VoIP News and Gadgets

Jajah a voip service provider is all set to launch a new mode of internet advertising. When AdWord was launched very few would have guessed the level of penetration and success this simple idea could reach. To me, two main reasons for AdWord to succeed are, one context based advertisement, two non-interruption of service. Non-Interruption of service is a prime reason why more and more web service providers are willing to add AdWords to their website. It will not throw up a pop up, or open a splash screen, etc…

Advertising strategy opted by Jajah is also in same lines as AdWords. When a person make a VOIP call (or any call), there is a time gap between phone starts ringing and the person actually lifts the phone. In this time gap the caller generally hears a ringing back tone or may be a music opted by the called party. Jajah is planning to play an advertisement in this time gap. When the other party is ringing the calling person will hear an advertisement and once the called party picks up the phone he/she will hear the voice. In this way there will be no interruption of service, but the advertisement content will be delivered to the calling person based on the location he is calling from (context based).

Will VOIP based advertisement will be successful like AdWords???

The answer is not known yet, the significant difference I see that, AdWord is always available on the web page as long as the user navigates in the same page. The user can initially ignore the AdWord but later it might catch his attention. But in voice based advertisement its not the case. Once the advertisement is played, to play it again user might have to willingly request to play it again. Most of the users will not take the pain of pressing a button to hear the advertisement the caught his slightest attention.
Anyways, it’s another interesting application of Voice 2.0. Lets see how their ideas unfold into revenues in the future.

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VoIP to divorce PC next year

Free webs calls will be divorced from the PC by early next year – a move that is essential if the technology is to go mainstream, according to US Robotics.

The problem with many Voice-over-IP systems at the moment is that free calls routed entirely on the Internet, without using dial-up or cellphone links, need a PC at either end to be switched on.

Jajah has just introduced a system in which only the caller needs to use a PC – you just enter your number and the number you are calling on a web page.

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RADVISION, a leading provider of multimedia conferencing and communications platforms, today announced the release and immediate availability of a Java version of its award-winning session initiation protocol (SIP) toolkit for real-time communication applications, such as voice over IP (VoIP) and instant messaging (IM). The new toolkit significantly shortens development cycles thereby enabling even faster time-to-market for a variety of new and innovative services. more...

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"We’re witnessing the beginnings of a titanic clash between the internet and the telecommunications industry. My hope is that clash will be the, albeit painful, evolution of Voice into a full blow internet application — the birth of Voice 2.0. Voice 2.0 is the next step from where we are today. In today’s world, VoIP "carriers" like Vonage, Packet8 and the cable offerings, are migrations of the legacy PSTN onto a VoIP foundation. Voice 2.0 — true VoIP — is the marriage of IP Telephony to the Web."

Read on…

Sony has entered a VoIP arena, by introducing VVoIP (Voice & Video over IP)

Its new Sony IVE client, offers more than a just a video call like, video mailbox, multiparty call. There aren?t much information about the architecture of the solution or the advantages of IVEs client compared to Google Talk or Skype.

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Enough SIP / Skype Foolishness: By StephenSmith

" SIP is Dead was a provocative headline after VON Canada, sparking a minor packet storm of blog commentary. The bits have been flowing ...

* It all started with Niklas Zennstrom's report on exponential Skype growth at VON Canada, prompting Jeff Pulver to say Shift Happens and call Skype the iPod of Communications
* Martin Geddes writes that 'SIP is history as far as the future of voice is concerned' (shameless out-of-context quote) in an essay title The Telecom Earthquake
* Richard Stastny and Aswath Rao traded self-referential blog postings -- Requiem for SIP, no it's not a requiem, and clarification
* The backlash begins and Martin then writes a balancing viewpoint here about things that Skype doesn't address well
* Jeff then steps in and writes that SIP really isn't Dead, but that Skype is making huge impact and once current projects to bake it into silicon and 3G handsets are realized that there may be no turning back. He also posted a thoughtful piece by Timothy Jasionowski who says Skype benefits by having sole accountability to make protocols work wheras SIP is slowed by IETF and competing implementations.

I had a long chat with........"

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?Will P2P Sip take Over Skype?????
Seems to be the hottest question on the VoIP forums. My answer, YES for SURE, bcoz of two simple reasons

One - P2P VoIP architecture had become a well proven solution
Two ? With Sykpe only Skype(eBay) is going to make money but with P2P Sip every one else in VoIP bandwagon can make money.

One of the authors of the SOSIMPLE paper runs a website dedicated to Peer-to-Peer networking on the fundament of the SIP protocol:
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This is an interesting paper on skype peer to peer protocol.
This paper throws light on how skype traverses the NAT and firewall and also analysis some of the behaviors of its signaling protocol. Inspite of all the signaling messages from Skype is encrypted, this paper provides good insight on the skype’s operation.

PDF Document

Michael Gouch a Security consult, talks about the general myths about Skype's security features and its vulnarability. He gives 5 reasons NOT to block Skype. His argument is on the lines that, Skype is equally vulnerable as SIP or H323 based VoIP clients.

Skype Journal: Five Reasons NOT to block Skype: "Five Reasons NOT to block Skype"

While Yahoo! and Microsoft link their proprietary networks for Instant Messaging (read press release), Google bets on Open Protocols to make information universally accessible.

And yesterday Google announced that Sean Egan has been hired by the company. Sean is the main developer of Gaim, the most popular IM client. According to Sean, he's to work "on making it as easy as possible for other clients to use Google Talk's voice features", so we can expect Gaim and other clients to be interoperable with Google Talk's voice features in the near future.

Currently, Google uses XMPP/Jabber specs, but they claim to be supporting open server-to-server federation, and work "to hear from other people in the communications industry about how best to build a federation model that is open, scalable". In fact, there are this month several tests with firms like EarthLink, Sipphone or PeopleCall.

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