Tom Keating : VoIP & Gadgets Blog
Tom Keating
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Skype

Skype P2P VoIP

Blind Research Study Says Skype Users Prefer ooVoo

July 18, 2010

ooVoo told me they had recently commissioned a study with some interesting results, which will be released on Monday. A blind study conducted by a third party research firm revealed that ooVoo was preferred by 8 our of 10 Skype users.I couldn't help but reminded of the famous Trident slogan/study which said 4 out of 5 dentists preferred sugarless gum. In fact, it's exactly double!

So is this study legit or manufactured?

SkypeKit SDK Comes to Windows & Mac

July 14, 2010

fring vs. Skype War

July 13, 2010

A war between fring and Skype is heating up. fring fired the first salvo when they put out a release claiming Skype was blocking fring. fring wrote:

For 4 years we have led mobile communication innovation, most recently with video calling on any advanced Smartphone and network.

Now that fring expanded capacity to support the huge demand for video calling for all users, Skype has blocked us from doing so.



fring Video Calling Over 3G on iPhone 4

July 9, 2010

It was just a matter of time before fring updated their iPhone app to take advantage of the iPhone 4's front-facing camera. That day has arrived! With the new fring for iPhone you get 2 way video-calling not just with other iPhone users, but also friends on their Droids or Nokia (Symbian S60) phones.

It supports video calls over 3G as well as Wi-Fi, though obviously performance over 3G isn't as good as Wi-Fi.

Multitasking support is in the new version so you can be always on and available with fring running in the background and alerting you to new video calls, voice calls or chat without proactively opening fring.

It also has a new "Social Stream" feature, which is a chronological stream of all tweets, facebook updates, chats and calls. While the social media stuff is nice to have, the video calling is the killer feature.





Skype Reverse Engineered?

July 8, 2010

According to TechCrunch, someone named Sean O'Neill is claiming he reverse-engineered Skype, laying bare one of the most closely guarded secrets in VoIP Land. Has Skype's Great Wall of VoIP been cracked? Skype takes protection of their proprietary protocol very seriously. Need I remind you of the various JoltID lawsuits by Skype co-founders Niklas Zennstrom and Janus Friis which owns the Skype's P2P "secret sauce"?

If indeed Skype has been cracked, this could have major implications, including not just security, but also some beneficial effects, such as 3rd parties embedding Skype more easily into their products and bypassing Skype's relatively new Skype API called SkypeKit SDK.

Sean writes on his blog:

For over 10 years, Skype enjoyed selling the world security by obscurity. We must admit, really good obscurity.






Plantronics Savi W430 Headset Review

July 6, 2010


The Plantronics Savi W430 is an impressive headset sporting DECT wireless technology with excellent range and HD quality sound. With the convergence of the telephone and the network we say the creation of VoIP, including the phenomenal growth of Skype and SIP-based IP-PBXs and phones. Now we're seeing the convergence of the computer and the phone, resulting in 100% software-based phone solutions - also known as the "softphone". The problem with softphones is that it's still a fairly new concept to the enterprise and there just aren't a lot of headsets for the PC designed with telephony in mind.

VoIP Phone for $19.99? What?

July 1, 2010

On Buy.com I came across a VoIP phone listed for $19.99. The product description catches my eye because it says "VoIP/Skype Desktop IP Phone w/Digital Answering System - Use Your Internet Connection to Make Calls! - PH210-PB". So it's a Skype VoIP phone with a digital answering machine.

Skype Manager Reports - FAIL!

June 29, 2010

A couple of months ago I wrote 'Googlebye Skype Business Control Panel Hello Skype Manager!' , which is a web-based management tool that replaced Skype Business Control Panel (BCP). Well, can we have the old Skype Business Control Panel back? I just logged in today to check out some reports of international test calls I made. Every report I ran for each of the Skype users came up blank as seen here:


In the Reports screen I went to Summary and then Usage.


Global Dialer - Cheap Minutes App - is Gone

June 29, 2010

A reader to my blog tipped me off to Global Dialer going out of business. They had a proprietary software application that you download directly onto your mobile phone that enabled you to make low-cost, 'one-click' international calls. The screenshot of their calling rates is from 2006 when I first wrote about them. Rates listed here have certainly come down since then.

According to Whois, the registration for the website was created in 2001 and expires in October 2010.

Grandstream GXV3140 Dual Stack Skype & SIP Phone

June 22, 2010


Last year I predicted a dual stack 'Skype' & 'SIP' phone was coming soon. That day has arrived with Grandstream's GXV3140 IP Multimedia Phone, which already supported SIP, but now adds Skype support in their latest firmware. The GXV3140 is the world's first multimedia dual stack Skype and SIP phone. It supports Skype voice/video calls in addition to making SIP-based voice/video calls.
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