Mediaring extended VOIP Free Calls till 31st July

I was 100% sure about that Mediaring will extend this cool Free VOIP calls offer, but wasn't sure if they would extend it till 31st July. The current offer was set only till April 2007, but now we can continue to call for free to US, Canada, China, Singapore, Hong Kong, United Kingdom, Taiwan and Australia

Mediaring is a Singapore based VOIP startup. I might be working very closely with them in future. Hopefully can offer some good Free VOIP calls deals soon. Till then, you guys must enjoy this free calls offer. What I like about Mediaringtalk is it's easier to use, clutter free interface. Sometimes, you get those SIP errors, but keeping that aside, its a great service for a FREE CALL softphone.

by the way a few things to remember,

Each call is limited to 10 minutes. However, there are no restrictions on calling the same destination multiple times.

This offer is only valid for new sign-ups. It isn't clear if I have to sign-up again. I guess I will check out tomorrow.

Happy Free Calling! Get your Mediaringtalk

Convert Analog Phone into VOIP Phone

Are you kinda fed up with using VOIP softphone that Skype, MediaringTalk etc provides to make calls? I guess it' time to get a VOIP Phone, but hang on. VOIP Phones can be costly for some people and some of us already have a Analog (PSTN) phone, the traditional phone we use at home.

So will it be a great idea to Convert Analog Phone into VOIP Phone, so you are no more stuck with headphones and PC? I am sure it is.

We have a good solution in the market which can convert your standard plain POTS telephone into a VOIP Phone which will work with Skype. Uconnect Skype Phone converter can make this possible.

Lets see how this can be achieved. The VOIP converter device takes the signal from your traditional home phone and converts it into digital data for transmission over the Internet. We just need to connect regular phone line and computer's USB port using Uconnect VOIP converter and it will load up the included Skype software. It's really a child's play.

Dial ** on your phone, and the Skype application appears on screen.

Hear voice prompt "Who would you like to Skype..?"

Choose a Skype contact and Make a Call, which will be totally FREE coz Skype to Skype calls are free.

or

Dial the telephone number from your phone to make a low rate SkypeOut call.

If your phone has caller display you will see the name of the Skype contact calling you.

This product is Skype Certified so you don't have to worry about legal usage etc. Besides that you can check if country legally allows Skype. In Middle east most of the countries have blocked Skype calls, So it will be difficult for them.
The following pictorial should help in understanding how easy it is to use this Skype Converter.









Now Let me clarify this device is of course not FREE. You need to buy this but I can tell you it's very cheap. IN UK, It will cost you around £9.95 (comes with Free 20 mins skypeout voucher) It seems that this product is only available in UK, however you can check if they offer this outside UK + plus shipping cost.

For USA & rest of the world, I will post some other interesting add-ons which will let you make free calls worldwide.

Best Free Call Offer from Jaxtr

Some of you have posted that you can't use Gizmocall, Voipcheap, icall from certain countries or there are some issues using it on your PC, so I finally decided to find a service which will offer free calls anywhere in the world. I finally stumbled across this great VOIP provider called Jaxtr.

Jaxtrprovides a very unique and great VOIP service to call people all over the world. However some countries are fully not supported yet, such as mine. Singapore is not yet fully supported. I could add numbers to my account and possibly people can call me but i can't make calls out. Very surprising and i am going to take it up with Jaxtr guys.

Lets get back to discussing this cool VOIP gadget. Jaxtr is a pretty unique service i must say. Hardly anyone today offers free calls to India, Pakistan, Bangladesh, Morocco. You name it they support that country. However, I would be happy if someone can confirm if they can actually use this service in India. I myself can't confirm this being in singapore. I find that amazing enough coz many other VOIP services are struggling to offer such service.

Lets see how you can use Jaxtr to make free calls worldwide.

1) You need to create an account for atleast one party. This number should be a receiving party number. So for e.g You are in USA and want to call India. First create an account for a Indian number. Register at Jaxtr with your unique ID and then add number

2) After adding the number, Jaxtr will give you a verification number such as "25" etc and will call your phone which you just added. You need to verify your phone with the number provided and Jaxtr will activate your number.



3) Now you can visit the Profile link provided such as http://www.jaxtr.com/voipguide and click on call for free. Jaxtr will ask for your phone number. Just add the number, then Jaxtr will call you first and then it will connect the receiving party. Do remember to save the number Jaxtr gives you when you first call.











Hope you find this pictorial helpful in making a free international call with Jaxtr. Let me know if you are able to call from your country and if there are any specific errors. I can then talk it up with the Jaxtr guys to be included in future release.

Fring enables VOIP on N95

You must have read the recent news about mobile operators disabling VOIP (SIP) features on Nokia N95. Perhaps most of you are already puzzled on whether to buy a mobile with disabled VOIP features. Here is the great news for all of you. Fring, a leading mobile VOIP company has an answer to "Manipulative" Mobile operators. Fring enables N95 with all Mobile VOIP functionality even on a disabled N95 phone. That sounds great. Jon at Fring has sent me a descriptive email explaining how they manage to break through the disabled N95 phones.

fring can mVoIP on any N95 handset because fring manages the VoIP configuration independent of the operator or VoIP settings. What these operators did was simply disable or hide the Internet settings from the specific handsets they distribute. This means that on these specific models from those operators, unless you install a client like fring, you can’t configure VoIP telephony services. Because fring works independent of the operator or VoIP settings, fring isn’t affected by these limitations.

On top of it, Fring works without a SIM card and and enables SIP even from non-SIP enabled handsets. So if you want to be totally sure that your operator is not charging you for Mobile VOIP calls, just throw that SIM card away :-)

Fring has also posted some nice video tutorial explaining how to use Mobile VOIP with Fring. Check out their mobile VOIP Videos

VOIP Providers Interoperability

Almost every month a new VOIP service or provider is entering the market. Many of the VOIP services offer similar features but different rates, however most have stringent terms over the usage of their service. Although, they offer FREE VOIP services, it's always between the two registered member of their service. This limits the meaning of FREE VOIP. I always wonder how difficult it is for consumers to maintain a huge list of login ids for a bunch of free voip service they are using. For e.g: I actively use Jajah, Fring, voipcheap, Mediaringtalk and icall. They are my daily VOIP companions but I find it difficult to manage and interoperate between friends using different network. Imagine half of your frinds are on Jajah and some of them are on Fring. Switching between VOIP services just to connect to my other friends is no so sweet, isn't it?

Whats the possible solution? Well, its VOIP service Interoperability. It's one of the most tricky features someone can offer, since millions of dollars are at stake and who wishes to share it with other providers? Especially when someone is a market leader?

The possible solution is to unite and form a VOIP consortium and have a Common VOIP Id which can be used across providers and services. It's not just about having one ID but customers should have flexibility to interconnect between different service providers.

My ideal Model should work as folllows:

1. Ability to connect to contacts with other providers e.g: Jajah users can tall to Fring users
2. Common VOIP ID for multiple service providers
3. Ability to choose the cheapest call provider. Should display the cheapest rate if not calling to contacts.
4. SIP Users can call non-SIP users.
5. Mobile VOIP users can call Landline VOIP users.
6. Providers to share call rates (when called to a paid destination)
7. Consumers enjoy calling to countries not offered by their VOIP Provider. For e.g: If Jajah offers free calls to India but Fring doesn't, then in that case, Fring customers can dial Jajah users for FREE or cheaper than regular charges. Fring in turn passes % revenue to Jajah.
8. I don't know how this will work and it will be complicated to share the revenue. This is just an idea. Maybe Jajah or Fring guys can answer this better than me.

Any more ideas to make this model work better? Comments Welcome :-)

South African Mobile VOIP

If you thought, south africa is old fashioned telecoms country you have probably stereo-typed just like many of us. VOIP is growing faster than traditional telecom in many developing countries and south africa is keen to be part of the VOIP revolution.

A latest startup Yeigo Mobile, is pledged to power the south african VOIP market through their Yeigo Mobile VOIP service. Yeigo is about ready and excited about their proposed launch of version 2.0. Hope it fixes some if the bugs from the version 1 and yeah, some more collaboration on the yahoo, MSN front. I covered Yeigo Mobile launch some days back.

Yiego claims to offer,

# Free mobile calls between Yeigo users anywhere in the world
# Up to 80% saving on international calls from your mobile to people not on Yeigo.
# Free and easy installation.

With the newer version, Yeigo 2.0 should be a great piece of software everyone is looking forward to.

Don't be misunderstood that Yeigo is only for south africa, It can be used anywhere in the world. I quickly checked their rates for non-yeigo destination. They are offering about $0.14 for India calls and thats pretty competitive in the Mobile VOIP market.

I hope the south african VOIP largely benefits from this trend.

VOIP on N95

Last whole week, all VOIP news sites and blogs were flooded with the new of operators putting off VOIP features from N95. I decided not to join the crowd and wait till some more details are out so i can better judge and comment on the real situation.

It was evident that the operators ain't too happy that N95 is supporting SIP (Session Initiation Protocol), which now becoming a standard in VOIP applications & softphones. So why there is such a concern over SIP? Well, It's simple the operators would loose money on calls since users can place calls free with SIP as long as they are signed up for a SIP services such Fring. Now the funnier and darker side of the story is, some operator aint too happy that their users can place call totally free with services like Fring & Truphone, so they went ahead and blocked "SIP" option on N95. Wow, awesome way of manipulating the VOIP market. This will not only create panic in the VOIP marketplace but all Mobile VOIP services will be at loss. Hopefully this will not last for long and some industry pressure will force them to enable VOIP-SIP on N95 soon. Currently, Orange and Vodafone has decided to block SIP-VOIP on N95 and the reasons that they gave about VOIP market is not mature enough to offer the functionality is a joke.

This just proves that the mobile operators aint too happy with their biggest rival, Mobile VOIP. Although, the change is evident. Its just a matter of time that Mobile VOIP will be dominant and will call the shots! Suprisingly, o2 in UK has decided to offer SIP on N95. I always thought 02 mobile was the worst service (i used them for over 1 yr in UK)but i guess i need to change the opinion now :-)

Cheaper Call to UK Mobile?

I have previously written articles on UK VOIP and how difficult it is for VOIP operators to give competitive rate calls or free calls due to massive termination charge levied by the local operators. Yesterday, I got an email from Will of Rebtel about Ofcom regulations and his interesting article on Rebtel. It seems the UK mobile market will see some revolution in the coming years and hopefully some cheaper uk mobile calls

According to his post and based on my earlier post, Sunday (April 1) all mobile networks in UK have to limit the fee they can charge other telecoms companies for connecting calls on their mobile network. The reductions will be implemented phase-wise till 2011.

Ofcom regulation in the UK has slashed network termination rates by £500m a year. What it meant is UK mobile call termination charges will be reduced by over 30% and in some cases, like for 3, it will be around 45% to 5.9 a minute.

According to Will, This change is the beginning of the end for the mobile cartel". UK mobile companies will loose huge amount of money due to this, however it was essential to fuel the growth of VOIP and other communication mediums dependent on traditional telecom. Ofcom regulations will attempt to bring UK on a global map as a leading VOIP nation. Hopefully it become a reality. I am sure the consumers are happier than ever and companies such as Rebtel, Voipcheap etc there is every reason for a party!

Google's VOIP Video Conferencing

Lately, Google has been busy buying companies in different domains and now they thought of entering something which is already considered as the future of communication, A VOIP Video Conferencing. Yes, you got it right They bought a company called Marratech, who are leaders in Video Collaboration software providing video conferencing and VOIP capabilities all in one. This will be tough news for companies like Webex.


Marratech® is acts like perfect Video collaboration and VOIP conferencing solution for a virtual office. It's OS independent and works great with the existing infrastructure. Imagine saving millions of $$$ of travel to your client's office just to have a meeting. You can do it right-a-way from your office desk. Although this service is not FREE at least at this moment. Google might offer this service for free but those details ain't out yet.

One thing is sure, Google has spiced up the VOIP conferencing market, which was a bit dull and with Video conferencing bundled with it, this product will makes waves. Google will ensure that it's doing what it should. I suspect Google will rename the product as something else, maybe "Google NetMeet" or something like that and give it away for FREE as trial for a few months to generate awareness but it will be paid eventually. Its directly targeted to business customers anyways.

Free Calls to India - FAQ

Everyday i receive atleast 10 emails regarding free calls to india and if there is any way to make such calls. The emails are sent from all over the world. Considering a huge populations of Indians globally and it's absolutely difficult to find a free call service for india, it's normal that the visitor are looking for the answers. I am happy and proud of the fact that people look at VOIP Guide as a primary souce of the information for free calls to india or even other countries. I finally decided it was about time that i should write a dedicated post to free calls to India and answer visitor's queries. This FAQ is based on some emails received regarding free calls to India.

1) Can I make free calls to India? (Very popular and common question)

Yes You can make free calls to India. We will look at how we can make free calls to india in questions answered later in this post.

2) Why India is not included as a free calling country listed by VOIP services?

India was a very traditional and closed telecom industry till the late 90, but later as india moved towards globalisation Private FDI started puring in and telecom industry became competitive. VSNL used to hold a majority share of all ISD and STD calls routed in India and from India to the world. Now the situation has changed but not for consumers. Besides the ISD rates have gone down, there is no major change for consumers. Even today, there are 4 companies ruling the indian telecom market, mainly Essar (Orange and BPL), Bharati( Airtel) , Reliance & Govt. Telcos (BSNL & MTNL). There is so called "Termination charge", which is levied to all VOIP or ISD telecom providers who are trying to terminate their calls to landline or mobiles in India. The termination charge is one of the most important barriers in providing free calls to India. It's highly unlikely that the indian telecom giants will demolish this access charge, coz there are making millions of $$$ with zero efforts.

3) So you are saying providing free calls to india is not possible, then how come there are providers who offer free calls to india? Whats the catch?

Yes. There are some providers who offer some promotional free calls to India. Those providers do incur the charge for connection but they take that charge on their head and give you free calls. Now you would be wondering why would they do that? Simple. To become popular and they expect 1/10 people calling to India will buy some more credit to make extended free calls coz free calls to india offer doesnt give you more than 10 mins everyday.

4) So who offers free calls to india?

Gizmocall is the only company offering free calls to india without any catch. The only limitation is everyday limit is 10 mins with 3 mins each call.

5) Is there a possibility that India will a free calling country?

Very unlikely, considering recent changes in India about VOIP ban, it look like a dream. However, some economic changes might force india to become a totally free VOIP country to interoperate with the world. We can expect such changes by 2010. This is just my opinion.

I hope this FAQ session about "Free Calls to India" has helped the readers to understand the complexity and importance of FREE VOIP.

Google Phone in 2008

VOIP guide covered an exclusive story about Google Phone a few days back and posted some insider pictures of google phone. We have a debate over the original pictures but now the lets count the days to Google phone availabilty.

Digitimes reported that first lot of Google Phone should be available in 2008. Google phone is currently being manufactured by High Tech Computer (HTC). The shipments commencing at the end of 2007, according to handset component makers. The first lot could be as high as 1 million units. That's a good number for a strong push in the market. I am sure google phone willl create enough buzz to back those numbers and hold a plate at Mountain View naming "All Phones SOLD OUT".

The google phone handset is said to be compatible with 3G and EDGE. Google Mail and Google Maps will be pre-loaded with the handset.

Industry watchers argue that Google will parter with Orange for the launch of the handset. Google also has been in touch with other service providers for orders. However the numbers are not yet declared.

It seems that the launch will be intially limited to US & Europe and based on the response extended to other countries including the fastest growing Asia market. No one can ignore asia anymore.

It would be interesting to see how google phone will stand out from it's closest rival, iphone which is set to launch sometime in June/July 2007 and already created enough buzz for the launch. People are ready to pre-order iphone this may. It seems google phone will come out with a unique design and some great features and it's too early to even imagine how would it look like.

We hope that it will have a good VOIP support and might come out with bundled VOIP software a Google Talk-lite version for Google phone.

VOIP Guide however did some research and gathered some google phone prototype pictures.

It's time to wait and watch till we get some cool gadgets up for grab!

VOIP Solution spending to go down?

VOIP has seen a great boom especially the enterprise and personal VOIP market in 2006 and the trend continued for the first quarter. However there are strong predictions of a possible US economony slow down and eventually affecting the rest of the slowly. I wonder how this will directly impact the VOIP solution market. When companies are increasing spending on VOIP solutions promotion through advertisements, will this business be lucrative enough to service the slowdown? I am sure some big companies providing VOIP solution like skype, Packet8 can still operate in deep pockets, however they will also feel the heat.

However, we can also relate the slowdown to another theory of cost cutting. When enterprises are on a cost-cutting mission, they tend to switch to VOIP solution over tradition telecoms but this might make the VOIP solution more competitive and smaller companies will find it hard to sustain with lower margins.

Looking at this graph, The future looks optimistic but i guess the data is a bit old(2005) and it doesn't consider the possible US slowdown which will not only hamper most of the US businesses but might effect the buying power of the consumers. In turn hugely affecting the VOIP solution market. According to the Graph, there might be additional 5 million lines added to VOIP. I suspect that this number might not be in reality, might be close to around 3-3.5 million.

As I debated earlier, the trend could be reversed with an optimism of saving money with VOIP. Especially with enterprises, this could be a strong possibility, but i am afaird the plain vanilla personal VOIP user might think differently.

Only time will tell how VOIP will sustain against the market forces and will it be a dark horse or just a looser.

Ask yourself, Would you buy a new VOIP service or product in case of a economic slowdown? Answe yes or No in comments along with your debate.

Table is open for debate :-)

Skype VOIP Worm on the loose

A few days back, VOIP Guide reported about how important the VOIP security is in the coming few years. Since the recent boost to VOIP business around the globe, there are always some people who love to ruin the strong communication meidum by spreading worms.

Skype, the leader in VOIP was badly hit by a worm called Warezov and now again hit by another worm called Pykse. According to F-Secure, the worm started gathering information from email addresses openly available and then targetted Skype accounts to spread it's reach. It sends out a link which downloads the worm and it then spread automatically to other skype contacts on your list. F-secure however believe this might be some kind of fraud not actually a harmful worm.

So please take maximum precuation while using Skype. It will be icreasingly difficult for VOIP companies to keep the scurity in tact and ensure that all the users are secured. It will also be very important in future to stand out from the crowd which providers generic softphones for VOIP usage. People will only rely on those VOIP software which have good reputation and known to be secured. I wonder how many of those VOIP solutions mushrooming in the market today ever thought about VOIP security and the important of it in the coming years.

I had written an article about Zfone to secure your VOIP calls and encrypt the calls.

More Free Calls by MediaRing Talk

Mediaring, A Singapore based VOIP company which has been continously giving away some more free call offers has recently extended their Chinese New Year offer to April30. This post is a reminder for those who missed the Free Call offer.

The best part of the deal is you don't have to buy any credit to use their service. This is extremely rare since most of the VOIP providers ask for some initial credit before you can make free calls. I have personally used Mediaring and they offer excellent voice quality at highly competitive prices. They also offer very cheap calls to Pakistan and India.

However the only catch is you should be a new user of MediaRingTalk. I am not very clear how will they actually identify a new user, by his IP or simply a new username. I didn't figure it out yet but soon will.

Lets look at what countries they are offering:

Unlimited Free calls are applicable to calls made to:
Fixed & Mobile: US, Canada, China, Singapore, Hong Kong
Fixed: United Kingdom, Taiwan and Australia

However, Please remember that Each call will only last for 10 minutes, but you can make multiple calls during the day. That sounds great. Now we have another good alternative to icall which also offers free calls to usa and canada.

Signup for MediaringTalk and start making free calls.

Skype to power Enteprise VOIP

Skype, a leader in VOIP and already much ahead of its competitors in the Free VOIP market is now eyeing the next fastest growing Enterprise VOIP market. The recent surveys are suggesting that more and more businesses are moving to VOIP now and will soon have parallel VOIP networks with tradition telecommunication mediums. Who know, VOIP might not just be an alternative and soon becomes the primary communication medium. Of course everyone wants the pie of this upcoming industry, Skype is not going to take a backseat.

According to Computerworld, Skype is in the early stages of testing an enterprise-class version of its service and targeting companies with about 1000 employees, thats like mid-sized businesses. Currently skype has not publicly announced their intention, however this was disclosed to limited media houses. The interested parties should send an email to enterprisesolutions(at)skype.net to inquire about the service.

I wonder how skype will manage large business enterprise solutions which need lot of more flexibility, integration and security. Most importantly all this at a low cost. There are many companies today offering business VOIP solution but to stand out from the crowd you need more than a Brand name. Enterprises today are no more fancy about Brand names especially after the recent Vonage blackout.

Only time will tell how skype will offer this solution and hopefully they have well thought out solution to offer than extra security and scalability to manage complex solutions. It's my strong felling that they would offer inter compatibility with the existing infrastructure and build customised solutions for large enterprises. After all no one would be interested in giving up their old infrastruture worth millions of dollars for a new untested VOIP solution.

Free Voice Mail System

Most of us are stuck with mobile or landline operator voice mail service? We are paying some decent amountfor a Voice Mail services with our operators. However not anymore, If you are from USA then you have a great solution, called GotVoice.

Got Voice offers a free voice mail service with most of the mobile operators in USA. Basically, Gotvoice forwards a voicemail to your personalised email address, making it easier for you to track them. Additionally, subscribers can receive their voicemails as MP3 email attachments for easy offline listening. If you are a Premium subscriber, then they offer RSS feed ability that allows you to listen to voicemail in iTunes or on iPod.

The company seem to be offer FREE Voice mail service which is limited to 3 voice mail messages per day. If you would like to increase that allowance, you need to become a premium subscriber for $9.99 per month. Not much if you are keen to use it on regular basis and with heavy voicemail messages coming your way.

Another cool feature of this service is you can customize the Voice mail greeting message as your favorite Mp3 song. or make some funny voice messages. Overall, its a good service for a plain vanilla user who don't want to pay for local operator's voicemail. For Pro users, the cost saving might not be too much but a good way of consolidating all your voice messages.

Yeigo Mobile VOIP

South Afica has always lagged behind other nations on VOIP highway. However the picture is definately changing with lot of broadbank providers offering VOIP services bundled at great low prices but now africans will be able to enjoy Free Mobile VOIP with Yeigo. Although, Yeigo is based out of SA, there service can be accessed anywhere in the world. That means you can call other Yeigo users anywhere in the world.

Yeigo is another mobile VOIP provider trying to dominate open South Africa Mobile VOIP market before it becomes a buzz word in africa. Yiego can be downloaded onto your mobile phone and after registering an userID, you may start calling other Yeigo users totally FREE. They also offer low cost cheap calls to non-Yeigo users around the globe.

According to Yeigo, it integrates with the user's phonebook and call register easily. It operates on compatible mobile phones that use the Windows Mobile or Symbian operating systems with Wi-Fi, EDGE, 3G or HSDPA connections. you may like to check the compatible handset

Welcome another new entrant in this soon to be crowded Mobile VOIP market. However, I am yet to see a striking product. All mobile VOIP providers offer same service, hopefully we will see some value added services in future.

Top 10 VOIP Software Add-ons

VOIP is now a buzz word and we have adopted it to make our life simpler than the normal PSTN telephones. Of course to save the cost of making those long distance ISD calls. In today's featured article, I will be covering Top 10 best add-ons for your VOIP software, some of the add-ons are only available for some software. I will try my best to detail it out in the post. The Top 10 list is widely distributed to accommodate the best of the VOIP add-ons and not heavily focusing any aspect of VOIP softphones.

-----The following list is put together by the author from his personal experience without any influence--

TOP 10 VOIP Software Add-ons

1. MorphVOX Add-on 1.1: This funny little utility convert you in a monster. IT enables you to transform your voice into anything from Monster to a girl's voice. You just need to use it while talking over Skype, Yahoo messenger, voipcheap etc. This should work with any software cause it doesn't need any specific compatibility and work seamlessly with VOIP softphone. You only need a microphone. So this will work only with PC 2 Phone calls. So won't work with Jajah :-(

1. ZFone- This cool add-on to Skype and other VOIP softphone lets you make secure encrypted phone calls over the Internet. Zfone lets you whisper in some one's ear from a thousand miles away. Zfone intercepts VOIP packets and encrypts/decrypts your call giving you maximum security against trojan and VOIP sniffer networks.
2. Skype Lie-Detector: KishKish Lie Detector, popularly known as Skype Lie detector is a funny utility addon to Skype. The utility analyses audio streams over a Skype call in real time and illustrates the stress levels of the other person. Its' time to call your girlfriend and see if she is really in love (with you?) :-)
3. SkyQube- Skyqube will enable you to forward calls and messages made to your mobile phone or landline via SkypeOut to another number anywhere in the world. So whether you are travelling or on holiday, you won't miss a thing. Time to forget those massive roaming charges for your mobile.
4. SoliCall- Want to reduce the backgroud noise during your important interview call ? The solicall is the solution to get on with. Solicall will reduce the background noise and improve your VOIP call clarity.
5. Jajah Phone Buddy- You guessed it right. An add-on to Jajah VOIP which lets you quickly make calls to contacts in Outlook or Microsoft CRM, Microsoft, Access, Microsoft Outlook, Goldmine, ACT, other CRM and Accounts packages etc.
6. Vemotion- This software lets you add some spice to your regular plain VOIP conversation. You can send voice emoticons, TTS (text-to-speech) ability., You can record the whole conversation as mp3. Nice solution for taking interview or podcasting.
7. Pamela for Skype- Your very own personal assistant for Skype and the program is certified by skype. It offers an answering machine, auto-chat reply and many more.

I hope this list will help you in making your VOIP experience better. Do let me know, if you have any other plug-in or add-ons to share with others.

Vonage VOIP timedout

Vonage, a leading US based VOIP company is supposedly loosing 2.5% of customers to another VOIP company each month. Already struggling with this customer dropout, now they have a larger issue at hand. They lost a major case agaisnt Verizon. In fact its Verizon who charged Vonage with multiple infringment of patents. Vonage lost the battle with a deadly gift from the judge.

This ruling will mean that Vonage will have freeze their new sign-up process. Already loosing vonage, will get badly hit by this new issue. According to analyst, Vonage has spent in the most recent quarter reached US$254.26 for each new customer. Its increasingly difficult with such aggresive marketing and fierce competition from low cost cable operators and VOIP providers.

Whatever will be the future of Vonage. One thing is for sure, no one is safe and we need to think atleast twice before we choose our next VOIP solution or provider.

Google 411 Free Voice Directory Service

Yesterday Google has launched an interesting product for their US customers, called Google Voice Local Search. It's basically the voice alternative to the regular 411 directory services in USA. This new Google 411 free voice local search service will offer the callers an easy way to find phone numbers for businesses in USA. Currently the service is only available in US and very much in Beta, however its open to public.

Why 411 is it so important?
According to Wikipedia, Approximately 6 billion calls are made to 411 within the United States each year.


So whats so different about Google 411 Voice Local Search?
Traditionally 411 directory services are assited by operator, although recently many moves to IVR(Interactive Voice Recognition) systems . With google, the 411 service will not be operated manually. The service will run on its own and totally automated. Google will offer this service for free, however the telcom operator might charge while calling the service number, 1-800-GOOG-411 (1-800-466-4411). The prominent benefits are obvious that you will get connected to the business you searched for FREE of Cost.

So if you are in USA and fed up with those operators giving you wrong information :-), isnt it time to switch to Google 411 Free Directory Assistance. Go pickup your phone and call 1-800-GOOG-411 or simply 1-800-466-4411.

JustVoip-Free VOIP Calls

Betamax keeps on adding new services and a recently launched Justvoip has caught my attention a little late. I was wondering what this service really offers which voipcheap, voipdiscount cant? Well after looking at number of countries it covers, I guess there is definitely some value addition. Since my visitors are from all across the globe, this could mean some more free calls for people from peru, chile, malaysia which often do not make to free countries list. Justvoip currently offers free voip calls to landlines & mobiles (only selected countries). See the list below.

• Argentina
• Australia
• Austria
• Belgium
• Brazil
• Bulgaria
• Canada
• Chile
• Cyprus
• Czech Republic
• Denmark
• Estonia
• Finland
• France
• Germany
• Greece
• Hong Kong (+mobile)
• Hungary
• Ireland
• Italy
• Japan
• Latvia
• Luxembourg
• Malaysia
• Mexico [guadalajara]
• Mexico [mexico City]
• Mexico [monterrey]
• Monaco
• Netherlands
• New Zealand
• Norway
• Panama
• Peru
• Poland
• Portugal
• Puerto Rico (+mobile)
• Russian Federation
• Singapore
• Slovak Republic
• Slovenia
• South Korea
• Spain
• Sweden
• Switzerland
• Taiwan
• Thailand
• United Kingdom
• United States (+mobile)
• Venezuela

I generally avoid giving the whole list, but i have noticed people are too lazy to check the countries on their site and then it becomes very difficult for them to judge a product. Hopefully this list will ensure that you don't miss your country.

Especially those who have been asking me for a free calls to malaysia, peru, Venezuela, Taiwan etc. This service is brilliant. So dont waste time, and go download JustVoip

jajah power gamers through PSP

Jajah, one of the most promising startups in VOIP has announced that Jajah will now support PSP (Playstation Portable). This is another integration for Jajah besides being always creative with building community. Jajah has been pretty active in making their services accessible via any medium people are comfortable with.

PSP was a out of box and bold step taken by Jajah. Some people might wonder if it will help them with anything, but i would say whether or not it helps Jajah build their market share, It surely proves all over again that they are not afraid of thinking out-of-box. Today's world is all about copy-cats, people steal ideas & services and offer the same old vanilla products. Do you think we would be interested in looking at a clone voip services which offers no extra value? eventually no one will.. Remember what happened to messengers which came out after yahoo? Same old stuff people never bothered to look at those clones. Even Microsoft couldn't beat the well established Yahoo messenger, the reason being they were copy cats and didn't offer anything new.

Jajah is trying to achieve success through innovation and creativity. Without a doubt, it will pay off in the long run if not today or tomorrow.

So if you got PSP, do login into Jajah mobile portal and make a call to your gaming friends :-) I surely will do. I am now waiting for Jajah to support my XBox 360.

India to ban VOIP -Skype, Yahoo, Vonage?

Alas It finally happened, India is now officially joining the NoVOIP club formed by their asian counterparts Bangladesh, UAE, Oman etc. This really took me by surprise that Indian government, in fact the DoT (Department of Telecom) has finally decided to cut down on all foreign VOIP operators providing services in India. The impact will be huge. This move is directly going to affect people like you, me, companies such as BPO's, call centers etc.

Although, Indian government has given reasons such as, Foreign operators do not come under any regulations, so it's difficult to monitor activities done through them. Indian government perhaps think VOIP users in India are not mature enough to think that it's not about regulations but more about ensuring the benefits of local telecom operators and ISPs who are loosing money. Money which needs no brainer. Slowly, Indian telcos will offer you dream VOIP services at Rs.1 per call etc and later bundle it around other applications. Finally, the customers end up paying much higher than they ever thought.

In India, VOIP is a big money game. Everyday millions of $$$ are at stake. I wouldn't be surprised if Reliance, Essar and Bharati will push the government to a level that they will outright ban foreign operators. Banning a VOIP service isn't a solution but traditionally India has never thought of a good solution, since most of the decisions are influenced.

This move will greatly impact a home VOIP user. It means no more Skype Calls, I wonder if ISP's will be asked to ban Skype. In other words, they will be making you handicapped and leaving you with only one choice, Use Reliance and other mobile services. Furthermore, it's also going to affect BPO, KPO and call centers in India, since they can no longer buy minutes and dedicated services from foreign operators. Does that mean, they will pay 10 times what they are paying? isn't that sick?

What India should have done isntead of a outright ban?

1) Detail out a good plan for VOIP regulation
2) Ask each foreign operator to abide by the regulations. Of course, regulations should be realistic.
3) Charge foreign operators with a standard Levy or service charge.
4) All foreign operators are subject to provide informations about any calls for monitoring purposes.

This way India could have achieved what others are moving to. India is on a path of destruction and they will have to pay a huge fee for this stupid move in the long run.

UK VOIP faces hurdles

A day before i posted about a hope for a free voip calls in UK, and today i read a story about possible VOIP regulations which could simply put all UK VOIP operators on the backfoot.

The ofcom regulations are broadly agreed by the operators however some of the clauses will simply put the voip operators at a disadvantage. The new rules will cost UK VOIP operators money to implement, putting them at a disadvantage compared to overseas service providers that do business in the UK, said Eli Katz, chairman of the Internet Telephony Services Providers' Association (ITSPA), a trade group that includes BT and Vonage.

The regulations also include clear explanation of emergency services and itemised billing to clients.
However the main disadvantage is that the foreign operators having UK regional presence will have little impact from the regulations will be easily overshadow the local operators creating a huge gap between earnings potential and revenue. UK is the next biggest market expected to see a VOIP boom and companies are eager to tap it.

The new ofcom regulations has definitely started a debate over the earning potential of the local operators and their future in this growing market.

Free Mobile Calls in Europe-A Reality?

We have been bitchin around for a while about no free mobile calls to UK and other european destinations. No one really offers free calls to mobiles in europe except for a few countries. The one always left out is UK.

There is a hope. A european company called Blyk will be launching a new Mobile VOIP service in Europe sometime this year, should be launching anytime soon. They haven't yet started offering their product but this news is confirmed and on top of it, the service will be first launched in UK. I guess that spice up the dead mobile VOIP market is UK which is currently dominated by traditional mobile operators such as T-Mobile, O2 and orange.

This would not just be an interesting service but maybe a good start at emerging mobile voip trend in european markets. UK for example has performed drastically low towards VOIP subscriptions. Hopefully things will change. Afterall the englishman knows the real value of the Pound :-) oops that reminds me of my time spent in london :-)

Moving on with the post, Blyk will be offering this service for free in lieu of advertisements. It will be like a Globe7 mobile clone. Maybe you need to watch advertisements to get credits? or maybe you listen to ads before you make a call. Not very sure since the info is not yet public. I will try find some more info about Blyk this week and post some updates. Till then lets hope free mobile calls in UK and Europe would be possible by 2007.

VOIPGuide Future Plans

It's been almost 4 months since i started blogging about VOIP. Perhaps my most successful experience at blogging. Thanks everyone to make this blog one of the most successful and highly rated blog in VOIP. I can't believe that this blog has achieved for which people spend atleast 2 years. Everything was possible because of some original articles, some great fellow VOIP bloggers and media coverage. I wouldn't like to disclose the Traffic numbers all over again and you all know they are significantly higher for a 4 months blog.

Moving on, I would like to take this blog forward and convert it into a community. I will shell out some more details soon. I am currently trying to find a good hosting package which can take the load for the traffic etc. If you know any please do suggest a good stable host for a large community.

I receive literally hundreds of emails everyday mainly about VOIP support issues. I do answer their queries whenver i can, but the information is not shared since it's sitting my personal email. I would like that important info to go out to people like you. But how will i do that? thats where i need your help.

I am still not able to finalise on whether i should start a VOIP discussion board or a VOIP portal? I need your feedback. Being a visitor, I trust in you more than my own beliefs. Your word will be the final. I might end up creating VOIP portal + VOIP forum. It's important to know what you guys really want.

Furthermore, to host this community it will cost me some $$$. I would be happy if some visitors can donate some money to this project. However, it's not compulsory. Currently, I am only looking for your vote on whether you would like to donate or not.

Please vote for your choice. If you have any other suggestion, please feel free to post under comments.

Today i am posting 2 polls. One is purely about your suggestion for the VOIP community & second is about Donation. Please vote.

USA Canada Free Calls from Palcalls

Fancy a free call to US & Canada and that too for unlimited time? I guess then you have a new great offer to grab. We all know skype used to provide free calls to usa/Canada but since they went paid, people have been searching all over the web for free calls to usa and canada. I posted about icall some days back and it works great. However some users reported some issues. So here is another alternative to skype or icall.

Palcalls has launched a free US, Canada unlimited calls offer on 1st april. Under this offer, First 1000 users who use PalCalls will be entered to win a mega prize.

Unlike other providers such as voipcheap, Palcalls offers Advertisement based free calls. That means the call cost is paid off by the advertisement shown on palcalls. If you have tried Sgoope, then you know what i meant.

Its currently offering free calls to USA & canada (mobile) and U.K., Australia, New Zealand, Puerto Rico (landlines)

There is also another clause in Palcalls, which wasn't very clear up-front. I had to go through the whole site to dig that info. Anyways so here is the deal.

Good news to people in phillipines now you can make free calls to usa & Canada. Some other countries included are:

• Mexico
• Argentina
• Costa rica
• Philippines
• South africa
• Malawi

So if you are interested, go to their download page

Just to let you know, it didnt work for me. However it seems that the service is only available to countries listed above. Since i am in singapore, it didnt work for me. But can someone from the countries listed above , verify and check the authenticity.

iPhone launched in USA

Apple has announced that iPhone is now widely available in USA & US Minority Islands. I myself have pre-ordered an iPhone and just got it by DHL. That cute little gadget is sitting pretty on my desk as i write this post. Just to give you a teaser of what i got, I am posting a video i made about 20 mins back.



So are you still biting your nails? Go grab that iPhone before your neighbours take it :-)


--------The above post was a April Fool Joke. Video was shot by CBS. According to Cnet, iPhone is most likely to be launched on June 11 on Cingular network in USA.-------

If you want to surprise and fool others, don't forget to Stumble it or Digg it.spread the word