Yesterday was a very good day for my small blog. I got quoted in The Industry Standard, VentureBeat, TMCnet and the Voxeo blog with my findings about Hipsip and the free bridge from Skype to phone.

That feels good.

Labels: Hipsip, Media, Skype, VoIP, Voxeo

                                      

Do you remember my blog post "A SIP address for Skype? Better the other way around!"? This mission has now been accomplished. As of yesterday you can call me on Skype and I will answer this call on my desk phone or cell phone using SIP VoIP telephony. As I always try to achieve, this is a totally free solution.

I have joined Voxeo's developer program for their Evolution application, a visual design tool for interactive voice response (IVR) systems. Part of the deal is that you get a strange phone number with a +990 country code. There is no country associated with this code and Skype users can call these numbers for free. My Skype account is now being forwarded over Voxeo to a SIP address from Gizmo Project which I manage on Voxalot to make use of it's call connection rules and voice mail.

Have a peek on my settings:

A better explanation can be found at the Voxeo support forum. I wonder what VOIPSA's Dan York would say. In January he started a discussion with his blog post "Skype says "No" to VoIP interoperability - *because customers aren't asking for it!* - Well, I am!". He is, by the way, working for Voxeo and this partly solution for his problem comes from his own company. So I guess he was always aware of this trick.

I am happy now that people can call me with Skype and I don't have to keep me computer running or buy a special Skype phone for this purpose. That's the reason why I nearly never used Skype. I don't like applications which keep me tied to my computer in order to receive messages or phone calls, like Skype or the MagicJack normally do. Let's see which other solutions I can develop with Voxeo. Their visual tool makes the design of VoiceXML fairly easy.

Labels: free phone calls, Gizmo Project, Gizmo5, MagicJack, SIP, Skype, VoiceXML, VoIP, Voxalot, Voxeo

                                      

Hipsip is a nice and easy mobile VoIP service which let's you call Skype and SIP contacts from a normal cell phone without a Wifi or 3G data connection. In the last weeks I could try out the service as beta tester and now they open to everyone. Hipsip does basically the same like iSkoot or Mobivox, but is easier to handle. You don't have to install a software on the mobile phone or talk to a computer voice to establish the connection. The user just opens a mobile website where he sees his Skype contacts and calls them with a click on the name. The phone then starts a GSM call to the nearest Hipsip callthrough number where a server converts it into a Skype call. In my case it goes to a landline number in Hamburg, Germany.

Screenshot from the Hipsip mobile website.

One big difference is that Hipsip has no hosted bridge from the cell phone network to Skype. Your computer must always be switched on and you have to install a small software called Hipsip Bridge which has to be running together with Skype. Otherwise the mobile website on the phone says "Please connect your Hipsip Bridge to see your Skype contacts." That is a big disadvantage to the other mobile phone Skype services like iSkoot, Mobivox and Fring. But at least it's cheaper than ideas from SkyQube or VoSky. They not only require you to leave your computer running, but also to buy an extra hardware which hands your mobile phone calls over to Skype. Again, they also let you receive Skype calls on a cell phone.

Call your Skype contacts with one click on a hyperlink.

If the Hipsip Bridge doesn't run, you can still call every SIP address of choice or even email addresses, which will be explained later. I conducted a small email interview to the developer Christian Rees. He comes from Germany himself, where he long time ago used to write about Atari ST computers for the famous c't magazine. On the phone he had told me that they are already considering a hosted solution without Hipsip Bridge, but that's not so easy.


I see that you use HTML code like <a href="tel:+4940306988028">Call sip:johndoe@ipcall.com</a> on your mobile website. What does it do? A computer's browser doesn't know what to do with it, but a cell phone starts a call.

The answer is, that the so called telephone URL, tel:, is supported on converged devices (in the sense that they support circuit and packet data) like cell phones with a web browser. When a tel: URL link with a phone number is clicked in the browser, the phone starts dialing the number. It works on all phones that are less then 4 years old. It's customary for the phone to prompt the user with the number, as a safeguard. Our users can be assured that we are only returning our local callthrough numbers.

Who is the company behind the Hipsip offer, Sipcall.com?

Sipcall.com Inc., the parent of Hipsip, is a California corporation with offices in Menlo Park. The company was founded in 2004, is privately funded and in the process of raising more capital. We are less then 10 people with backgrounds from academia, VoIP and the mobile industry. We consider ourselves an international company, that happens to be located in Silicon Valley.

Our history goes back quite a bit, starting in 1999, with the idea that email addresses will eventually turn into phone numbers. We attempted to raise funding in 2000, targetting the mobile space already back then. However, it took until 2004 for the climate to be right to start again with new ideas. In early 2005 we began developing the Hipsip Bridge for Skype. Due to our funding situation back then, it has taken until now for the relase.

What are your further plans?

We are planning to make Hipsip more useful and convenient for our users. One priority is to improve the Skype experience. We have already put emphasis on providing ISDN like voice quality for Skype calls over SIP, since Skype is so exceptional in this respect and we don't want to loose too much of that. However, there are limitations to the current phone networks. We are not so hot on vaporware, so we'll announce new features when they are available. And we are very interested to hear from users what they need.

When will it be hosted, so that my computer doesn't need to stay switched on?

See above, but it is a high priority for us.

And what about new features?

One novel feature that we provide is EmailCall. With EmailCall, a user can turn their email address into their phone number, so to speak. This is how it works: if the user has verified his mobile number and email address and opts-in to EmailCall, he can now be called by his email address:

• by dialing the email address on any SIP phone registered on Hipsip, which will ring the users SIP devices (you could say we are sippyfying the email address).


• from any mobile phone by entering the URL: hipsip.com/john.doe@aol.com (as an example). When the URL is entered, the current mobile number of the owner of the email address will be returned. This is limited to other users of Hipsip, and is strictly an opt-in feature. The user can change his current number anytime, while the much easier to remember email address can be used to look it up in real time, and dial immediately.

The idea behind this is, that we will eventually see a convergence in the addressing space just as we are seeing it with networks becoming all IP, so that a single SIP/email/URI address will be sufficient for all the different modes of communications for which we have to remember identifiers today. This day is not here yet, but we believe that it will eventually happen. Today it is already possible to dial a URI on the Nokia N-Series and E-Series phones, which works very well over WLAN and 3G. Things will only improve when pure packet networks like Wimax and LTE come online.

My take: we have to wait and see how Hipsip develops. The market for such services is already crowded. But nobody has built yet the perfect bridge from Skype to SIP. Hipsip has potential if they get the service hosted, but then they would have to cover higher server costs. The EmailCall is funny but nothing new. Jangl already does it for nearly a year.


Side note:
Respect to blogger hero Russell Shaw who unexpectedly passed away last weekend when he was on his way to cover the Emerging Technologies Conference and VON.

Labels: Fring, Hipsip, Iskoot, Jangl, Mobile VoIP, Mobivox, Skype, VoIP

                                      

Qik is one of the greatest mobile internet applications I know. You just start the software on a Nokia N95, and yet you are broadcasting live video to everyone over the internet. Have a look at my company's Qik stream at Mogulus if you want to see the next transmission.



I immediately thought that this kind of live video broadcast is the last feature that's missing on Nokia's social platform Ovi. There you can already share photos, videos, comments and blog entries in more than 100 file formats. "We support nearly every existing file format”, said Serena Glover, Director Service Operations, Connect New Experiences at Nokia and ex CEO of Twango in an interview with me at the Mobile World Congress 2008 in Barcelona. But Ovi always keeps you waiting for your friends to upload a new video. You can't just tune when it's still being filmed. It feels more like Blockbuster video than real television. Unlike Qik, which lets you broadcast and see events while they are still happening.

"Absolutely! Qik should be a part of Ovi", therefore said Qik's VP Marketing and co-founder Bhaskar Roy when we talked in Barcelona. He also related how venture capitalists are competing to do his company's second round of funding. Our chat was very interesting and insightful. Who had thought that this Silicon Valley company is mostly based in Russia? While India born Bhaskar and his friend Ramu Sunkara run Qik together with some other Stanford graduates from the Californian city of Santa Clara, most of their employees live and work in Moscow. Nilolay Abkairov, who was a former speech codec developer for Skype mobile, and his team are busily porting Qik to all smartphone platforms.

His friend Alexi handles the video streaming issues, which make use of quite nifty technologies: The handset shoots the video as MPEG4 and immediately streams it as H.263 over a 3G or Wifi connection to Qik's server. There it's being transcoded into Flash for Qik's website or into a Realvideo stream for mobile handsets. "Qik is developing a new live streaming to other mobile handsets”, says Bhaskar. "You won't even need a browser to watch a livestream. We send a Realvideo stream directly to your friends' cell phones."

So soon the cell phone will not only be a camera but also a tv set. Everyone is a sender and a receiver at the same time – if he has the right handset. "Qik works on all S60 platforms and a version for UIQ is in development”, says Bhaskar. "A version for Windows Mobile will be launched soon.” Their aim is to make Qik work on every possible camera phone. That's why the team in Santa Clara is also developing a Java client for cheaper handsets. They even tested Qik successfully on phones with just 100 Megahertz CPU and only an EDGE connection to the mobile internet. "Qik consist of a layer that's different for every platform and a platform independent layer”, explains Bhaskar. "That's why it takes only some weeks to port Qik to a new platform."

So while the future looks technologically bright for Qik, I asked Bhaskar how his company wants to earn money. Until now the service is free and Nokia hasn't made an offer yet. "In this year we will only concentrate on consumer acquisition”, is his answer. Advertising on Qik's website would be easy to implement, like Google does it on Youtube. Also companies could sponsor certain channels on the website. "We could also offer value added services for very cheap prices like $1 per month", says Bhaskar. As an example for a premium service he mentions privacy. Until now every video appears directly on Qik's starting page as soon as you activate the camera. Every stranger can see it until you switch off or hit the "0” key.

Labels: Google, Nokia, Qik, Skype, Smartphone, Web_2.0, Youtube

                                      

One thing I heard in Barcelona was that the mobile network operator 3 is not so happy with the 3Skypephone. People are allegedly using it like crazy and 3 is required to install more and more servers from the US startup iSkoot which powers the service. As you remember the 3Skypephone doesn't do mobile VoiP but makes an GSM call from the phone to the 3-iSkoot server, which then cannels them over the fixed line internet to Skype. The data connection is only used to show the presence of the Skype buddies. These iSkoot servers must be quite expensive.

Skype on mobile phones is generally a problem, said Eric Lagier, Business Development Director for Mobile at Skype, last year. A native version exists only for Windows Mobile devices because only they have a strong enough CPU. Symbian users already gave up all hope for a native Skype on their handsets. For more than two years they are waiting for Skype to solve its battery drain and latency problems. Only a prototype was reported in February 2006. Symbian users still have to rely on 3rd party applications like Fring, iSkoot or Mobivox – most of them eat up phone minutes.

But now a real native Skype version for Symbian cell phones will come out, I have been told at the Mobile World Congress. Maybe next week already. It will enable to make Skype calls over 3G and Wifi. The most interesting fact is that this software will NOT be released by Skype and also not by the Israeli software maker Fring, which until now was the only option for a Skype data call. Stay tuned and remember that you read it here first! I am quite excited to see when this rumour will really come true. Unfortunately I cannot tell the name of the company to not ruin their surprise.

Labels: Fring, Iskoot, Mobile VoIP, Mobivox, Skype, Symbian, VoIP

                                      

Jon Arnold has updated his very interesting portal website IP Convergence TV. This time I also wrote a guest opinion, because to make money from mobile VoIP companies have to accept certain realities: "WiFi isn't everywhere and callback costs double".

I love the mobile use of VoIP but I still find it quite uncomfortable. That's what I point out. Especially annoying is how Skype, Fring, Truphone and other SIP based VoIP services get blocked by German 3G providers. Sorry, Dean Bubley from Disruptive Analysys! The reality looks much darker for VoIPo3G than you predict for the future. (But thanks for your regular Google ads "3G mobile Voice over IP. Analyst report: is it a threat to carriers? Or a future opportunity?". I better put a direct link to your website.)

Mobile VoIP over Wifi works only at home or in the office where I don't need it. So in my guest opinion I advocate intelligent cell phone software which automatically completes calls as callback, callthrough, Vo3G or VoWifi while the user doesn't even notice. I have already installed an example software on a Nokia E61.

Maybe if more and more people use these options, Dean's dream will come true. If everyone uses only mobile callthrough, triggered by intelligent software on the handset, the mobile network operators cannot charge any other items than the tariff's included minutes for local calls. Their voice legacy cell phone networks would become dumb pipes into the internet, the way we already see it with the 3Skypephone or iSkoot, Ringfree, Mobivox, Jajah Direct, Sipbroker, Tpad, Rebtel, Mobiletalk, etc. If mobile operators wanted to charge for international calls at all, they would have to embrace VoIPo3G and could at least charge for data, the way Dean predicts it.

But until this comes true, the mobile VoIP companies should attack the incumbents with better callthrough options, to take more and more cell phone calls out of the traditional networks and into IP. Read the full text for further explanations!

Labels: 3G, 3Skypephone, Fring, Iskoot, Jajah, Mobile, Mobile VoIP, Mobiletalk, Mobivox, Nokia, OpenMoko, Rebtel, Ringfree, SIP, Sipbroker, Skype, Tpad, Truphone, VoIP, VoIPo3G

                                      

Phonegnome's David Beckemeyer has a great post, explaining why my dream of a "hosted-Skype-to-SIP" will not come true, as long as Skype doesn't publish its interface.

So don't blame the operators and service providers - blame the cause of the situation SKYPE! Skype needs to provide "data center" solutions if you expect more operators and service providers to deploy "hosted Skype" services.

Thanks for explaining how many hacks are necessary at Fring and Mobivox to build bridges to Skype. And please don't try to call me on Skype! I am most probably not connected.

Read David's post.

Labels: Fring, Mobivox, PhoneGnome, Skype, VoIP

                                      

There is a much quoted explanation from Emoci of Toronto how to create a SIP address that will ring to your Skype name using the Net2Max.com service. It's quite difficult to implement but has received many kudos.

I like these kinds of solutions very much, but I would prefer it the other way around: that Skype rings my SIP address. So I would never have to switch on Skype again. I have all my SIP accounts nicely consolidated to ring my phone or my cell phone. I could do the same with Google Talk, Yahoo and MSN. Only on Skype I am nearly never reachable because I don't like communications that force me to switch my computer on. That's why Skype is Oldschool to me. VoIP has left the PC world long ago and goes along with me.

Mr Blog, David Beckemeyer, thinks the same:

I couldn't agree more, particularly "So I would never have to switch on Skype again." Why doesn't Skype simply offer a 'forward to my SIP address' option? Of course we know why. They want to keep everyone contained in their world. They say it's because Skype users don't want interoperability - if you are a Skype user, maybe it's time to tell them, not me. I agree with you! :)

That reminds me of the recent discussion started by Dan York: "Skype says "No" to VoIP interoperability - *because customers aren't asking for it!* - Well, I am!".

Me too. As well as Martyn Davies and the commentators to his post at VoIP User.

Labels: Google Talk, MSN messenger, SIP, Skype, VoIP, Yahoo