Internet phone or VoIP is an excellent service to substitute for the regular phone service. The problems with telephone service are always buzzing the telephone users. Many of the unaware telephone users often do not know why they should really switch to internet phone. This article will help telephone users determine the benefits of VoIP and why you need to make a switch to it.

Internet phone saves you money:

The biggest plus that you can get with this phone service is that you can use it at the fraction of the cost that you pay for telephone service. Telephone service is always been considered an expensive service to use. Telephone users have always lagged behind in saving money on the phone bills that they pay every month. Internet phone offers low cost calling rates using which the users can enjoy making calls to national as well as international destinations without any problem. Now users can enjoy making long distance as well as long duration calls to anywhere in the world and still don’t need to take any tension of the amount of phone bills that they have to pay.

It is a better technology:

Overall, internet phone enjoys a much better position in terms of the advancement in the technology that it uses. The mechanism of internet phone is very different from that of the telephone. Internet phone relies on the internet for sending voice. Secondly, it converts the voice into data instead of analog signals. Lastly, it uses digital signals, another big advantage it has over the telephone service. All these benefits when combined translate into a much bigger impact on the way this service delivers to end users. Internet phone is a lot more reliable as a phone service. The other affect is of the voice quality. Internet phone is capable of offering high voice quality while telephone service seriously lacks behind in that as well.

Loads of features for the users:

The numbers of features and services offered to the customers also vary from one service to the other. Internet phone has a complete stack of features to present their customers. On the other hand, features offered by the telephone services are very limited. Telephone service really does not offer anything additional to the service of making and receiving phone calls.

Call plan flexibility:

The flexibility in the call plans is also one important factor that makes internet phone a much better choice. People who use telephone services only have never given a thought to the fact that they can enjoy a lot more call plan flexibility with the internet phone. More call plan choices would mean that you would be able to select the best plan that suits your calling needs and you can save money by selecting that call plan which is able to serve your needs just the right way.

Use internet phone service instead of telephone and get cost benefits, more features and on top of all that, a much better phoning facility.

==== About the Author ====

Marshall Kincaid is a veteran writer with years of writing experience in tasks relating technology writing. He has been published in different renowned blogs online and is now writing for Axvoice. Axvoice offers an outstanding Mobile VoIP services to its customers, both nationally and globally. Sign up with Axvoice VoIP service today to make unlimited calls to Friend and Family living anywhere in the world.

Google Chrome has come a long way from being the newbie in the browser market to being a major and decisive player today, with a say on how all things Google are served to the people. I still remember the first time Google talked of Chrome and announced a web browser saying,

All of us at Google spend much of our time working inside a browser. We search, chat, email and collaborate in a browser. And in our spare time, we shop, bank, read news and keep in touch with friends — all using a browser. Because we spend so much time online, we began seriously thinking about what kind of browser could exist if we started from scratch and built on the best elements out there. We realized that the web had evolved from mainly simple text pages to rich, interactive applications and that we needed to completely rethink the browser. What we really needed was not just a browser, but also a modern platform for web pages and applications, and that’s what we set out to build.

You can still read the legendary announcement here and read the Google Chrome comic here for a walk down memory lane.

Three years have passed since then and Google has brought awesome web-services and things are looking good on the user-level as well (clean and effective). The browser (not just Google Chrome but web browsers in general) is getting stronger day by day and Google Chrome is the first choice for those obsessed with speed.

The next step by Google is to provide a rich social experience inside the browser. I am not talking about Twitter or Facebook here. Think of contemporary communication mediums, ones that are still enjoyed by people. Spot on. Google is planning to bring audio and video chat into the browser as an inherent feature. This will eliminate the need for a third party web-app and a third party desktop application alike.

How is Google Chrome Planning on Being a Skype Killer?

WebRTC is an open source project to take things real time inside a browser. This is achieved using JavaScript APIs and HTML5. However, the backbone for the chat will be a service called GIPS, which is another one of Google’s acquisitions. GIPS specializes in Internet telephony and videoconferencing. Google already has the Google Voice card in place and this feature will bring Google as a major player in the VOIP market.

Once live, the technology can be used with anything Google provides or with any third party service that someone creates leveraging these technologies. The possibilities are endless here. This will most likely be Google’s next big  announcement  about Chrome.

Some further technical details are available here . Also, check this chromium mailing list for clarification.

[Windows, Mac, Linux, Android) Featured previously in October last year, Mumble (opensource, free) is a low latency VoIP client which is primarily used by gamers while playing MMO (massively multiplayer online) games. Mumble is a both a client and a server application, wherein the client needs to connect to a particular server so that the user can voice chat with other people online, connected to the same server. For this, there needs to be a server that one can connect to and servers don’t come free.

But Mumblex.de, a German site, solves this problem easily by providing its users a free Mumble server for 48 hours. So next time your gang needs to play some awesome game but lack a voice server, or if you simply need a skype alternative for a few hours, Mumblex.de is a pretty simple option that solves both problems.

There doesn’t seem to be a slot limit mentioned anywhere, so you can apparently have as many friends connect to your server as you want. The setup is completely automated and the website will guide you through all the steps as you obtain your server. Do keep in mind the site is German, so you’ll be better off using Google Chrome for it has on-the-fly website translation.

On December 22nd, millions of Skype users were left without service for roughly 24 hours. At the time, Skype was scrambling to get the system back up and didn’t offer a full explanation of what was happening. (what is Skype?)

Earlier today, Skype’s CIO, Lars Rabbe, gave a fairly detailed explanation about the system wide failure. Skype depends heavily on a world wide network of peer-to-peer nodesand supernodesthat are hosted by users running Skype’s software. This network distributes the service’s work load to each Skype user as needed.

According to Lars, a cluster of Skype servers overloaded and threw more of the load onto the peer-to-peer network. Normally, this should have only slowed the network down. Instead, a bug in some of the Windows clients running a newer Skype version, cause many to completely fail. About 50% of the peer-to-peer network stopped responding, and the entire network collapsed like a house of cards.

Skype technicians responded by creating new peers on the network called mega-supernodesto try to recover normal traffic, but the recovery still took a long time.

So what has Skype learned? Can they prevent downtime in the future? Here’s what Lars said about the future:

… we are learning the lessons we can from this incident and reviewing our processes and procedures, looking in particular for ways in which we can detect problems more quickly to potentially avoid such outages altogether, and ways to recover the system more rapidly after a failure.

Skype has become a critical communication tool for many individuals and companies. If Skype can avoid major disasters in the future, they’ll remain the king of VOIP. If not, they have plenty of competition waiting to jump in as a replacement.

Here are some of our previous posts about Skype:

• Skype Goes Down, Millions Of Users Unable To Connect

• Skype 5.0 Now Available For Mac OS X

• Skype Application For iPhone Updated; Adds Free Skype-To-Skype …

• Skype For Symbian^1 Launched
• Skype Bringing Video Calling To iPhone 4; Android As Well?

Skype has released Skype 5.0 beta for Mac OS X which includes the new group video calling feature and a revamped user interface. The new version also integrates with your Mac address book allowing you to call, IM or SMS your contacts from within Skype.

Earlier last month, Skype had also rolled out Skype 5.0 beta for Windows with Facebook integration and group calling features. Skype 5.0 users can group video call any other Skype 5.0 beta users on Windows or Mac OS X. Skype 5.0 for Mac also includes a new new call control bar which allows users to hang up a call or mute it from a mini Skype bar that sits on top of any web page or documents.

Other features include the ability to search chat history, send messages to users even when they are offline. You can download Skype 5.0 beta for Mac OS from here or learn more about it at the official Skype blog. 

Watch a video of Skype 5.0 for Mac OS X in action below:

Skype has now launched a 3G VoIP application for the iPhone. VoIP is Voice over Internet Protocol. It is a big advance in the telecommunication industry. This technology combines voice and image in a single line. VoIP provides excellent quality of service. There are many points which give an edge to VoIP over traditional telephone service.

VoIP can lower your telephone bills. Calling plans offered by VoIP service Providers are variable. Some charge per minute, others give unlimited long distance local and domestic calls. Simple calling plans are always a better choice. Plans charging per minute may be attractive but the bills are totally unpredictable. Unlimited calling plans have a more predictable billing system. VoIP has the quality of being fast, easy and uninterrupted.

Signing up for VoIP is quite easy. All it needs to run is a high speed internet connection. It can be accessed sitting anywhere in the world. Other features of VoIP are:

• Unlimited extensions
• Conferencing
• Call blocking
• Caller ID
• Customized audio menus and professional greetings
• Click to Call buttons
• Call transferring
• Voice mail services
• Call routing
• Call forwarding

In addition to these, features like virtual numbers, telecommuting, personal phone numbers, Mobile PBX, private faxes, unified communication, connecting multiple locations through voice are also included.

Skype 2.0 VoIP is now on the iPhone with the capability of making calls over 3G. Initially the users could only use VoIP application over WiFi. People were wondering when they will see a 3G VoIP app from Skype. The wait is over, since Apple lifted restrictions on iPhone VoIP applications that run over a 3G network. Developer agreements were amended by Apple to enable VoIP apps for the iPhone 3G in the Apps Store. Previously users could only use VoIP applications over WiFi. VoIP 3G iPhone applications are being offered by VoIP providers such as Fring and iCall.

The company delayed the launching of 3G VoIP applications in order to improve the quality of audio prior to releasing the new version. This application provides high audio quality even with low band-width. This gives an advantage in low band-width situations. One of the new attractive features is the call quality meter or the call quality indicator. It has a grading system consisting of colors. The call quality meter changes colors to red, yellow and green depending on the coverage, with red showing less coverage and green indicating good coverage. Start up time has also been improved in this version and the access has been made easy and fast from iPhone home screen’s dial pad.

As always, folks have great expectations for this new application from Skype. However, Skype will have to work on keeping the prices within affordable limits. They are planning to charge for Skype to Skype calls next year, although the prices will be minimal. Skype is expected to give a good value for its paid products.

This guest post is written by Zach. He is a writer and his area of interest is internet phone technology. He has eight years of experience in VoIP industry and is currently working with Axvoice internet phone service providers.

If you’ve seen the 2008 movie WarGames: The Dead Code, you would probably remember how the protagonist of the movie plays multiplayer games with his friend, while simultaneously talking to him online using something that most of us refer to as voice chat. (Note!: I’m not encouraging you to watch that movie! It was a flop. If you really have to check out the story, watch the original WarGames, released in 1983. Classic!)

So, the point is not about gaming here. It’s about the talk. We’re gonna talk about VoIP.

If you’re an average user, who uses the internet everyday you must have heard of, and even used some of the popular VoIP applications in the market such as Skype, Fring on mobile devices and Google Voice. The thing about most of these services is that they are run by third party companies, they limit the number of people that can talk simultaneously aka voice conference and/or they are slow. Apart from these services, however, there are quite a few VoIP applications that are better, let practically any number of people to talk without any additional cost and provide various quality options albeit at a little cost. Cost of running a server.

Gamers who engage in multiplayer online games such as World of Warcraft etc, often play in groups, called clans. These clans coordinate their gameplay through such VoIP applications. To put things in perspective, if you need ammo, you just say, Hey Captain, I need ammoand then captain says Already on it’s way soldier!. These clans host or get someone to host servers for these VoIP applications so that they can continue their action in full throttle.

Today, I’m gonna talk about three applications that you can use for this purpose and much more. Their basic idea is that you first install the software on your server, then anyone who needs to join the talk can download the desktop client and connect to the server. On the desktop client, the experience is like IRC, or any other group chat where you can text and speak.

TeamSpeak

TeamSpeak is one of the oldest contestants in this category. Available at teamspeak.com, Teamspeak is multiplatform for both the server and desktop clients. VoIP applications when compared, are graded on the base of quality of sound, codecs used, inbuilt noise cancellation capabilities and latency (the time taken for voice to travel through the interwebs to the desired listeners lower is better). The latest TeamSpeak, version 3, improves on all of these and more. In case of TeamSpeak, the codec used is Speex A free, patent/free audio codec. Also, on TeamSpeak 3, is the ability to join more than one servers using tabs something like IRC.

However, TeamSpeak itself isn’t open source. It’s proprietary and comes with a license and licensing cost.

If you’re going to use it for a not-for-profit activity, Teamspeak is free and allows 32 people (or slots) on it. If you register the application and apply for a license (which is also free, as long as you’re doing not-for-profit), the server can house 512 people at a time. The other licenses, such as those for Commercial organizations, need to be registered and the license cost can be anywhere from $25 to $500 yearly depending on how many people are going to use it.

So, if you just need it for talking to a group at college or school, you’re gonna get it free. But then you’d have to host it on some server, either yours or some one else’s. If you can’t or don’t want to set up your own server for it, you can buy specific TeamSpeak hosting from various service providers such as InstantTeamSpeak, TeamSpeakHost and GameServers which begin at around $3 monthly.

Ventrilo

Ventrilo is another old-school application for gamers, launched about 8 years ago. Commonly referred to as Vent, it is known for its low latency and low cpu usage. Also, Ventrilo uses not one but several codecs such as Speex and GSM and you can customize what quality sound you want in and out, depending on your connection speed.

The server software for Ventrilo is cross platform, however, no Linux client is current available for the desktop.

Like TeamSpeak, Ventrilo is proprietary software. It provides two licenses. Public and Pro. The Public license is free, however, I can’t confirm if there’s a limit to the number of people that can connect to a server when it runs on a public license, but some sources say it’s 8 users.

Also, most people around it’s community say that acquiring a Pro license is very difficult, not because it has requirements such as a minimum 1000 slot count, which should continuously increase, but because Ventrilo is just not giving Pro licenses. So the only option left is setting up our own server with the Public version which is free, or buying hosting with a reseller that already has a license.

Popular resellers include GameServers, NationVoice and InstantVentrilo, the cost for which goes around $3 monthly.

Mumble

Mumble is the last of this list, and arguably my favorite of all. Point one: It’s open source. Point two: It’s free. Point three: No licensing cost. Point four: No limitation on number of users who can connect. Point five: Very low latency.

Mumble uses the Speex codec and the audio quality sounded heaps better than Skype. Also, there is no echo, and Mumble does noise cancellation on the fly. The latency is so low, it’s almost telephone-like. It’s like you’re talking to someone in the same room as you.

Since there are no licensing cost and the application for both server and desktop is free as is, hosting Mumble on your own server won’t cost you anything in the form of licensing, even if you host for your entire school or college. However, the limitations come down to how powerful your server is. Similarly, if you plan to buy hosting for Mumble from a third-party, the cost of it will be considerably lower than the other two counterparts mentioned above, but you’ll be limited by the number of slots or connections. You can choose your hosting plan accordingly.

Another plus point for Mumble is that it can be used for podcasting and general interviews. The upcoming (currently in beta) version of Mumble’s server side app (it’s actually called Murmur the server app, but I prefer to keep it simple) will support recording. Although recording   has nothing to do with the server, it’s the desktop client’s capability, but the developers of Mumble are designing the record feature in such a way that whenever someone starts to record, all the participants of the talk are alerted. This needs the server’s connection. So podcasters, wait a few weeks until Mumble desktop/client 1.2.3 is   released, and then you’d have the option of selecting a competent alternative to Skype that gives better quality recordings!

Hosting your own Mumble presents no limits, however, third-party hosts such as MumbleSlots, VoipServers, GameServers and Sabrienix will limit your usage by slots, that is, they will limit how many people can talk at a time. For example, I got a 10 slot package from Mumbleslots. It usually costs $15 yearly. But they had this offer going on which gave me a flat 50% discount (the offer is still on). So in short, I got an account where 10 people can simultaneously voice chat, for $7 a year and the quality is badass! Literally. Nevertheless, I got it because I wanted the record feature. Native record feature for Interviews for the win!

If you’re interested in trying Mumble out, you can connect to my server and chat up with whoever is there (I may not be present at all times). Just install Mumble and then click this link: Connect to Keshav’s Mumble server Login using a username of your choice.

All these applications were inherently developed for gamers, however, these are just software and technology that you can use with anything you find it suitable for. For example, organizations can host these on their intranet and then everybody in the office building can talk in different channels or rooms for different departments. And yes, these applications support password protected channels, so nobody will be able to peek into the conversations of the HR department!

Happy talking.

Image Credit: jayraz

Gmail is no doubt one of the best email service available online, and Google has been adding several features which are not only useful but have also changed the way people have been using online email.

In the past Gmail has added an ability to send SMS messages to users in chat or Google Talk, and now according to reports from Cnet News, Google is preparing to add the ability to call people using Google Talk.

The new feature will make use of VoIP (Voice over Internet Protocol) similar to what Skype does to allow users to call other users in US and Canada for free and charge for international calls. According to the information available it would be much lower than the charges you pay to your phone carrier and might even be lower than Skype.

The new feature could be an integration of Gizmo into Google Talk, which Google had purchased in November 2009. It would be interesting to see whether Google integrates this service with Google Voice and allows users to create a number that users could call in and answer the calls using Google Chat.

Skype which is the leader in VoIP calls offers similar service, however, the voice and video quality of Skype is much better than Gmail. Nevertheless, it might not take Google much time to build a solution which rivals Skype or is even better than them.

Earlier last month, a Google Voice Desktop application had leaked which gave users the ability to users to make and receive calls from their desktop. I would definitely want to see this integrated with Google Voice, which would mean that I could use Google Voice on my Android phone and then use it as a primary way to make or receive calls without having to pay exorbitant charges to my carrier. However, that dream could be a long shot, since there is so much at stake. What do you think?

(Source: Cnet News)

Skype is the current leader in VOIP technologies and generates a lot of buzz with each of the developments it makes. Skype holds its VIOP technology as its most prized possession and a hacker has recently managed to crack it!

For obvious reasons, Skype is unhappy at the blog, which pointed this out and brought down the post in question. However, it is still available on  Google Cache.

The author  Sean O’Neil  writes in his blog saying,

For over 10 years, Skype enjoyed selling the world security by obscurity. We must admit, really good obscurity. I mean really really good obscurity. So good that almost no one has been able to reverse engineer it out of the numerous Skype binaries.

It is not all security by obscurity of course. There is plenty of good cryptography in Skype. Most of it is implemented properly too. There are seven types of communication encryption in Skype: its servers use AES-256, the supernodes and clients use three types of RC4 encryption – the old TCP RC4, the old UDP RC4 and the new DH-384 based TCP RC4, while the clients also use AES-256 on top of RC4. It all is quite complicated, but we’ve mastered it all.

O’Neil  wants to say that Skype uses all the security it can to secure its voice data. There are seven encryptions involved in Skype’s protection and it was broken only for educational purpose. The people behind this hack are IT Cryptologists. However, they also admit to the fact that a part of this code was leaked and might be in use by crackers already.

Skype is being very secretive about this and is refusing to make any official reply. Clearly, it is a fault on part of the hackers that this code was leaked. Still, Skype should officially assure its users regarding this security issue.

(News Source)

Have you ever thought of making video calls to your friends and relatives from your mobile phone or smart phones? If so, your desire has come true. Fring is free software with which you can make free Mobile calls, Video calls and live chat. Its mobiles call and live chat feature is just like Skype but the feature which makes it unique is video calling from mobile to mobile and mobile to PC.

Fring is basically a VoIP application and service. Through this application you can make calls and messaging to Skype, ICQ, MSN Messenger, Google Talk, Yahoo Messenger, SIP, Twitter and Facebook. It is an all in one’ package from which you can fetch all your online contacts from above mentioned services in single application.

Easy Installation

You can easily install Fring on your cell phones. Firstly you will have to download it from here. After installation you will have to register for a Fring account. From the Add-ons section, you can select the service which you want to use, such as Skype or MSN. Your contacts will be fetched automatically, and those contacts will be included in your buddy list. You can then see in the list which of your buddies is online.

If your cell phone has Wi-Fi, you can use Wi-Fi hotspots or home access points for free phone calls. Video chat on Fring will be more comfortable if your cell phone has a secondary front facing camera.

Image Credit: Flickr

Features

Free calls
Fring Add-on applications
Live chat instead of SMS
SkypeOut or SIP calls
Friends’ profiles
Call history
Invite friends
Video calls
Send & Receive files
Wi-Fi auto-roaming

Below is the list of mobile phones and smart phones currently supported by Fring. You should feel lucky if yours is in the list.

Compatible Devices

Nokia : Nokia 3250, Nokia 5320 XpressMusic, Nokia 5500 Sport, Nokia 5630 XpressMusic, Nokia 5700, Nokia 5730 XpressMusic, Nokia 6110 Navigator, Nokia 6120 classic, Nokia 6121 classic, Nokia 6124 classic, Nokia 6220 (old), Nokia 6290, Nokia 6650d, Nokia 6710 Navigator, Nokia 6720 classic, Nokia 6730 classic, Nokia 6790 Slide, Nokia E50, Nokia E51, Nokia E52, Nokia E55, Nokia E60, Nokia E61, Nokia E61i, Nokia E63, Nokia E65, Nokia E66, Nokia E70, Nokia E71, Nokia E72, Nokia E75, Nokia E90 (Communicator), Nokia N71, Nokia N73, Nokia N75, Nokia N76, Nokia N77, Nokia N78, Nokia N79, Nokia N80, Nokia N81, Nokia N82, Nokia N85, Nokia N86, Nokia N91, Nokia N92, Nokia N93, Nokia N95, Nokia N95, 8GB, Nokia N96

Apple: iPhone 3G, 3GS.iPod touch

Samsung: Samsung SGH-G810, Samsung SGH-I550

Android Devices: HTC EVO, Nexus1

Sony Ericsson: P1i