VOIP and SIP News

A surveyor of electronic intelligence was murdered while trying to catch terrorists who were using Voice Over Internet Protocol (VoIP) to plan their attacks.

The technology expert Gareth Williams had founded a programme called Echelon. Echelon was set up in the Cold war to sift through email and other communications information such as mobile VoIP. The idea was to look for phrases which might indicate a national security threat.

His murder has led to fears about sensitive intelligence leaking out from top level British and the United States computers. The programme intercepted over five billion communications every day using mathmatical geniuses and algorithms to crack codes.

Williams himself was posted with MI6 computer intelligence in Afghanistan, the NSA cryptology centre in Colorado as well as Fort Meade in Maryland where the US National Security Agency is based.

Extracting information from internet phone calls was one of his main projects. That is because technologies like Skype are not yet intercepted by government forces in the same way that normal phone calls are.

In 2008 the British Intelligence and Security Committee said: "One of the greatest challenges is to maintain intercept capability despite rapidly evolving communications technology. This especially concerns the growth of use by terrorists of voice over internet telephony and other internet-based communications."

Google likes to keep its cards close to its chest but rumours suggest that the search engine giant is playing around with the idea of integrating the Google Voice VoIP app onto Gmail.

It would mean that VoIP would become part of the Google Chat IM service on the browser so that ingoing and outgoing calls could be made without running any local software.

In July word was doing the rounds that a standalone desktop Google Voice softphone had been produced, only to be stopped at the developmental stage.

It is thought that head honchos at Google did not like the idea of software running outside of the browser as that would contravene their ethos.

If those rumours were true then they would fit in with plans for Gmail to get the Google Voice VoIP app.

Although the app would allow customers to make low cost VoIP calls with the Google Voice service, users would not be not required to have an existing account with the service. As per usual Google has no comment to make.

Mobile VoIP connectivity is the one of the most sought after apps for smartphones and now BlackBerry, which is produced by RIM,  is getting in on the action.

Although the Blackberry is a great enterprise smartphone, users who wanted Mobile VoIP must have looked on enviously as competitors like the iPhone and the Android accessed products such as Fring, Truphone and Skype.

But now the Mobile Voip service TringMe can be downloaded by BlackBerry owners as their first native VoIP client.


This third party program allows free phone calls over a Wi-Fi network which saves money and also makes business transactions that much easier, especially now that worldwide conference calling is also on the menu.

More than 100 million smartphone users are expected to be using mobile VoIP connectivity services by the year 2012.

A VoIP calling company has promised to dedicate half of its earnings during the Muslim holy month of Ramadan to Pakistan flood victims.

Tpad is making the generous contribution and it includes all VoIP credit purchases which are made from the Middle East.


Dr. Tariq, Head of Group Marketing at TPad, said: "Tpad calling rates are already among the lowest in the world and we felt it would be appropriate to help the disaster victims.
"The 50% contribution is unprecedented and higher than any comparable donations. We hope customers will get behind this offer to make cheap calls while also aiding others in the process."

Many Tpad customers are from Pakistan and this will allow them to support their compatriots as well as benefit from Tpad’s lowest ever calling rates of just three cents per minute.

Users do not need a PC to use Tpad. The service can also be set up with the popular Nokia mobile phones such as the Nokia E61 and N95 phones which can be easily configured to use the Tpad VoIP or SIP settings.

The donation pledge is valid from August 18 - September 12, 2010, from all Middle Eastern countries. All money goes directly to the Pakistan Floods Appeal UK Charity GT Foundation, Charity Registration Number 1063741.
Tpad also has VoIP videos which make the process of  purchasing of Tpad call credit easier for new users.

Now that an increasing number of consumers are getting 3G subscriptions which allow cheap VoIP calling the price of International Long Distance calls (ILD) will fall.  

At least this is what Sanjit Chatterjee, the Director Global of Marketing and Strategy for Reve Systems of Singapore, believes.

He said: "Cellular customers with 3G subscriptions will be able to make VoIP calls for one-tenth of the cost of ILD calls. This is because of the introduction of mobile VoIP applications by Internet Telephony Service Providers."

Reve Systems produces a 100kb application -  iTel mobile dialer - which allows customers to use mobile VoIP to make cheap ILD calls. It can use a mobile line or a fixed line. The call travels over Wi-Fi or a data line. It then terminates at its destination using the last mile connectivity of the service provider of that phone.

Mr Chatterjee added: "Using our new product calls from India to America which used to cost 10 Rupees per minute will now only cost 1 Rupee per minute. "
The company is expanding worldwide and has partnerships with Blackberry and iPhone among others.

Skype, the market leader for worldwide VoIP services will float $100 million on the Stock Market.
IT Business Edge reported that this was big news for Skype and the VoIP market in general.

In an interview, VoIP blogger Andy Abramson said that while the figure was not a huge investment in financial terms it would allow Skype to do the necessary marketing to turn free service customers into paid customers. While half a billion people use Skype around the world it is thought that only around nine million of these are actually paying for the service.

The IPO, as stock market entry is also known, would also help to tackle one of Skype's main bugbears - regulatory compliance and issues such as E911.
Mr Abramson added that Skype SIP technology would be a big step forward in helping Skype to present enterprise voice while they could "build a massive scalable solution for video conferencing."
Although telecoms companies are not making use of IP telephony, cable companies are and companies such as Truphone and Google Voice are also following Skype into the cloud.

Media giant Time Warner is struggling to market its VoIP services which have seen a marked decline recently.
The world of Voice over Internet Protocol is very competitive and Time Warner is having to compete against telecom network services such as AT&T as well as Skype and Vonage among others.
The numbers are not looking good with experts estimating that the share price could fall by as much as 4%.
On the other hand Time Warner Cable’s digital subscribers grew in the second quarter of 2010.
Yet with sales down, Trefis commented: "The VoIP market is crowded and fiercely competitive. The major telecom providers are using new fiber-optic networks to gain VoIP subscribers via bundled offerings.
"Meanwhile, dedicated VoIP services like Skype have grown tremendously in popularity.
"Time Warner Cable lags behind chief rival Comcast in terms of geographic reach, thereby limiting its ability to leverage growing VoIP demand in the US."
Although they expect Time Warner shares to stabilise by the year 2012, it is thought that they will fall from 17.1% to 15.7% by the end of 2010.