voip

"Coming Soon: Free Video Conferencing From Google. This was the headline of a recent ZDNet story by Garrett Rogers. Garett based his prediction on an interview with Rishi Chandra, a Google Apps product manager, on SFGate. There, Mr. Chandra said that “launching a voice or video chat session should flow seamlessly within Gmail and mesh organically with the other Apps” and “should be embedded in the core experience across the application set”." - Arnaldo M Pereira from Bookmarklet

For "that" I mean: PBX like facilities, integration with other DIDs the user might have (his phone numbers) and basically e-mail. - Arnaldo M Pereira

"Jajah, an Internet-telephony company, has been acquired by Telefonica in a $207 million all-cash deal, the companies said this morning. The deal is subject to regulatory approval by CNC, the Spanish competition authority, according to a release by Telefonica. The company said the purchase of Jajah “significantly enriches Telefónica’s capabilities to offer cutting-edge communications services for customers online — whenever, wherever and however they want.”" - Arnaldo M Pereira from Bookmarklet

"Good news! We are marching closer to the official release of FreeSWITCH version 1.0.5. The latest and greatest release candidate is now available for download here. We ask that everyone update as soon as possible. This latest pre-release version is the most stable version yet and is much improved over 1.0.4. Those who are already running SVN trunk should do the usual make current operation. Of course, those running in production environments please update your sandboxes and test systems prior to updating your live systems." - Arnaldo M Pereira from Bookmarklet

"Siemens Communications will integrate Twitter with its Unified Communications (UC) platform, and PBworks announces plans to offer voice alongside its collaboration and social software services." - Arnaldo M Pereira from Bookmarklet

"The Sangoma Wiki has a PDF explaining how you can reduce Asterisk system load by up to 70 percent by increasing the chunk size so that you are not getting an interrupt every 1ms. Note that this is only applicable to cards with hardware echo cancellation." - Arnaldo M Pereira from Bookmarklet

"Google Voice is one of those great services none of us knew we needed until it came along. Now that it's here, we'd like to suggest a few changes that could shape it into an even better productivity tool. Why offer up our unsolicited advice on where Google should next look to improve its phone-controlling service? Because we, and many of our readers, spend a good chunk of time thinking up dream uses for our computers and gadgets, and we want to see those dreams come true. To firm them up, and make a geeky, early-adopter service something everyone can benefit from, we offer up these five features and fixes we'd like to see Google Voice take on. Not quite sure what Google Voice can do already? Take a tour around our screenshot-filled first look, and read our take on who does and doesn't need Google Voice." - Arnaldo M Pereira from Bookmarklet

MMS would be so bomb. Especially if we could record video messages the way YouTube quick capture works - newmedias

In the past 10 years, Voice over IP has emerged as an alternative to the traditional Telephony (PSTN) allowing a reduction in costs and increased capacity on long-distance telephone calls. While providing for lower costs and greater flexibility on converged voice and data networks, VoIP in general failed to deliver ‘better-than-PSTN’ quality, mainly due to the 3.4 Khz bandwidth limitation of legacy narrowband speech codecs. Capitalizing on expanding IP broadband networks, wideband speech codecs which encode 7.1 Khz of the voice spectrum can now be effectively deployed in VoIP. This enables the doubling of bandwidth for voice communications, allowing the elevation of daily voice communication to be similar to that of FM radio and/or conference room quality. - zsafwan  from Bookmarklet

"Coincidentally with the session on mobile voip with Ruben Olsen, I finally pulled the trigger on an iPod Touch “second generation”. This is IMO the iPhone without phone, camera or GPS. What that leaves is a very good mobile computing platform with WiFi, an mp3 and video player and the worlds hippest most intelligent interface to date. Cutting to the chase, I have tried several SIP clients in the last 48 hours, and here are a few of my experiences." - Arnaldo M Pereira from Bookmarklet

"The FreeSWITCH team is pleased to announce the immediately availability of FreeSWITCH version 1.0.4. (Source tarball available here.) This new version contains many improvements in stability and security as well as some notable additions." - Arnaldo M Pereira from Bookmarklet

"According to Todd Barr, FreePBX version 3 will not support Asterisk when released. The support will be added "at a later stage". On the good side, FreePBX now support FreeSWITCH. In sum this really is good news for the FreeSWITCH crowd - finally they are getting a GUI that is well known in the Open Source VoIP community." - Arnaldo M Pereira from Bookmarklet

While Google isn’t the type to shake in its booties at the sight of a smaller competitor with a rival product, we’ve spent a bit of time playing with a service the Goog might be wise to keep its eye on: Virtual Phone Numbers by 3jam. The company just announced the public beta availability of this new service today and we have to be honest with you, it wipes the floor with Google Voice in a lot of ways. Of course it falls short in some areas as well, but since it’s a brand new beta we’re hoping to see progress come swiftly. Just like Google Voice, 3jam’s offering provides call forwarding with simultaneous ring, “visual voicemail” available online coupled with email notifications/transcriptions, etc. It also offers several key benefits over Google’s offering however, so GV lovers might want to hit the jump and check it out. - zsafwan  from Bookmarklet

"Skype meets Star Trek(Sort of) with this communicator from Polycom. The device lets you talk hands-free. The C100S USB Speakerphone for Skype features two high-quality microphones that will give you excellent range in group conversations and eliminates pesky echoes and feedback. It connects via USB and does double duty as a speaker if you want to listen to music. You can even pick up or hangup without using a mouse. So free your hands! They have been enslaved long enough. The Polycom C100S USB Speakerphone is available on Amazon for $111.62." - zsafwan  from Bookmarklet

"Salmon said the new Team service allows each employee to stay in control over where to answer calls and even have their VoIP, landline and mobile phones ring in parallel - the call is routed through to whichever handset is picked up first. He said that during a call, it is simple to bridge-in other callers, transfer the call or even record it." - zsafwan  from Bookmarklet

"If you're one of the lucky ones to have scored an invite to Google Voice, check out VoiceCentral. It's a very slick application which integrates well with the iPhone, making it possible to make calls through your Google Voice (or GrandCentral) account. Why would you want this? My primary reason for wanting an application for GV is so that I can make calls and have my Google Voice number appear on the Caller-ID." - Arnaldo M Pereira from Bookmarklet

VoiceCentral is $2.99 but I can try GV Mobile for free. Google really needs an official GV iPhone app. - Bill Sodeman

"BandwidthU: How does FreeSWITCH primarily differ from Asterisk? Anthony: “The biggest difference is that FreeSWITCH is a bit more modular than Asterisk. That is to say that FreeSWITCH is broken into much smaller pieces, which means you can hook into more things and combine several small components into exactly what you are trying to accomplish. From a higher perspective, the most obvious difference is that Asterisk is labeled as and designed to be primarily a PBX where FreeSWITCH is a soft-switch which is a lower level of abstraction on the telephony totem pole meaning you can use FreeSWITCH to create a PBX if you wish but you can just as easily use it for several other duties such as SBC or application media server.”" - Arnaldo M Pereira from Bookmarklet

"Linux (with different flavours) is one of the most widely used OS now and Linux users surely need a good way to communicate using VOIP. Thank god we have Open Source protocol such as SIP which are not Windows driven. However, still compared to Windows Linux falls short on VOIP exposure. There are however some solid SIP softphones which can be as perfect as a windows based SIP Client and offers better or equal features. Lets quickly analyse what SIP Softphones work on Linux." - Arnaldo M Pereira from Bookmarklet

"Frustrated with a lack of real voice over IP services on your Android phone? Until now, the only VoIP apps for Android have used your standard calling minutes. That goes for Voxofon, Truphone, Skype, and iSkoot. (any others?) Now, when you download SIPdroid from the Android Market, you can finally make calls using your phone’s WiFi connection. (And if you download the full version from the SIPdroid website, you can even make calls over 3G!) To use SIPdroid, you must have an account with any SIP provider, like Gizmo5 for example. Because SIPdroid was released by i-p-tel GmbH, and is currently in public beta testing, it works best when used in conjunction with i-p-tel’s free service PBXes. Apparently, this is the route you must take if you use any of the popular Betamax services such as VoipBuster, VoipCheap, InternetCalls, VoipStunt, SIPdiscount and others." - Arnaldo M Pereira from Bookmarklet

Ooo, if google force voip services really it really sounds good! lets wait and see what comes over it.. - Fırat DEMİREL

"Google Voice, formerly GrandCentral, is a seriously heavyweight product. When it relaunched in March, just a couple of months ago, we gave Google Voice a glowing review. Once you’ve jumped in head first to the product it will straighten out your phone life forever. You’ll never have to worry about figuring out which phone numbers to give to different people. Give them one number - your Google Voice number - and then use rules to determine where your calls go based on who’s calling and what you are doing." - Arnaldo M Pereira from Bookmarklet

Number portability cannot come soon enough. - Russ Jackson

"It appears that Google has reserved a million phone numbers from Level 3 for use with Google Voice. This is a very good indication that the company will be opening up its doors for business in the near future. Google Voice will change the way you send/receive phone calls, listen to voicemail, read text messages, etc. When you subscribe to Google Voice, the only phone number that matters is your Google Number — it will forward calls/texts to the phones of your choosing by following certain rules around time of day and contact groups. In addition, it also has a wealth of powerful features that let you do things like listen in on messages and “pick up the line” on a different phone or device without dropping the call." - Arnaldo M Pereira from Bookmarklet

I LOVE Google Voice. Now I just wish that my contacts would conveniently forget my other phone numbers. - Dave Roth

"888VS: Coming from an open source project myself (trixbox CE) I understand that a large project needs some level of funding to really thrive. Recently there have been rumors that Barracuda Networks has acquired FreeSWITCH with figures ranging up to 1.4 million dollars. Anthony: All the rumors that Barracuda Networks has acquired FreeSWITCH are false. I do work for Barracuda Networks. I accepted a position at their company some time ago. They are interested in FreeSWITCH but they have not acquired anything other than some of my time. I chose Barracuda as an employer because they are very tolerant to open source developers understanding the need to keep the project alive and the code free. Again, the only true portion of this rumor is that I am indeed employed by Barracuda." - Arnaldo M Pereira from Bookmarklet

"This is a basic HOWTO for setting up a home VOIP system using the excellent FreeSwitch telephony platform and a LinkSys SPA3102 voice gateway. (skip to the HOWTO section if you just want to get on with it) First of all a quick introduction to FreeSwitch for those who haven’t come across it before… (the following mercilessly wrenched from freeswitch.org) FreeSWITCH is an open source telephony platform designed to facilitate the creation of voice and chat driven products scaling from a soft-phone up to a soft-switch. It can be used as a simple switching engine, a PBX, a media gateway or a media server to host IVR applications using simple scripts or XML to control the callflow. We support various communication technologies such as Skype, SIP, H.323, IAX2 and GoogleTalk making it easy to interface with other open source PBX systems such as sipXecs, Call Weaver, Bayonne, YATE or Asterisk." - Arnaldo M Pereira from Bookmarklet