Thursday, January 31, 2008

1 million free calling minutes

Gong Xi Fa Chai
The festive season is knocking the doors in China, as more and more VOIP providers are trying to cash on the opportunity and rake in more $$$. However a few generous ones are actually giving away some FREE CALLS in a bid to gain large customer base.

Rebtel a leading Mobile VOIP provider is offering 1 million free minutes to China from anywhere in the world and calls from Shanghai to the USA and Canada during 7-21 Feb.

If you already have a rebtel account, you don't have to anything fancy just sit and wait for 7th Feb. You will get the free minutes automatically on 7th Feb onwards till 21st Feb. Those who do not have a Rebtel account, there is another good reason to singup at Rebtel

For newbies, lets see how Rebtel works.

1) Rebtel give us the phone number of a friend in another country, and they give you a local number for them.

2) Save this number on your mobile so you can call your friend whenever you want, for a fraction of your normal international rate.

Also remember according to campaign TOS,

- All users are eligible to participate in the Chinese New Year Campaign. (Thumps Up for this one)
- Each user is entitled to a maximum of five hours of calls
- Please note that Rebtel may terminate this Campaign at any time prior to 21st of February 2008 (00:00:00; GMT+8) at Rebtel’s sole discretion.

A professional way to say don't abuse or else we will kick your a$$ :-)

At the end of the day, Remeber Rebtel costs you a Local Call + Rebtel Rates. So effectively during the chinese new year, you would be calling your friends in china or in usa/canada at local calling rate.

If any VOIP provider is offering similar offers, please contact us. Last but not the least, Kung Hei Fat ChoY!!! GONG XI FA CAI!!! Woot Woot I learned chinese finally :-)

India VOIP affected due to Internet outage

I just got some confirmed news from internal sources and also from News sources, that India is currently badly affected by a nation-wide Internet Outage this also includes an outage to VOIP service in India since VOIP traffic is routed via Internet.

Extensive damage to two undersea cables has thrown Internet activity across large parts of India, Asia and the Middle East, out of gear. According to reports, a ship anchoring off Egypt's Alexandria coast cut through the Indian-owned FLAG and also the SEA-ME-WE cable on Wednesday, leading to an unprecedented disruption in international connectivity.

How soon will they fix it?

"The repair will take another 15-20 days," Internet Service Providers Association of India president Rajesh Chharia said.

Sounds like people in India will suffer for next 2 weeks. Along with Internet, VOIP will suffer as it's by product.

This raises some questions how effective is VOIP when it comes to Internet Outage? Well, VOIP is still perceived as secondary choice of communication in less developed countries. Honestly, only US consumers take VOIP more seriously than anywhere else in the world. The picture is however changing.

If you are affected by today's internet outage and still able to post here, please let us know your story :-)

Wednesday, January 30, 2008

Qtel launches Free Callback service in Qatar

A good news for our Qatar readers. Qtel, the largest Telecom operator in Qatar has launched the "Call me back" service which allows pre-paid (Hala) customers to send a "Call me back" text regardless of their calling credit.

Qtel chief operating officer, Sheikh Fahad bin Jassim al-Thani said: "The service is free and simple to use. It applies to all Hala customers, regardless of their balance or account status, even within the grace period for service extension. Up to three such text messages can be sent a day from any Hala account."

He further added: "Qtel is deeply committed to ensuring our customers are able to maintain communication, regardless of the funds available. The introduction of 'Call me back' service has again demonstrated that Qtel understands its customers' needs."

To use the service, one must dial *103* followed by the mobile number of the person they would like to contact. Qtel will then send an SMS asking "Please call me back" in English and Arabic to that number free of charge.

at first, we thought its a free callback service which could be used by Qatar residents but its seems it more of a SMS service. Although, we hope it helps. There are hardly any news for middle east readers so this one is dedicated to them for their humble support for VOIP Guide.

Tuesday, January 29, 2008

Pennytel extends Unlimited Call offer

Another great news coming our way. Currently the most efficient and cost effective way to call is pennytel with their rock bottom fixed price for a untimed call. They also include India is this cheap untimed calling promotion

Yes, you heard it right. Pennytel have been offering a untimed (talk as much as you want) call for only 28.88 australian cents (25.46 USD cents. However the promotion was supposed to be over by 31st Jan.

Pennytel has extended the offer now to 29/02/2008. So its one more month of cheap untimed calls. Imagine you calling your friends or family in India (the cheapest could be around 3-4 USD cents) and talk for over (60 minutes). You will end up paying 3 * 60 = $1.80. If you use pennytel, you will save $1.80- $0.25= $1.55.

You can call India, Malaysia mobile, Bahrain, bangladesh, Cyperus south, cambodia, macau, malawi, iran, laos, russia, taiwan, vietnam and australia mobile under the "Talk till you drop" 28.88 cents offer.

Pennytel also offers 8 cent flat rate calls to certain destinations. Overall pennytel is worth every cent. It works, delivery where it should. However recently I heard people are getting lower voice quality, it could be due to overcrowding of voice calls and less server resources. Well you can't crib about everything in life afterall :-)

Go take a hop at Pennytel

Free Virtual Hosted PBX systems

Yesterday we discussed about SIP Softphones and how some of these softphones are making your life easier with multiple SIP providers. It will be increasingly difficult for users as FREE VOIP becomes a key feature or its hard to manage multiple VOIP providers.

Today, we are going to discuss about Free Virtual Hosted PBX system which gives you hosted PBX features for FREE. Isn't it great to have a FREE PBX system hosted online for you and you manage it with a few clicks.

This article is sent in by our regular reader, Wilson Lacerda (from Brazil). William is expert in PBX system and runs a Orkut community in Portugese. I have added more description to the original article so it's helpful for everyone.

William has compiled some of the best FREE Virtual Hosted PBX systems list (not in any particular order):

Quick Notes:
- All of PBX services are Virtual/online: that means no need to install anything!
- All are free or offer free plan.
-Some of them are very simple (good for newbies), other more feature rich and powerful: multiple trunks/extensions, complex dial plans, callback, pstn gateway, skype/MSN/Gtalk/other integration, callme widget, etc.
-For SOHO use usually they are more reliable, easier to use, powerful and cost saving than have a PBX running in your own machine.
-With some smart settings you can combine 2 or more of them and this way have a free and very powerful virtual PBX.

1) PBXes: PBXes is a hosted PBX service which runs like a voicemail service or an email server in a data center. PBXes provider a Free and premium PBX service. The free PBX account has limitation of 10 GB traffic and up to 2 con-current calls. PBXes has gained a lot of attention lately. One of our regular reader Emoci loves it :-)

2) VoXaLot: Perhaps the most popular Free PBX system online. However after they went into premium membership, they lost a lot of users to other free pbx systems. They still offer a compact version of Free PBX. It users SIP broker service to so you can use 200+ access numbers around the world to call Voxalot and over 2000+ SIP Networks (millions of VoIP users) for free!

3) MySipSwitch: Another excellent PBX service available in the market. it allows you to route multiple SIP accounts from different suppliers through a single SIP login. Simply put this means you can channel phone calls from several different VoIP providers through to one piece of hardware like an IP phone or an ATA.Its a KISS (Keep it simple stupid) system. However lately, I have seen some internal pages throw exception errors. I really wish they could fix it. MysipSwitch has great potential.
4) LiberaILVoip: Their website is all italin. However, the best i could figure out was, they offer a commercial network by increasing your ability to communicate without any extra cost. You can enjoy all the benefits and functionality of a PBX IP specifically designed to be used by a residential needs.
5) simplyConnect: Anoother non-english provider. It's a german PBX service. I seriously couldn't figure out much. I am leaving this here for your experiment sake. Maybe our german readers can confirm if this indeed is a Free PBX service.
6) Oigaa: This really look interesting at first look and definately a good find. There are no limit on number of PBX extensions. You can map your extensions into your IP Phone and they also offer 60 minutes of free calling for new users. They are also throwing in one free DID number :-)
7) GTalk2Voip: One of my all time favorites, another Keep it simple product. One of the older bunch of online PBX system, which have stabilised over time. One of the serious missing features, people often don't understand how to get to the account page. The command line usage is complicated for below average newbie users. Hope they simply the interface. Works absolutely great and highly recommended.
8) FlashPhone: A new entrant in the industry and does the dirty work for online PBX. Nothing fancy about it just good old PBX stuff.

For more professional users who want more control over PBX, there are lots of Asterisk based ones that runs under Linux (or under Windows with a little help of VMWare or MS Virtual PC). One of the leading windows based PBX system is 3CX PBX system.

Monday, January 28, 2008

5 SIP Softphones you must download

SIP is now a standard protocol for almost every VOIP Provider. Most of the VOIP service providers are now sharing their SIP settings in public. This trend is inceasing. VOIP providers do not mind if you use a third party SIP softphone, ATA or VOIP adapter to connect to their service as long as you use their service and make some money for them. after its a business proposition.

Slowly even non-SIP settings VOIP providers will open up as more and more people get educated about SIP and VOIP. The kind of flexibility SIP gives you will definately change the trend sooner or later.

Now We have already seen how to configure SIP on SIP softphone.

Today, we will be looking at some must-have SIP softphones. Of course, you won't be using all them. Still these SIP softphones are handy and kind of fun to play around with. Every softphone has some unique functionality to improve your VOIP experience.

1)X-lite: Perhaps the most popular SIP/VOIP/IAX softphone in the world. It has all the features you need in a perfect SIP softphone however lacks on number of SIP service you can run at once. You can only use one SIP account at a time.

2) EyeBeam: Another great product from Counterpath, the same company that gave you X-lite. Eyebeam is a upgraded version of X-lite. Gives you more flexibility which lacks in X-lite such as using multiple SIP accounts at once. However It's a paid product.

Tip to get Eyebeam for FREE: Owtalk offers a free eyebeam softphone. However it's restricted to use as Owtalk service only. See if you can crack it :-)

3) Ekiga: Formely known as GnomeMeeting, is an open source VoIP and video conferencing application for GNOME. Ekiga uses both the H.323 and SIP protocols. It supports audio and video codecs, and is interoperable with other SIP compliant software and also with Microsoft NetMeeting. Ekiga also offers their very own SIP service and you can get yourself a SIP account under address (AT) ekiga (dot)net.

The best feature of ekiga, open source and allows Simultaneously Register to Several Accounts. It also supports DTMF and ENOM.

4) YATE : YATE (Yet Another Telephony Engine) is a next-generation telephony engine. YATE can be used as a VOIP server as well as VOIP client and has some great advanced features such as Call center server, IVR engine, Prepaid and/or postpaid cards system Jingle server, PC2Phone and Phone2PC gateway, VoIP to PSTN gateway. YATE is highly recommended for professional VOIP users to get more out of VOIP systems.

5) Twinkle: This might not be extremely popular however we found this to be good old simple SIP softphone that newbies can play with. Twinkle is a softphone for your voice over IP and instant messaging communcations using the SIP protocol. It allows upto 2 simulateneous lines. It uses Secure voice communication by ZRTP/SRTP and MD5 digest authentication support for all SIP requests. Twinkle is definately worth exploring for its unique security features.

We will try to cover PBX softwares in our next article. If you have a PBX system and want us to consider you in the list, Please drop us an email (ut.godmode -at- gmail.com) with feature list of your PBX system.

Saturday, January 26, 2008

Gizmo Project offering India Free Calls ?

It's been some time since we found something really good and FREE for India calls. Today, we are going to discuss about Gizmo Project. Back to back news on Gizmo guys

Gizmo Project is a popular VOIP service which offers 20 FREE minutes every week under its ALL FREE CALLS plan to over 30 countries.

Our regular reader, Hardeep Singh has shared with us that Gizmo Project is now offering free calls to india. Now we did some investigation however got 2 contradicting evidences on this change.

Hardeep found that India is included in the list of countries under the Free Calling plan. You can check the list here. This list indeed has India on its list, which should confirm that Gizmo Project offers free calls to india.

However, take a look at their page on "All free calls plan". It doesn't have India on their list. We were not able to test the actual softphone to check whether India is included under the free calling plan or not.

In order to test if India is included, You need to follow this guide.

We would love to hear from you. Let us know what's cooking at Gizmo?
Yeah and if you don't have Gizmo Project, it might be a good idea to download their latest built. You can use Gizmo on your PC, Mobile as Mobile VOIP or configure your Gizmo settings on your favorite VOIP ATA or SIP Phone.


Edit: It's funny that till yesterday that page had India on the list. It suddenly disappeared from the list :-) To confirm that India was included on the list, I looked at Google cache of the page. Check the proof yourself.

Friday, January 25, 2008

Gizmo5 offers Free calls via Backdoor Dialing method

It seems people are now inspired by VOIP Guide :-)There were times, when we used to be the only people finding some great hacks to make free calls around the globe. It seems now even mainstream commercial companies are participating and finding new loopholes to make free calls.

A leading VOIP firm, SIPPhone (guys behind Gizmo Project) have started offering a grey root method (they call it backdoor dialing) to make free calls to USA.

According to Gizmo5, SIPPhone's mobile VOIP service, Approximately 11% of US telephones, including mobile numbers and land lines from carriers such as Verizon, Sprint, T-Mobile, etc., are connected via VoIP. Working with telecom partners we are now making it possible to dial these numbers without going through the traditional phone system.

Gizmo 5
However since its just 11% of the USA lines, you can't possibly call all USA phone lines for FREE. They built a FREE Phone finder which will tell you if the target number can be dialed for free or not.

They are basically bypassing the PSTN routes to save on termination cost. Its a great thinking and I wish they could extend this to internation destionations and not just USA. USA is given away FREE by any tom dick and harry these days.

How do you make calls using Backdoor Dialing?

Using Gizmo5 software on any Mac/Win/Lin computer simply dial the prefix 0101 and then the desired telephone number. For example, 0101 858-555-1212

Alternatively, You can download Gizmo 5 for Mobile and make calls. Of course, you need to connect to Gizmo 5 via Wifi, 3G or GPRS. You can also set it up on ATA or SIP Phone.

Lets hope this last long. This is probably the second time, I liked Gizmo. The first time when I hacked into original GizmoCall program and converted 5 mins call into 40 minutes per day. Alas they fixed it later. Now I kinda like them, ain't they now officially ethical backdoor hackers?

I can't imagine how traditional telecom companies would be responding to this but I can guess they won't be throwin in a party soon.

Did I hear Pat Phelan singing, "Die AT&T die?" :-)

Wednesday, January 23, 2008

Free Web Conference Solutions


webex
In 2008, We might see more revolution in conferencing space than what we have seen in last couple of years, for 2 reasons. More companies trying to get into this space and more businesses exploring it as a viable solution to cut down cost in the wake of US recession.

There have been some leaders in Web conferencing solutions, mainly speaking WebEx.WebEx gives a Free trial and its a must try. However lately, we have seen some strong competition coming up in the Free Conference Calling space.

One such open source web conferencing solution is 1videoConference (a.k.a VMukti). So how is it different from other conferencing solution in the market? VMukti is totally FREE. It allows its Web, Audio/ Video phone, Skype, Msn and Yahoo users to instantly participate in live web conferences without the need for lengthy downloads or complicated installations. You don't need to download anything in order to use VMukti conference solution. It's like once you are connected, you can show presentations, share applications or users' desktops, hold live webinars, discuss new strategies face to face with business partners. Above all it's FREE unlike other paid solutions in the market. However It's probably FREE only for limited time, I can see that they are eyeing Enterprise market to buy a commercial license to use this product. Those details ain't out yet since its limited beta.

Lets quickly Look at what Conferencing Features does VMukti allows:

1) Audio and Video Conferencing: Low latency, multi-party video and audio sharing brings back the intimacy of a meeting.
2) Presentation and Document Sharing: Share your ideas on a presentation or help your partner edit a document in real time collaboration.
3) Chat: Not a featured speaker but still want to get your ideas heard? Do this with the multi-user Instant Messaging feature.
4) Allows audio/ video phone, MSN and Skype users to participate in the same conference. Of course use VOIP at large.

If you know any other Free Conferencing Solution, do not hesitate to let us know. We will try to review the products/service in future.

Monday, January 21, 2008

Vyke VOIP offers Free VOIP Calls

There are bunch of VOIP providers out there who are providing free calls to certain destinations but it's always good to find a few more as backups. You never know when your favorite VOIP provider stops giving away Free calls or just disappears overnight :-)

In our growing hunger to find new Free VOIP providers, we found Vyke (Thanks to Sriram for pointing that out). At first Look, Vyke looked great to me. It's simple no frills VOIP service.

They offer almost everything under the sun, you name it VOIP Service, IP VOIP service (SIP based), Mobile VOIP & Free Calling to most european destinations. The best of all, a Vyke Callback service which is simply great. It really deserves a seperate post, which i would eventually post.

Vyke also gives you $1 of Credit to test their service.

Lets see how you can use Vyke.

1) Go to Vyke and Register
2) They will ask you to verify your phone number. Enter your number and wait for their SMS.
3) Enter code received in SMS in Vyke account and you are verified. They instantly add $1 credit to your account.

Now Let's look at their individual services.

1) Vyke Mobile VOIP
Vyke offers a good setup for Mobile VOIP, You can either setup Vyke manually using their SIP settings (given Below) or your their online guide to set it up. It basically sends a message to your phone, you need to follow the link and setup Vyke on Mobile. Of course, you can also setup Vyke on Fring, if you want to. Just use the following SIP settings.

Vyke SIP Settings:
Display name: Your Username
SIP/IAX Username: Your Username
SIP/IAX Password: ***** (Same as your vyke password if confirmed)
SIP server: sip.vyke.com
IAX Server: iax.vyke.com
Port: 5060
RTP port: 5090
DTMF: RFC 2833
Proxy settings: Same as SIP server
Register server: Leave blank
Supported codecs: G.729, G.711 (ulaw), gsm

Of course for Mobile, you need to setup Internet Telephony Service besides the SIP settings. If anyone is confused, I will write a seperate generic guide on Mobile VOIP Setup.

2) Vyke PC Phone: The most basic functionality by any VOIP provider. you can download their softphone

3) Vyke Call back: A really innovative way to make free VOIP Calls. You first need to register your number and then you need to dial, Vyke Callback number (i.e. +4918059908850 or +442071542887), as soon as you hear the busy tone, hang up! Within 10 seconds, the Vyke service will call you back and when you answer you will hear the dial tone. Enter the number you wish to call and you will be connected.

4) Vyke Web Calling: Vyke also offers Web calling, which will give you a flexibility of Phone to Phone Calling. Enter your number and your friend's number and click call. You can also delay calls if you want to. Another good feature.

Vyke apparently offering free voip calls to european destinations and US and Canada. However they charge 4 cents setup fee. We couldn't figure out if it was one time fee or a per call fee. If the call is unlimited, then 4 cent fee shouldn't be a big issue. If anyone manage to test this, Please report.

Overall Vyke has potential become a leading VOIP provider if they manage to crack this overcrowded market. With Free calling offers pressure cutting your bottomline, it's difficult for VOIP provider to continue to provide Free calls.

Please report your experience with Vyke.

Sunday, January 20, 2008

cheap calls to india by Mediaring

We have been discussing various wasy to call India either free or cheap way to make calls to india. There are many people who either love or hate betamax. Honestly, Betamax gives us the best rate however we often misunderstand their billing rates.

When Betamax says 1.5 eurocents, Its not 1.5 USD cents it's more than that. Unless Betamax clearly tells you the rate and of course, we can't forget their good old strategy to increase calling rates while you sleep in pyjamas.

That leaves you with little choice to make cheap calls to India. We recently noted that Tringme now offers 5 cents to India (Mumbai & Bangalore). Now Mediaringtalk offers 5 cents to India (All landline + Mobiles).

This is seriously a good calling rate to call any indian mobile or landline number at flat 5 cents per minute. If you know anyone else giving a cheaper rate than 5 cents per minute to India (except betamax), Please let us know.

Of course, we know one good offer by Pennytel which will expire on 31st January. They are offering 28 cents per call (not per minute), so you talk for 6 mins you already cover the price of a 5 cents call. You can even beat betamax rates if you talk for over 30 mins or so.

Of course, Mediaringtalk also offers free calls to many destinations such as UK, Taiwan, China, Hong Kong, Singapore etc. Mostly Landlines and mobiles in some countries are included.

So enjoy some cheap calling to India. Lets hope it lasts long. We will write a seperate comparison matrix for Calling India and Pakistan, so you can decide which VOIP Provider to choose while calling these countries.

Friday, January 18, 2008

1 hour of Free Calls to India

Just when you thought Free Calls to India offers are almost over. We got some great tip from one of our visitor. Thanks to Nabeel for sharing with us a great way to make 1 hrs or even more free calls to india if you know how to crack it properly.

Who's giving away this Offer? It's Rebtel. Don't rush to their site, its not on there :-) Its a secret offer in lieu of completing a survey about Rebtel Services.

Once you complete the survey, they will issue you a code, which you need to apply in account and get free credits to call india totally free.

Lets see how you can do this.

1) Go take the survey

2) Did you get the code saying, Now you can make an hour of free Rebtel calls to India! How? Use this personal voucher code: 02630459928759XXXX. Just copy the code. Don't miss the code guys.

3) Now to go Rebtel
4) click Add Credit
5) enter voucher code, click redeem

Now make free calls to India. Nabeel also reported that if you have multiple accounts, the same code should work good :-). So what are you waiting for Make Free Calls to India

Wednesday, January 16, 2008

icallfree offers Free VOIP Calls

It's been a long time since we discussed about FREE VOIP calls. Seriously, no free calls provider found for one full week must be something strange :-) However we finally found one. This VOIP provider should allow you to make calls to over 20 odd countries.

While lurking around the internet to search for that next FREE VOIP calls provider, we stumbled across icallfree. A totally free calling service very similar to Click2call. Its absolutely identical, besides the fact that icallfree provides free calls to some countries not covered by click2call.

icallfree currently offers free calls to over 20 countries. Some of the read odd ones are Malaysia, colombia, Thailand etc which typically never make it to the Free Calling Country list.

The only catch however is you can only make free calls for 5 mins per call with a restriction of 3 calls in a day.

Now a possible hack: If you have dynamic IP, you can refresh your IP each time you complete your call limit of 15 minutes per day. With a new IP address, you can make calls all over again.

Since you guys would be using this extensively, we have grabbed the Dialer Code so you can make calls from our blog itself.

USE the Following Dialer to Make Free Calls



How to Call:

1) Select your Country and Enter your number In Area Code+ Phone number format
2) Now Select destination Country and Enter Area Code+ Phone number
3) Click Call
4) Your phone rings, pick up and wait some seconds
5) Call with be connected with the destination number.

You can come back to this post and make calls everyday.

Tuesday, January 15, 2008

Lingo VOIP Phone service review

Are you looking for that perfect Residential Home VOIP Phone line? In our VOIP Phone reviews series, today we are discussing one of the award winning VOIP services.

We discussed about Ooma a few months back. Our review was so popular that it received more than 80,000 page views within 2 months. We received positive and negative feedback of the service. People were already asking for more VOIP service reviews to better compare and signup for that best home phone service.

Today we will be discussing an award winning VOIP service called Lingo. Lingo has quickly emerged as a top Internet phone service in a market projected to grow to 16.5 million U.S. consumers by 2008 (Source: Frost & Sullivan) and its run by Virginia-based Primus Telecommunications Group who handle over 2 billion VOIP minutes annually.

Now lets analyse What Lingo Offers their customers.

Lingo VOIP Plans:






As you can see Lingo Phone is currently running a exclusive promotion which will give you 3 months of Free Lingo service. This is valid only on Lingo Chatter Box plan, which costs about $21.95 per month and gives unlimited calls to over 20 odd countries (US, Canada, UK, Germany, France, Italy, Ireland, Netherlands, Belgium, Denmark, Switzerland, Sweden, Spain, Finland, Austria, Luxembourg, Norway, Vatican City, Portugal, New Zealand, Australia, Singapore, & South Korea)

All Lingo service plans consist of the following Features:







Besides the standard VOIP Phone features, you will also get,

1) FREE unlimited calling to other In-Network Lingo subscribers
2) Local Number Portability so you can keep your existing phone number
3) Lingo Phone Adapter/ Lingo Router (Linksys Adapter given away to you for FREE)

They also have a great yearly Lingo Plan called Talk 365 which will give you unlimited calls to US, Canada and Puerto Rico for $195/- year.

When we wrote JoiPhone reviews, people asked us to do more research on TOS of VOIP Providers. So we did it this time, Lingo's fair usage policy says, You can make about 5000 minutes of calls every month without a hitch, If you limit exceeds they might terminate your service with a valid reason.

Lingo also offers hassle free 30 days money back guarantee, if ever you are not satisfied with their service.

Now being a reader of VOIP Guide, you need to get some special discounts. We are throwing in 3 months of FREE Lingo Service for you. Remember to enter Lingo Coupon Code: SAPEXC on Order page.

Monday, January 14, 2008

Earthcaller launches international calls service

We enjoyed Earthcaller's FREE VOIP calls service to USA for over 6 months now. It has been really the only unlimited free calls service for USA. Now it seems they are out of beta and have formally launched a International calls service under the same brand name, Earthcaller.

We would like to thank Satphoneguy at Tipsity, who found this out and made a post about Earthcaller being paid service.

However USA calls are still free and unrestricted. You need to pay for calls to other international countries. As satphoneguy observed, They have some really great rates for some european destinations such as UK Mobile for about 11 cents per minute, which is cheaper than some other VOIP providers. However their India rate is around 6.5-6.8 cents per minute which can be higher compared to Tringme's rate of 5 cents per minute.

So if you are ready to explore another VOIP provider, you may give Earthcaller a try. One thing we can assure is, It's powered by Jaduka and in past, we have seen excellent voice quality with Jaduka VOIP service. We hope they provide similar voice quality for Earthcaller. You can buy credits in bulk of $5 & $10.

Sunday, January 13, 2008

MTNL BSNL blocking VOIP calls?

Since morning I have noticed that all calls made via VOIP service to India landlines, especially Mumbai landlies are blocked. The call goes through to the number, someone picks up the call but we can't listen to them. Of course since the call gets terminated we are charged for the call. Its' not the VOIP provider's fault, since they are getting charged once the call is terminated. They need to pay call termination charge to their VOIP backbone.

The funny thing is it works for all mobiles. I didnt try BSNL mobile though.

So what's up with MTNL and BSNL blocking VOIP Calls? In fact we tried making calls via calling cards but its still the same. Even calling cards can't place calls through to India landline. I have confirmed this with 5 people till now. Everyone was based out of india and were trying to call a mumbai landline number.

Is this a start of a possible outright ban on all VOIP calls terminated in India? We covered a story about how India is planning a ban on VOIP calls some time back, however we never thought it would actually take effect.

Can anyone else confirm this? Please post comments telling us your issues and if you see this issue across India or any specific city.

Cheap international phone calls

We discussed cheap international calls a few days back. How about ultra cheap calls? Yes, its actually possible to get it cheaper than the cheapest phone calls.

Rebtel, a Mobile VOIP provider has extended its holiday offer till Jan 16, which will allow you to make Cheap international phone calls. Though the link mentions that the offer is valid until Jan 10, I have received a mail from Rebtel saying that the offer has been extended till Jan 16. I can forward a copy of the mail to anyone who is interested (just write your address in the comment section below). Under this offer customer making a payment for the first time will receive thrice the credit, i.e. if you put $10 in your account your account will be credited with $30.

We have written about Rebtel earlier and it is better than the Betamax services in terms of customer service, interface and technology. Agreed that the rates are little higher than some of the Betamax services for some locations, but with three times the credit Rebtel is better than any Betamax rates.

Consider for example, the call rates for India are 5.6 c/min (USD) and if you divide it by three the rate becomes 1.87 c/min, which is cheaper than any service available currently. Whatever normal rates are, just divide them by 3.Thats your effective calling rate since you are 3 times the credit.

So, go give it a try….happy calling!!!

This article has been written by our VoIP news editor Alok Saboo. Alok is pursuing his PhD in Marketing at the Pennsylvania State University.

Thursday, January 10, 2008

Flashphone offering free calls to russia

They started with a bang and then dang, they stopped the free calling. We all missed the free 5 minutes of free call everyday. People dreamt all night how to hack this VOIP flashphone :-) so that they can make free calls for more than 5 minutes.

Well then the party was over. Flashphone being a VOIP application developer and not a VOIP provider, they had to eventually stop once they are done testing the product. Once you are featured on FREE VOIP Guide, you don't need to wait for weeks to finish testing, our active readers of over 15000 daily will do massive testing on your products within hours :-) I am seriously thinking to start a paid VOIP testing business. lol.

Alright, so now the good thing is Flashphone is back in business. They are still giving away free calls to limited destinations well its only limited to Russia (Moscow and Russia St.Petersburg). I suppose these are totally unlimited calls. So if you happen to have someone by chance in Moskwa (thats how they spell in russian) then why not give them a buzz? Russia is growing at massive speed so there are increasing number of people calling russia, we hope the free calls to russia offer last long.

Besides that, Flashphone can now be accessed via iGoogle Gadget. You can access the Gadget from here.

Flashphone team has also released a CallMe widget for Beta-testing, it will be available for every flashphone user with 1 line for free. Everyone can get now his own widget for tests, just need to write to info(at)flashphone.ru and provide them with flashphone login and direction for the call, direction can be:

- SIP URI, then widget will call to that SIP URI
- PSTN NUM, then your flashphone's SIP accounts which you have added will be used for termination of VoIP to PSTN
- Flashphone, then call will come to flashphone application. I understand you need to be online to receive calls.

Overall Flashphone is making a decent progress.

As some of you may know, I am now a part of Tringme team and we also have a great flash based solution which includes much more advanced functionality of a Softswitch (VOIP Billing, Intelligence Call Routing, Flash Phone module and much more)

If anyone is interested in deploying Tringme's enterprise VOIP solution, you can contact me at vinay(at)tringme.com.

Linksys VOIP PAP-2 Setup for India

We often receive our reader's email about issues related to VOIP settings and making free voip calls. Most of the emails are related to betamax. I am sure that won't surprise many since they have some serious issues with their VOIP billing software.

Lets move on. Today we received an interesting email from a Father who's son is studying in India. They have bought a Linksys PAP-2 adapter but there are apparent issues with the SIP/VOIP settings.

-----------Email received from the reader--------

We are using the Inphonex VoIP services with Linksys PAP-2 phone adapter unlocked. We have this setup in many of our friends and relatives homes.

One problem we face in few homes is: We are unable to receive incoming calls. Only outgoing calls work properly. They have Airtel in one home and BSNL service in another home.

I have BSNL service only at home and this setup works fine for me in both incoming and outgoing calls.

Can you please guide me. Expecting your reply. Thanks

-----------Our Solution to solve the problem--------

1) Check if your internet provider (Airtel/BSNL) has port 5060 open on the network.

There is a excellent Utility developed by VOIP User.

Download this utility and test the results. The results should say 5060 port is open. If its not, then your firewall is blocking it. Run this test on your and your friend's PC. If your SIP is blocking it, then you might need to change your SIP provider. Use a SIP provider which user common unblocked ports such as port 80. I recommend Vbuzzer. I will try and write more detail guide on how to use VOIP if port 5060 is blocked.

2) Secondly, there is no need to use inphonex in particular. You can use any other free SIP service. All SIP to SIP calls between the users are always free irrespective of network. However if your are using inphonex for calling out to normal landline numbers, then you may continue to do so.

3) Check your Linksys settings as well. On iphonex site there is a excellent configuration guide, please follow that.

I hope this Q&A session will help other readers. If you have any specific issues with your VOIP setup, Please drop us an email at ut(dot)godmode@gmail.com, we might take up your question for the next Q&A session.

Tuesday, January 8, 2008

Peer to Peer SIP VOIP network

While lurking around on the Internet trying to find that next big thing in VOIP. I stumbled on a to a great concept called "Peer to Peer SIP". This might not be very new concept and am sure people in VOIP industry must have already thought about it. It just sounds interesting that if SIP can be put on a peer to peer network, how efficient and easy the communication could be. Can this actually beat skype? We all know how skype gained popularity. The biggest advantage of using skype is it works even on low bandwidth network with the use of supernodes technology (primarily P2P).

Due to sharing bandwidth and resources over the skype network, users get awesome voice quality on skype. This is purely dependent on supernodes p2p technology which is often challenging when it comes to security. We wrote an article on how supernodes can be insecure on VOIP networks.

So coming back to SIP over P2P protocol, we found a website dedicated to this, its called P2PSIP.org, its like a open source initiative towards building a secure P2P SIP network. However its far more difficult than it sounds. We had a closer look at some of the white papers, Discussions and presentations on P2PSIP resource website.

What challenges this VOIP technolgy will face?

1) Security: Everyone know its far easy to crack a Peer to peer network. Its just like the open road. This is perhaps the biggest challenge for this initiative to securely route calls or any other traffic over SIP networks. I wouldn't be surprised to see if a identification method is implemented to authorise users and authenticate them before they send any traffic via this network.

2) Acceptance by Industry as Standard VOIP Protocol: This would be interesting to see how VOIP industry looks at this protocol. Its very important that industry accepts this protocol and start implementing it in real life solution rather than just sitting in the research labs as experimental VOIP protocol. Afterall open source is the way to go :-)

While researching further, I found an excellent Writeup by David A. Bryan and Bruce B. Lowekamp of College of William and Mary on SOSIMPLE-P2P SIP Communication System. This white paper should give an idea about whats in store for Peer to Peer based SIP VOIP services.

We strongly believe that p2p based SIP can change the way we look at VOIP today. It will not only bring more users to this ever evolving technology. It will actually make foray into more household via more open source & secure networks. We will keep a watch on the development of this new VOIP protocol and update whenever necessary.

Sunday, January 6, 2008

VOIP on Sony PSP


We recently disucssed about how VOIP is making headways into non-coventional VOIP compatible devices via exploits or workarounds. Today, we are discussing how to make your Sony PSP to work with VOIP.

Sony recently officially declared that Skype is now available for PSP. You just need to upgrade your firmware in order to use this new feature on your PSP later this month. After the update, a Skype icon will be available under the Network menu, allowing users to create a new account or login with their existing one. Of course, you will be able to use all your skype features as is, such as skype in or skype out. You can call your buddies while playing games :-)The downside is Skype will only work on the PSP-2000 (ie: PSP Slim, PSP Lite, PSP Petite).

However if you think skype is too lame to stick with, We found another great alternative to port SIP based VOIP to PSP. Its developed by the NoobZ team. Its called "Furikup", a SIP based softphone for PSP.

You can use it anywhere in the world, subject to signing-up to a suitable local SIP-based voice-over-IP provider and being near a usable wifi access point. In many countries, you can find those for free or nearly-free - e.g. with SIPGate, in the UK, you can call to your PSP from any standard phone (landline or cellphone) for just the standard local call cost, and from PSP to another SIP phone (another PSP or a PC) for free. It runs on both slim and fat PSPs.

It uses open standards, for maximum compatibility with other phone systems.
You can use a Go!Cam (Chotto Shot), Talkman microphone, or SOCOM-style headset for audio input. (And even if you don't have any of those, you can still send audio from a WAV file in a pinch).

If you own a PSP, then you must give it a shot. You can download Furikup from here.

Future of mobile VoIP

Reading about the future of mobile VoIP on VoIPPlanet triggered my thought process about the interesting possibilities for mobile firms. Given the advantages of 3G, 3G VoIP drawing more users than VoIP on Wi-Fi is a no-brainer. But this offers interesting opportunities for mobile firms, which are worried about losing revenues to VoIP.

Mobile firms need to accept that voice would not be the major revenue earner for them, it would be data. With unlimited voice plans and Google making its intentions clear about the voice space, this may happen in not a very distant future. What the telcos have is the (almost) unlimited reach and the penetration, which is difficult to replicate in a short period of time. The use of VoIP is inevitable and hence instead of trying to stop it, it would instead make more sense for the telcos to find ways to make the best of it.

One option would be to enable and promote VoIP on the 3G networks so that users can leverage that to make more VoIP calls and thus increase the data usage for the mobile companies. Common sense suggests that the VoIP route would be taken for expensive (read international) calls. Even today most of these expensive calls are made using calling cards or computers, thus preventing the mobile firms to benefit from this opportunity. By offering VoIP on their networks, the mobile firms would also be able to compete effectively with new technologies like WiMax as then the users would not have a strong enough reason to switch.

This is the classic example of marketing myopia, where firms take actions to maximize their short term gains and define their markets very narrowly. The mobile companies need to define their business as mobile communication and not only communication using mobiles. If the mobile companies continue to charge those obnoxious rates for voice or define their markets as only, users would find alternate solutions to make those calls and thus prevent any earnings for the mobile companies.

This article has been written by our VoIP news editor Alok Saboo. Alok is pursuing his PhD in Marketing at the Pennsylvania State University.

Thursday, January 3, 2008

Free VOIP Calls to Canada

ever wanted to call Canada for free but can't use icall or mediaringtalk or earthcaller? Then here is another solution to make free calls to canada.

Thanks to our Canadian visitors who shared this with us. Free Phone Line, a canada based VOIP provider is offering free calls across canada with a free incoming canadian number of your choice in 2 states.

In order to be eligible for this offer, you need to be in Canada. Oh don't get too worried yet, VOIP Guide is here for a rescue. Do they check if you are in canada? Yes, by looking at the state and ZIP Code. Just google any address in Toronto and register the number in your name. Of course change the address a bit so you don't bother someone else in future :-)

Lets see what FreePhoneline.ca offers their customers:

1) A FREE local phone number !: if you live in the 416, 647 and most 905 area codes you can receive phone calls on your new FREEPHONELNE personal phone number. (Many new area codes will be added in 4th quarter ’07). You will get a softphone from them. You can download the softphone. This seems like a geographic number so you would be able to receive calls from normal PSTN or mobile phones.

2)Unlimited Free Local calling ! which includes Unlimited FREE Canada wide long distance calling to these major cities : Toronto, Vancouver, Montreal, Calgary, Edmonton, Winnipeg, London, Hamilton, Kitchener-Waterloo, Ottawa, Quebec City, and Halifax, and, all the towns that are a local call to these cities!

3) Caller ID - The incoming caller’s phone number is displayed on the freephoneline softphone.

4) Full Enhanced Voicemail Service that is accessible from your phone no charge!
Voicemail to Email a copy of the voicemail is emailed to your private email account automatically , no charge !
5)Follow me service with enhanced unified messaging feature. When not at home, or if you use the PC phone and it is offline, you can set a number to call forward your local number.. You can also set the number of rings you would like the call forwarded for [example 3 rings to my cell phone] then if you are unavailable or you choose not to answer the call, freephoneline.ca voicemail will play your recorded greeting taking a message. This means you no longer need voicemail on your cell phone or other home phone lines, freephoneline.ca can be your central messaging service. This is very interesting, but I wonder if this can forwarded to international numbers :-) I couldn't test it today but if someone can test this out, please report your findings.

Overall seems like a good alternative way to reach your buddies in Canada and save on long distance and most importantly able to receive calls from everyone else in the world on your own canadian numbers.

I only wish they had SIP settings enabled on this service. That would be nice to flaunt my Canadian number on business card as I access the service on my Nokia N95 on Fring SIP settings.

VOIP on Ipod Touch


With VOIP becoming a disruptive technology, its making headways into different mediums. Now application developers are trying to build apps for a otherwise non-VOIP compliant devices.

The latest non-compiant Gizmo to get hacked is Ipod Touch. This gadget is extremely popular all across the world after its recent launch in the market. Now guys at Touchmods hacked into Ipod Touch to enable VOIP on that otherwise VOIP dumb device. It's just hints that we have some great stuff yet to come for other gizmos and will eventually come sometime in near future.

Touchmods have built a small appplication available in Installer.ap with which you can make actual voice calls on your iPod. This software allows you to use your iPod touch along with a WiFi connection to make actual voice calls to landline or mobile phones.

The biggest hurdle in making this hack successful was no microphone to talk over ipod touch. Touchmods thought about it and written a great guide on how to build a microphone on Ipod Touch. This microphone will use iPod’s dock adapter which will make your ipod touch as good as Nokia N series phone.

If you have ipod touch and want to try this hack, then first
1) Add sources list to the installer app. You can manually update this, download Touchmod SIP VOIP app
2)Now click on the green Touchmods logo that will appear on your iPod’s springboard.
3)After you enter the details for your SIP VoIP account, push the “Save” button. Done. You successfully converted your ipod Touch into a VOIP Phone.

They have a great video tutorial for quick installation help:



Touchmods are planning to sell the microphones for Ipod Touch. Hopefully they are out soon. Touchmod is however a freeware.

Enjoy making free calls via IPod Touch :-)

Wednesday, January 2, 2008

VOIPax offers free VOIP calls


Seems like the new year is bringing in some good news for VOIP industry especially free voip. We are expecting more VOIP providers to jump in this highly competitive market and rub shoulders to become that ultimate free voip provider.

The new joiner to the Free VOIP party is VOIPax. VOIPax if offering free calls to 40 countries and about 60 minutes of trial calls immediately when you register with them.

From it's looks, I almost thought its a new betamax outlet, but it might not be one. However I still have doubts :-) The whole look and feel. The free calling services in fact the TOS for Voipax is almost identical.

Voipax is offering free calls to following countries:


Andorra Landline, Australia Landline, Austria Landline, Belgium Landline, Canada, Chile Landline, Cyprus Landline, Czech Republic Landline, Denmark Landline, Estonia Landline, Finland Landline, France Landline, Germany Landline, Gibraltar Landline
Guam Landline, Hong Kong Landline,Hong Kong Mobile, Hungary Landline, Iceland Ireland Landline,Israel Landline, Italy Landline, Japan Landline, Korea South Landline,Liechtenstein Landline, Luxembourg Landline, Malaysia Landline, Monaco Landline,Netherlands Landline, New Zealand Landline, Norway Landline, Panama Landline,Portugal Landline, Puerto Rico Landline, Puerto Rico Mobile, Singapore Landline,Spain Landline, Switzerland Landline, Taiwan Landline, United Kingdom Landline,United States, Vatican City Landline, Virgin Islands US Landline

Although for India, they seem a bit expensive. They are offering about 8 cents for landline and 10 cents for mobile, which is crazy high. If you are looking to make cheaper international calls you might want to try Tringme which offer 5 cents to Mumbai and bangalore. Dialnow offering 1.50 eurocents per call.

Voipax offers a downloadable VOIP softphone client which you can use to make calls. You can make PC to Phone or Phone to Phone calls with Voipax. Of course calls between voipax users are always free.

The downside of Voipax is they don't seem to provide SIP with this service. However they have compensated with a mobile VOIP site. Its not really a Mobile VOIP but its more of a WAP enabled website which allows you to make calls. You don't need to download anything on your phone.

Go check out VOIPax