: I wanted to enlist my Gizmo SIP address in Microsoft's Passport network, so that MSN messenger users can chat to it and call it. But that is not possible because Gizmo's SIP address does not work as an e-mail address, although it looks like one. With other email adresses it's easy to chat on MSN. You just have to enlist it at www.passport.com and then you can chat with it on the MSN messenger, without having a Hotmail address.

This should be another point on Gizmo's ToDo list and maybe solve the problem.

Altogether Gizmo Call 3.0 is a good step in the right direction. I appreciate every effort to build bridges between the dozens of different instant messaging and VoIP phone services. But to be really great and let my friends save their spare money, the integration must go also in the other direction.

Let the IM users make phone calls to Gizmo users!

I know that is technically possible. The bridge users like "service14@gtalk2voip.com" would just have to ask for the Gizmo-ID you want to call. They would work in a similar way like an access number for a calltrough services, like Tpad. Maybe an even more classy solution is possible?

And by the way:

Gizmo's new service service has some kind of answering machine: If the MSN contacts do not answer they get an e-mail with the message as a *.WAV attachement. It looks like this:

----Original Message Follows----
From: GTalk2VoIP Gateway
To: ***@hotmail.com
Subject: Voice mail from: ***@proxy01.sipphone.com
Date: Wed, 28 Feb 2007 10:54:13 GMT


This message contains a voice mail sent to you from Yahoo, Google Talk or MSN Messenger or a SIP phone user ***@proxy01.sipphone.com by GTalk2VoIP voice gateway.
Additional information about voice services available at
http://www.gtalk2voip.com/
Thank you.

UPDATE:

OK, It seems that one of my whishes has already come true, as I see in this blog comment:

It is possible to call Gizmo users from MSN, Yahoo and GTalk. Just type a command to the service bot (serviceXXX@gtalk2voip.com), like:
CALL username@gizmoproject.com
Then, accept a call back and wait for connection to set up.

PS: Google Talk users can even add Gizmo’s contacts to their roster and call by pressing “call” button. Details are here: http://www.gtalk2voip.com/gtalk_service_outcalls_transport.html

Regards,
GTalk2VoIP TEAM

Ruslan on February 28th, 2007 at 11:44 AM - #

Good job, Ruslan! Thank you. I checked it out directly. Works great!

I said "CALL username@gizmoproject.com" to the MSN messenger user "service14@gtalk2voip.com" and then my phone ringed. Tried it out further by having a little talk to another person who went with the wireless phone to the kitchen. Great sound quality.

Targeted advertising for Gizmocall?

Andy Abramson is reasoning about Gizmocall and that it will probably be having advertising soon. Gizmo founder Michael Robertson said to him in a phone call:

What is interesting is advertising revenue that is used to pay for calling. Because the call is not only initiated, but transpires in the GizmoCall browser we have the ability to insert effective targeted advertising in and around the consumer calling experience like nobody else.

Yes, this is a very interesting idea. You have to compare it to services like this one we have in Germany: Peterzahlt.de

This is a call connecting service: You can make free phone calls, using your normal phone, as long as your browser is open and you watch the advertising. To keep you interested they also show news. (I personally wouldn't like it if people would be reading news while they call me.) The company behind Peterzahlt.de is Goyellow. Once they wanted to become the new Yellow Pages in Germany. I don't hear from that anymore, but very much about their free phone calls.

If you compare Gizmocall to Peterzahlt.de the Gizmos have one great advantage: They have to pay the termination fees only one time. Only to the party that is being called. Peterzahlt.de instead has to call both parties from their server and connect them. So they need the double of advertising revenues.

I have learned that services like this are supposedly making big turnovers because the advertising industry likes them. They make targeted advertising possible. At Peterzahlt.de you always have to put in your phone number to establish the call to you. So they already know where you live and how often you use the service. Also they want you to fill a questionnaire to even better target the advertising. Maybe that is exactly what Gizmocall wants to do as well.

To me this kind of targeted advertising is a data protection nightmare. Imagine if people use such services for years and for every one of their calls! I don't really know who is behind Gizmocall or Peterzahlt.de. But they soon could know my communication habits. Not to imagine that theoretically they also could record all of my calls and investigate them. I don't like the idea that companies like Amazon know me better than I do, by collecting my data (maybe crossing them with data they get from other companies) and analyzing them with every time better software. That they know my weak spots for targeted advertising. That one day they only show me advertising I am interested in. And so I will be buying and buying and being broke soon, my house full of crap I that "like" but I am not able to pay the rent anymore.

Free Calls from a website: GizmoCall

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.