While I can appreciate Tom Keating’s wholehearted enthusiasm for the rash of gadget deals that abound today, Black Friday and all, I do pause ever so slightly when I remember that isn’t this time supposed to be well, Thanksgiving, as in the Giving of Thanks?

I’m hardly the first person to point out that giving thanks with the right hand hand whilst brandishing our credit cards with the left seems a little crazy. In Canada, many of us watch American news stations showing the 5 am line-ups, door crashing mayhem, and fist fighting moms. But we’re no better. The traditional Boxing Day Sale, the day after the biggest “giving” day of the year, is when Canadians lose their heads.

Who started this anyway? Okay, enough sour grapes.

I posted a question to Skype technical support (I made sure that it wasn’t already answered in their Knowledge Base). It took over two weeks, but they did get back to me. Better late than never I guess. Honestly, whenever I fill in one of those web forms, I’m sure I’m sending my question into a black hole. I didn’t expect Skype to get back to me, but they did. So, if you’re not in any kind of hurry, go ahead and ask away.

By now the VOIP world knows of Truphone’s victory in court over mobile giant T-Mobile. Yesterday, UK Truphone won an injunction against T-Mobile blocking calls to Truphone users: For the last month, anyone calling a Truphone number on T-Mobile network would hear a "Number not in service" message. By Monday, July 23, T-Mobile has been instructed to start routing these calls.

There’s plenty of cheering on the Truphone website, http://truphone.blogspot.com/2007/07/truphone-wins-court-injunction-against.html but I have yet to find T-Mobile’s official or unofficial response. I couldn’t find anything on their website. In the spirit of gathering the whole picture, let me know if you find a company statement or interview anywhere. 

I saw a post yesterday on the Motley Fool called “Avoid the VOIP Value Trap“. It’s reader is the investor looking for the “next home run stock”. The gist of writer Dave Mok is to avoid investing in VOIP like the plague. “Internet telephony is a novel application that leverages existing infrastructure to deliver comparable services at lower prices. Technological developments like this can help companies improve margins and offer better value to consumers, but they don’t necessarily create substantial new value worthy of investment.”

Hey, well he may be right. I’m not an investor so I don’t know if this is news or not (I suspect not). Consumer value just can’t get no respect…Well I think there’s more to VOIP than Vonage–that is to say there’s more to VOIP than just cheap phone calls.

With all the hubub around Vonage and other national VOIP phone companies like them, I sometimes slide into the trap of thinking VOIP is all and only about saving money, unlimited long distance plans, and the like. And of course it’s not. I was reminded of a conversation I had in December with Talkster CEO James Wanless who called the “race to zero” a lousy business model. The fact is there are many new ventures using VOIP as a platform to offer services that traditional phone companies can’t. Look at Jangl offering phone privacy for social networking sites. Look at TalkPlus with a second number for your cell phone. Look at iotum TalkNow for Blackberry users. MobileStick from Bridgeport Networks, SightSpeed video calling, GrandCentral, PhoneGnome, Fring, Jajah, Gizmo, Truphone…the list is getting longer by the day. To say that “VoIP offers no new killer applications or buzzworthy innovations” is a little harsh. Investor value? No idea. Consumer value? You bet.

In an announcement today, UK-based Truphonelaunches free calling from mobile Truphone customers in the US to landlines everywhere (well, 40 countries worldwide actually). This program is an extension of their UK launch promotion and will be in effect until the end of June. So if you really want give a great mobile VOIP application a whirl, now’s your chance. US customers have always been able to talk to other Truphone users for free but now they can call regular landlines too.

You can download Truphone for your Nokia handset here:
http://www.truphone.com/downloads/downloads.tru

Watch a YouTube video of this press release here:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZK9wuSFoSqQ

And finally, read the whole press release:

March 27th 2007 – Orlando, FL & London, UK - Owners of Wi-Fi-equipped Nokia smartphones will be able to make free international calls from the USA to landlines in 40 countries throughout April, May and June, mobile internet telephony pioneer Truphone announced today. The announcement extends and enlarges Truphone’s current price promotion [ending on March 31st], during which customers have been able to make free mobile Voice over IP (VoIP) calls across the USA and Canada.

“We’re delighted to be making it so attractive for people to try internet telephony on their mobile handset, instead of being tied to their computer,” said James Tagg, Truphone’s CEO. “The convenience of a normal, mass market cellular handset and free international calls is an unbeatable combination for the consumer.”
Countries to which any on-net Truphone user worldwide may now make free calls to landlines include China (landlines and mobiles), Mexico (Guadalajara, Mexico City and Monterrey), Russia (Moscow and St. Petersburg) and most European Union countries.

Tariffs to some paid-for numbers may have changed from the previous promotional period. Truphone’s full tariff document is available at www.truphone.com.

Under the terms of the new promotion, free Truphone calls can be made to the following countries (applies to Truphone calls to landlines only, unless otherwise stated): Argentina, Australia, Austria, Belgium, Brazil (Rio de Janeiro & Sao Paulo only), Canada, Chile, China (Landline and Mobile), Cyprus, Czech Republic, Denmark, Estonia, France, Germany, Greece, Guam, Hong Kong (Landline & Mobile), Hungary, Iceland, Ireland, Israel, Italy, Korea (South), Luxembourg, Malaysia, Mexico (Guadalajara, Mexico City & Monterrey only), Netherlands, New Zealand, Norway, Panama City, Poland, Portugal, Puerto Rico, Russia (Moscow Central & St Petersburg only), Singapore (Landline & Mobile), Spain, Sweden, Switzerland, Taiwan, Thailand, United Kingdom, US Virgin Islands and USA (landline & mobile).

About the Truphone service
Truphone enables Wi-Fi equipped mobile phones to make 100% VoIP calls at either zero or very low cost to the caller, by using the SIP standard and the Internet to route network traffic, rather than traditional mobile phone networks. Truphone-to-Truphone and Truphone-to-SIP number calls are always free, with Truphone calls to other numbers charged at cheaper rates than those charged by mobile operators and often at lower cost than even a conventional fixed line.
There is no monthly subscription, no inbound charges and billing is via pre-pay. Sign-up and top up are done via the web site. Customers get Truphone by downloading a small piece of free software over the air to their phone. When a Truphone-equipped handset is not in Wi-Fi range it reverts to being a normal mobile phone, with calls routed over GSM as usual.

One of the things I try to do on this blog is try things–new consumer VOIP products, downloads, etc. You can get commentary on industry news like who’s buying who, or who just closed shop, in places like GigaOm.

Admittedly, I don’t get to try a lot of hardware, just software mostly, but if you’re looking for that kind of thing, VOIP and Gadgets or Smith on VOIP are good bets.

But this week Andy Abramson, in Living with Softphones, posted a neat-and-tidy roundup of some VOIP tools he’s been using, and I like it because he lists only what he’s used (or experimented with), and explains how he uses them. I think this kind of post is really useful. Don’t you really wanna know just how you’re supposed to use all this stuff in the real world? I know I do. Thanks A. Alec Saunders also posts quite often on VOIP adventures with his Blackberry, and Phoneboy writes about handsets he’s using (because all other hardware is just too boring). Check them both out too.

For my part, I use on a regular basis:

Skype: for chat and calls to Skype buddies
Gizmo: for general softphone calling
PhoneGnome: for long distance calling to reg phones
SightSpeed: for video calls
GrandCentral: for simplifying inbound calling. I’m using it to funnel calls through my Gizmo account.
Fring: for mobile calls to Skype buddies (still experimenting mostly)

Since I cancelled Vonage in August, I haven’t signed on with another subscriber service. However, I’ll be trying one soon.

Gizmo Project announced today an new update to their popular softphone. Read reviews by Om Malik, Luca, and Tom Keating. The biggest addition is the ability to now call Windows Live and Yahoo Messenger contacts in addition to Google Talk, Jabber and other Gizmo users.

Today, if you’re already a Gizmo Project user you get the download and install the new version from the web site, click here. Sometime tomorrow or Thursday, the Gizmo folks will add an automatic install feature that prompts you to install the new version the next time Gizmo starts up. I like that.

As for using it, I’ve made a few test calls to Windows Live Messenger. Just enter the MSN ID in the  call field, pretty easy. However the only way I can see to save a MSN or Yahoo contact to the contact list, is to select GoogleTalk in the Contact Type box. I don’t know if this is the intended use but….users don’t always do what they’re supposed to do…

On the receiving end, the incoming call didn’t look like me. It looked like GTalkToVoip was calling (who in the world is that?). Answering the call and hanging up seem fine, but after that, the whole process seemed to crash Windows Live (receiving end). I don’t use Windows Live for voice at all so I’m not an expert. In my opinion, you’re better off just inviting your friends to join Gizmo.

 

 

You don’t have to listen too closely to hear voip and other tech bloggers talk about how for the consumer market, services and applications have to be “dead simple”. Well here’s something embarrassing…for me. 

I’m not an IT pro, but I’m not a novice pc user either. I have a Dell Inspiron 6000 laptop, which I love. I’ve had it since last June. When I started demo-ing voip applications for this blog, especially web click-to-call, and pc phone applications, I was using one of two headset/microphones. I mean my laptop has two clearly marked jacks for audio in/audio out. I futz about with these headsets on a regular basis, plugging in, unplugging, trying different things. My husband and I share them you see. So one time I was trying to find my headset and get it plugged in in time to answer an incoming Skype call.

“You know,” my husband says, “Your Dell probably has a built in mic.” Nope, I’d already checked that out. I looked for one, a label, a little pinhole that might be it. I even looked on through the Dell stuff they sent me. I don’t think it has one. Meanwhile, Skype is bleeping away.

“Well you know,” my husband says, “A laptop that new, it’s probably got a built in mic.”

I answer the call. Yes, my laptop has a built in mic. Okay, I’m a dope.

So even if it’s “dead simple”, even if it’s “built in” for crying out loud, for some of us that just isn’t enough.

On the weekend, my husband had an important long distance call with a client. Downstairs, PhoneGnome had husband talking to the UK over VOIP using Gizmo credits. Upstairs, PhoneGnome had son talking local to his buddies. So easy. And we didn’t even realize that the whole thing panned out problem free until much later…no dropped calls or weird noises, and a whole dollar’s worth of Gizmo call out credits consumed. This is how VOIP should work…totally transparent.

In an article this week on TMCnet, the research firm TeleGeography reported that US subscribers using VOIP services rose 18 percent in the last quarter to 18.2 million with Vonage being the largest provider with 1.95 million subscribers. Why are they still the biggest?  Massive media campaigns on the web, TV, radio, and sporting events helps…a lot. And don’t forget the catchy jingle and celebrity endorsements. But all that stuff just gets the consumer to the web site (retail sales excluded). What happens after that?

Of course once the consumer turns into a subscriber, keeping them is a whole other story. This blog, as well as many others, has touched on what appears to be widespread customer service problems. In fact, I still get responses to a post back in September on the runaround I received when I wanted to cancel my Vonage service. And my story wasn’t even one of the crazier ones. (Check out Tom Keating.)

Since cancelling Vonage in August, I’ve been keeping busy blogging about the a wave of emerging voice over Internet services. I haven’t applied for any other national broadband phone service, like Primus or Shaw Digital Phone, in my area. I’m happy trying various softphones and of course my PhoneGnome.

But, I decided to take a fresh look at the Vonage web site and see if they are doing anything differently. In my opinion, for all their faults once they’ve got you, Vonage does a lot that’s right.

1) Clear description of services/plans above the fold, with enough text to explain what the plan is all about without clicking 

2) Site navigation is SIMPLE: tabs to products, services, availability and features are clearly identified

3) Upfront explanation of device bundles, including what’s free, what’s extra, and information to help figure out which device is right for me 

4) Special promotions, deals, and other creatives are below the bread and butter products. This is important (I think). To me this says that our products are the most important thing we have to offer, not the limited time sweet deal.

Packet8, Lingo or SunRocket just don’t communicate as well. These three providers all had the basic residential and business plan info above the fold, but I found it took more clicks and more reading to find the additional information I needed. Comcast Digital Voice was the most annoying. Perhaps because they are basically an entertainment company, they feel they have to “entertain” me while selling phone service. A whole bunch of flash nonsense. Stupid. And they won’t tell me anything about their products/services until I tell them my address and zip code.

I guess my point, to make a long story even longer, is for emerging products and services to learn a few lessons here. Speak clearly to your audience. Communicate your product and services upfront. Explain what’s included (device bundles, software) and what’s extra BEFORE the sign up process. I don’t want to see a small asterisk footnote that says the service works with the purchase of $75 VOIP adaptor right at the very end. And finally, don’t hide behind walls of flash animation and annoying forms that make users type a bunch of stuff.