I’m trying to get into Gizmo. Gizmo Project is a free Internet telephone (or softphone) that lets you make free or low cost phone calls on the Internet. With Skype, you are limited to calling fellow Skypers. With Gizmo, you can call other Gizmo members for free, as well as GoogleTalk users, Jabber users, and SIP phone numbers. Unlike Skype, which relies on a proprietary or closed network, Gizmo users are free to contact any Internet phone number on an open SIP network. 

With Gizmo, calls to regular landline phones and mobiles are subject either to very low rates, or a complicated free call plan that has something to do with calling registered Gizmo members who don’t happen to be online but who normally ARE online AND active Gizmo users. I’m being a bit cheeky here, but free calls really are a good thing in any form.

But as for using it, I’ve had a few hiccups which suprised me. First, I wasn’t really paying attention to what I was doing and imported my whole Outlook address book into it. Many entries have no phone numbers, so I ended up with a pretty useless list. The only way to delete the entries is to right-click each contact individually and click Delete. Or, log into my sipphone.com account and delete them from there. Both methods take a long time. Yes, I should have payed more attention but I think I was on autopilot.

For folks like me, a pop up or note in the dialog box that says “Some of your Outlook contacts do not include telephone number information. Do you want to continue?” would have been helpful. Or better yet, why not give me the option to import only those contacts with the phone number field filled in. I mean, I can’t remember which Outlook contacts have a phone number attached and which don’t until I look it up in Outlook.

Then, adding contacts using the Contacts > Search for member command didn’t seem to work. Before I lost my mind I upgraded to the newest Gizmo version and that fixed the problem.

These aren’t big issues, but it definitely took me more than 10 minutes to make my first call. Many of the opinions I’ve read seem to indicate that Gizmo is the favoured choice. Is it because it is the anti-Skype or is it easier to use? I’ll let you know when I’ve used it more.

From: www.quickstartvoip.com

Free Internet phone service lets you to make free long distance calls over the Internet in three different flavors. The first enables you to make calls from one phone to another as long as both are connected to broadband lines. The second allows you to make calls from one computer to another and the third makes calls possible from a computer to a traditional phone.

But, there are limitations to free services. Let’s take a look.

Phone-to-phone service providers require that you purchase their telephone adaptor (or ATA). As long as you are calling other people who have purchased the same equipment, the call is free. PhoneGnome is one such service. The PhoneGnome adaptor costs about $119. You literally plug it in to your broadband connection and to your regular phone, it configures itself, and you are good to go. You can start calling other PhoneGnome users anywhere for free. You don’t have to switch phone numbers or change telephone companies. Vonage, Packet8, AT&T CallVantage, and others you may have heard of follow the same model.

PC-to-PC service providers allow users to make free calls from one PC to another. Both parties need a PC with an Internet connection and some software easily downloaded from the Net. However, for a call to ring through, both parties have to be online at the same time and have the same, or at least compatible, software. By adding voicemail to a PC-to-PC service though, callers can leave messages even when you’re not online. Unfortunately, voicemail may or may not be free.  Skype, Gizmo Project, and FWD are three typical PC-to-PC services.

PC-to-phone services let you to call a regular phone numbers for free. However, you may be restricted to the locations that you can call or the length of the call. VoipBuster, for example, provides free calls from your PC to landline phones in about 30 countries. The restrictions are a little bit complex, but free is free…Lucky for us, the bigger software-based phone companies are trying hard to entice users so there’s also a current wave of promotions trumpeting free calls to landline phones. Skype for example offers free calls to any phone within North America until the end of the year. Gizmo offers free calls to phones in 60 countries as long as both parties maintain an active Gizmo Project account.

In all of these cases, free Internet telephone services make money by selling credits for calling minutes to landline phones or mobiles, long distance destinations, or phone numbers not on the same VOIP service. Rates are low, however, and you can expect to save significantly over traditional long distance companies. For regular phone users to call you on your free Internet phone account, you must “buy” or subscribe to a conventional phone number. Most services allow you to buy a phone number in different locations, so if your family is in the UK and wants to phone you regularly, you can buy a local UK number that they can call for free or inexpensively.

“Sahweet” as my son would say. For once I had no trouble with the setup of the Nokia N800 internet tablet. I’m hooked up using Wi-fi and was able to make calls right away using Google Talk. I haven’t yet hooked up via bluetooth to my phone, but that’s next. As you can see, the screen is a great size and remarkably crisp and clear. Another neat feature is the full screen finger keypad, which I found somewhat bizarre at first, but I think there’s a bit of a knack to it. A little more practice and I’ll be a pro in no time.

There’s so many great features to explore on this device, like web cam, media player, internet radio, email and text messaging, internet calling with video. I’m trying to be systematic but it’s hard! The design is sleek, fits great in your hand, and the snap out desktop stand doubles as a hand grip. I checked on Amazon and the N800 can be had for around $379.

Reprinted with permission from: www.quickstartvoip.com

In order to use VoIP, both parties need a broadband connection. This is a high-speed Internet, or broadband connection usually provided by a cable or DSL modem. Broadband modems are usually used to connect computers to the Internet, but in the case of VoIP, computers are not necessary.

The simplest form of VoIP is a computer-to-computer voice connection. All that is required for this type of connection is a computer, a headset consisting of earphones and microphone, and VoIP software. Most software packages are free and allow you to connect to any computer running the same software. There is no charge for this type of connection and calls can be made to anywhere in the world.

VoIP software can also be used to connect to land-line phones — that is, phones which are not connected directly to the Internet. This type of call is usually not free but the cost is quite a bit lower than what your telephone company charges. Some VoIP services also allow you to make calls to cellular phones.

The only time that both parties need a particular VoIP software package is when they are making computer-to-computer calls. Parties receiving land-line or cellular calls do not need any extra equipment or software.

VoIP Transmissions

VoIP is based on digital data transmission. The first step in any VoIP call is to convert the analog signal of the human voice into digital data. This is done within an Analog-to-Digital Converter (ADC) that divides an analog signal into discrete steps which are represented by numbers. The next step is to compress the audio data using a codec (enCOder/DECoder) which significantly reduces the amount of digital data while maintaining audio quality.

The compressed digital data can now be sent over the Internet. The data stream must be divided into packets which, besides containing the audio data, also have information concerning their destination and their place in the data stream.

All data that is sent over the Internet is encapsulated in ‘layers’ which aid in its proper delivery. For example, web pages may use the Internet Protocol (IP) network layer to specify destination and origin addresses, the Transmission Control Protocol (TCP) transport layer to create a connection between two computers and the Hyper Text Transfer Protocol (HTTP) as an application layer to allow the Web browser to display the web page correctly.

Most VoIP uses a transport layer called User Datagram Protocol (UDP) which is faster than TCP. A commonly used application layer is Real-time Transmission Protocol (RTP) — originally developed for delivering audio and video over the Internet. RTP provides information about the sequence of the data packets so they can be reconstructed in the correct order at their destination.

RTP also has the ability to drop packets if they do not arrive within a certain amount of time. This is necessary for telephone conversations because if the telephone software waited for every packet of information to arrive before reassembling it there would be unacceptable delays in the audio stream.

Even though some of the packets are dropped, there is usually still enough information to make the conversation legible. The number of packets that will be dropped depends on the speed of your Internet connection in the distance between the two parties.

Once the voice data has arrived at its destination, it is reassembled in the correct order and converted back from digital to analog.

 

Reprinted with permission from: www.quickstartvoip.com 

You may have heard this before: Voice Over IP (VOIP) needs a certain amount of bandwidth to be usable. In other words, VOIP needs bandwidth so that voice conversations are intelligible by both parties. Your broadband Internet connection (provided through a cable or DSL service) provides that bandwidth.

Basically, bandwidth is the amount of digital data that can be transmitted in a certain time period. Internet connections are usually measured in KiloBits Per Second (kbps). Your connection may be rated at 512/128 kbps. This means that the upload stream (leaving your computer) has a maximum bandwidth of 128 kbps and download stream (coming to your computer) has a maximum bandwidth of 512 kbps. Find out the speed of your broadband connection…

For example, a web page that is 3000 bytes can theoretically viewed in 0.05 seconds – almost instantaneously - at a download speed of 512 kbps. However, in the real world web pages don’t usually load that fast.  That’s because data is held up, or delayed by various factors. Latency is the delay caused by the physical limitations of each piece of hardware the data is passed through. Delays are also caused by pathway congestion, error checking, transmission negotiations and extra data sent with the web page to identify its type, origin and destination.

What this means for VOIP is that enough bandwidth must be supplied to allow for the transmission of the actual voice data in real time as well as extra bandwidth for the overhead required for any data transmission.

So how much bandwidth does voice data use up? Well that depends on the codec (enCOder/DECoder) used to compress the data. Anywhere from 16 to 64 kbps is normal. Add onto that the extra overhead of about 10 to 24 kbps. In total, VOIP uses 26 to 88 kbps. As a general rule, assume that you will need at least 88 kbps to use VOIP reliably. Note that VOIP service providers will provide you with their broadband requirements.

You will need an Internet connection that can handle at least 128 kbps on the upload side. Extra bandwidth will allow others in the household to surf the net or download files while you are talking on the phone. If you wish to use conference calls even more bandwidth will be required.

While there is no set rule for the amount of bandwidth that a household will need, count on 128 kbps as a minimum.  If you have several computers and other devices connected to the Internet, consider going up to the maximum available.

Note that these speed are for uploads – the download speeds are usually quite a bit faster and present no problem for VOIP.

As a little postscript to that Bye Bye Vonage post, I discovered that while Vonage customer support is 247, if you want to CANCEL their service you have to call during business hours (between 9 and 4:55 Eastern). I’m on Pacific time so it took me three tries. Guess they don’t want to make it too convenient if you plan on jumping ship!

But they were very polite, and even offered me free service for a few months to see if they could fix my voice quality problems. I was tempted, but like most people, I don’t want to spend my time friggin’ around with tech support trying to fix it. It ’s not good use of my time. I want it just TO WORK.

I opted to pay the $50 cancellation fee and just move on…

Alec Saunders has a post today on keeping kids safe on the Internet. A new product called IMSafer allows parents to monitor unsafe or suspicious online messaging while still protecting kids’ privacy. Bravo! See http://www.imsafer.com/.

The subject of kid safety online brings me to Skype and their talk-to-a-stranger-anytime feature called Skype Me. Skype Me essentially disables your privacy settings so that anyone on Skype can call you or invite you to chat. I’ve only turned this feature on once to see what would happen. Yikes. No thanks. Frankly,  I think it’s creepy. And after I disabled it, I went looking for the parental control command that would allow me to block this feature from being used. There doesn’t seem to be one.

Now I believe that parents have the responsiblity to supervise their children’s Internet time. It’s not the job of a corporation. However, Skype should consider building in kid safe features. For parents like me, it will make the difference if or where their product is installed in the home. 

I’ve had my PhoneGnome for about a week now and so far I’m really happy with it. What a great product! It marries the best of low cost Internet calling with the safety and reliability of regular landline service. It just works…

PhoneGnome-to-PhoneGnome calls are crystal clear and regular landline calls are, well, regular landline calls. PhoneGnome detects which type of call (Internet or PSTN) you’re making, makes a short announcement to let you know how it is going to place the call, and away you go.

I had a few problems setting up PhoneGnome to use an Internet phone service for outbound long distance calls, in my case a Gizmo Project account. To use Gizmo, I had to enter the SIP settings manually. My mistake was in entering my SIP phone number. Make sure you enter the phone number assigned by Gizmo Project without any dashes, spaces, dots, etc. Once I fixed that, smooth sailing.

While PhoneGnome can certainly work with Gizmo Project and other SIP friendly Internet Telephone Service Providers (ITSP), it’s better to sign on with one of PhoneGnome’s ITSP partners, says David Beckenmeyer,  CEO. Their partners are better integrated with PhoneGnome so you don’t have to worry about entering scary stuff like SIP credentials. At the moment, they offer VocalNet ($14.95 and $21.95/month) and Infonex (pay as you go) services.

Because PhoneGnome is really plug and play, it’s something I can sell my parents on. It’s not too weird or too techy, it configures itself, 911 still works like you expect, and you get dial tone even if your Internet flakes out. Did I mention it just works?

I’ve been fiddling for the last few days with my Nokia N80i. I know I should be homing in on the on-board mobile VOIP capabilities, but I’m too distracted by all the other things this device can do. You have to understand that I’m a basic cell phone person. I’ve never held too much with phones that try to manage your life. I use my mobile to make calls. That’s pretty much it. (C’mon Leanne, get with the program here). So now that I’ve tried the N80i, I realize how boring I’ve been all this time. 

So far, I’m delightfully dazzled by the camera, the video recorder and the music player. These three things I never thought would have interested me and now I can see using them daily…oh yeah, and making calls…that’s four things.

However, I had a few bumps installing the software (GizmoVoIP), for Internet calling, and the phone drivers on my laptop. Tell ya about that later.

Tom Keating recently talked about how to pure VOIP providers like Vonage stack up against the cable and telco companies offering broadband Internet VOIP phone services.

In the article he compares pure VOIP providers like Vonage and Packet8 to telecos and cable companies like Verizon and Time Warner. What do consumers really want? Is cost always the bottom line or are people looking for brand trust, quality of service and reliability over the long haul? His assessment may surprise you.

Click here to read the complete article on his blog.

Who is Tom Keating? He owns the VOIP and Gadgets Blog and is CTO, VP and founder of TMC Labs, one of the leading sources for unbiased opinions and reviews in the VoIP, call center, datacom/telecom industries.