Recently in VOIP Category

Fido, one of the Canadian cell phone carriers, gave a 500 error on its official site.

It is hacked? or under attack?

I always thinking about to have a home-brewed VOIP server. Such as this one, Build a Skype Server for Your Home Phone System, it is a skype server, not exactly what I want, but still good.

Through this Skype server, you can have a small phone system in your home.

The full function of home VOIP server is based on Open-source software and free of charge.
Asterisk
With two or three VOIP card, you will have a system, you can call out, or receive incoming call.
You can also have a conference call in your home.

Do you need it?

Running on Linux.

I use Voipstunt over 9 months. Always feel good for its service.

One issue makeing me not happy is it changed country list of free call without email the notice to user.

Ok. I check the call history. Phone calls to China are charged 0.7 cent per minute. USA is still free.

I may change to other service provider, when both USA and China are not free.

A lot of people know that Skype has ability to make a free call with North America until the end of 2006. I tried before, the voice quality is good enough.
But I am tied to my computer. The skype is only run on the computer.
Voxlib is a solution.

1) Install a skype and create a new account.
2) Download Voxlib client software, Vox for Skype, and Install it.
3) Setup your cellphone information in Voxlib.

Go to try it.

I have a SPA-2002 device for 8 months. I also use VOIPSTUNT as my Voip serivec provider.

The Firmware with device is 3.1.2(a). Nothing wrong.

I went to SIPURA website, and saw the new firmware there.

So, I upgrade it to new version.
Let me show you how to do the upgrade.

1) Download it from the download page. Here

2) Decompress it into a folder.

3) There are two files, spa2002-03-01-05.bin and spa2002-03-01-05.exe.

4) Get the IP address of your SAP-2002.
You can go to SPA's voice menu by pressing **** on your analog phone and press 110#.
Your current IP will be announced.

5) Run the windows executable from windows machine. It will ask for SPA's IP-address. It will then try to identify the SPA, and perform the upgrade.
Note: Don't power off at this time.

I use VoipStunt as one of the important phone services. I make at least two international long distance phone calls per day.

I have a custimized dial plan. It is easy for my daughters, one 6, the other is 3 years old.
They can dial phone to their grand-parents by themselves.

It is very easy. Just dial two digits and phone rings.

Let's see what I set.

In the dial plan field, which is under Admin>Advanced>Line 1. I use line 1 for Voipstunt service.

(00xx.|<99:00862166666666>|<88:0014152222222>)

Look, 00xx. means all phone call must be followed by 00. For example, if I want to call San Francisco USA, I have to dial 0014152222222. 1 stands for USA country code, 4152222222 is the phone number of whom I want to call.

For another example, I want to call Shanghai China. His phone number is 66666666. I have to dial 00862166666666. 86 is country of China, 21 is area code of Shanghai.

Voipstunt.com released its new credit policy.

There will be no more expiry dates for credit. Say you buy $15.00 credit and have 120 Freedays. It means you can call all destinations marked as "Free" in 120 days for free.
And after 120 days, you still have $15.00 in your account. Now you can use this money to pay all your phone calls by the minimal rate.
The current minimal rate is 1cent/min for most of the "Free" destinations.

In the previous credit policy, the credit will expire in 120 days. That means after 120 day "Free" call, you have zero balance in your account.

That's great to the users.

Voipstunt put some fineprint in the bottom of their homepage. It is even under the copyright description.

They set a limit of free calls. 300 minutes per week. It means 42 minutes per day. Not much.

I still remember there was no limit for it when I signup. I don't know when they add this limit they have't disclosed to the current users.

* Max 300 minutes per week of free calls, measured over the last 7 days. Unused free minutes cannot be taken to the following week(s). If limit is exceeded, a minimal rate of 1ct/min will be charged (as shown in the VoipStunt software).

Now send a text-message (SMS) is also very easy through the backgroud of Voipstunt

It will charge you 5Ct per message. The speed is very fast. I clicked the send button and received the message at my cellphone in 10 seconds.

To use this feature, you have to signin your Voipstunt account. Enter your text and phone number. That's all.

The only issue which is not good is you can only send the text to the country code with +1, +3 and +4.

D-Link 1402s is not a router only. It is a four ports router and 2 ports VOIP adapter.

The price is dropped down from about $90 to $59.95 on sipphone. Some sites still tag it at $88.95.

Please be noted the D-Link 1402s is not a locked equipment. It is open. You can use it on any VOIP service.
There are some D-Link 1402s/L, locked one. Only works on Lingo Voice Service. Donot buy this one.

Skype announced that "Calling people on Skype is totally free. It's also free to call landlines and mobiles within the US and Canada until the end of the year."

So now, we can use skype to call anyone's mobile or landline in the USA and Canada.

In the Terms of Service of Skype, it said:

Free Calls in the US and Canada: Until December 31st 2006, Skype is offering free SkypeOut calls from the US and Canada to US and Canadian mobile and landline telephone numbers. In return for offering this, Skype asks that You use the product sensibly and don't abuse the free offer. Skype reminds You that it does not allow You to resell SkypeOut and that if Skype does see systematic or intentional misuse, it reserves the right to terminate your access to your Account immediately in accordance with clause 12.3 below.

I used skype for a long time, and the voice quality is always good, except you use the dial-up.

Voice over Internet Protocol (VOIP) has become mainstream. The question today is not whether we should move forward.
It is how are we doing to do this.

Some companies have small offices around Canada and the US, and as far away as China and Russia. VoIP lets them connect to the headquarters easily and cheaply.

When more and more peoples and companies switch to the VOIP, the bigges problems is the network reliability.
For pure data, 10 seconds interrupt is acceptable, because they will re-send the not received data.
The Voip phone conversation will loss the connection and cannot establish it again after 10 seconds stop.