Skype in strategic partnership with Nokia

Skype announced recently at the Mobile World Congress in Barcelona their strategic partnership with Nokia. This partnership will make skype mobile available on Nokia high end Nseries running the symbian S60 operating system. Nokia users will be offered a pre-loaded out-of-the-box skype calls , instant messages and more via both 3G and WiFi.
In this case skype will be fully integrated into the phone's address book which means making skype call will be really easy. Instead of skype being a standalone application in the phone as is the case now, it will be an integral part of the phone's operating system.
This i believe will increase the use of skype among nokia Nseries users because the full integration of skype with their phone will really make using the application more attractive to them. Skype has successfully entered into this type of partnership with 3 and INQ1 in the past.
As from the 3rd quarter of 2009 skype will come pre-installed in new Nokia N97 devices and owners of existing Nokia N97 will be able get skype functionality through a firmware upgrade.

OnSIP VoIP Service named winner of small bussiness computing magazine award

Leading business VoIP service OnSIP has been named winner of Small Business Computing magazine’s “Excellence in Technology 2008” award in the VoIP category for its OnSIP services platform.
Writing about VoIP services in its Jan. 28 report on awards selected by readers in 20 categories, Small Business Computing said:
“This year's top spot goes to Junction Networks OnSIP, a hosted PBX service that not only lets you pay-as-you-go, it charges you based how much you use, not by licensed seats or extensions. A simple portal interface makes it easy for you to add extensions, configure call-forwarding rules, create call groups and more.
“For companies with local and 800 numbers in foreign countries, OnSIP's Inbound Bridge service lets callers use phone menus, transfer calls, put callers on hold, etc. Without the bridge, inbound callers would be disconnected when they tried to navigate the menus or transfer to specific extensions.”
Junction Networks President Rob Wolpov said the company is justifiably proud of the Small Business Computing honor.
“Recognition like this, coming from readers of Small Business Computing, gives all of us at Junction Networks a tremendous lift,” Wolpov said. “It’s a huge validation of the investment and development path we’ve been on for the last three years to make our OnSIP services for small businesses easy to use and feature rich, and you can’t beat our price for the value we deliver.”
Wolpov added that the Small Business Computing award is like a double win because runner-up to Junction Networks in VoIP services was Microsoftâ Corp.’s Response Point™ communications software, and Microsoft had previously chosen Junction Networks as a preferred SIP trunking and gateway service provider for Response Point Service Pack 1.

Boingo unveils Boingo labs site and forum

Boingo is unveiling its new Boingo Labs site – http://labs.boingo.com – for Mobile World Congress. The site will include alpha and beta versions of upcoming software releases which can be downloaded by the general public.
The purpose of the site is to give consumers a chance to “peek under the hood” of what Boingo engineers are working on – everything from proof of concept trials to beta code that is about to ship. It will include member forums, a weblog, and download options of new software.
“Boingo Labs is a way for our users to be able to test the newest versions of Boingo software – for both laptops and smartphones – before the final versions come onto the market,” said Niels Jonker, chief technology officer, Boingo Wireless. “This is a great way for our more technologically savvy users to be able to get the latest and greatest beta versions, and help make Boingo a better experience for all.”
The site will be launching with the alpha version of Boingo Mobile for Android; future updates will include new versions of Boingo Mobile for Windows Mobile, as well as other smartphone platforms.
Boingo is also announcing its new partnerships with Tuitalk (http://www.tuitalk.com) and Qik (http://www.qik.com) at Mobile World Congress.

SmartVoIP offers free international voip calls and SIP support

Betamax is at it again rolling out one voip service after the other using all different kind of names. Just barely two weeks after we reported the launch of voipax, betamax has launch another voip service nicknamed SmartVoip. Unlike voipax they declare on their website that smartvoip is a service of betamax gmbH & Co.. Since we all know a lot already about Betamax voip products, i will concentrate on features that a peculiar to SmartVoip.
In SmartVoip the free destinations has been reduced to about 20 countries and other popular destinations that used to be free now cost 1 cent per minute. Rates to other countries are still quite low. Audio quality is really good and phone to phone calls are conected without delay. One important feature of smartvoip is its support SIP which means you can configure the service on your SIP enabled VoIP Phone. The SmartVoip SIP settings are as follows:
SIP port : 5060
Registrar : sip.smartvoip.com
Proxy server : sip.smartvoip.com
Outbound proxy server : leave empty
Account name : your SmartVoip username
Password : your SmartVoip password
Display name/number : your SmartVoip username or voipnumber
Stunserver (option) : stun.smartvoip.com
Like is the case with all Betamax products you have to decide which is the best for you use based on your calling requirements. If smartVoip will better serve you than other betamax product you are currently using, you can try it out at www.smartvoip.com

Free.fr offers unlimited free calls to 97 countries.

France based provided Free.fr is offering free unlimited calls to 97 countries to those who subscribe to their all inclusive package for just 30 euros per month. This package include Internet, Telephone and Digital TV which is a good deal on its own for 30 euros and the addition of free calls to 97 destinations makes it a great deal for those living in France.
Another reason why this is great deal is that, Free.fr is a big telecom company in france with the capability to handle large volume of calls which ensures reliability and customer support. In the past we have had small voip startups that promised free calls to large number of destinations but were unable to deliver as the volume of the calls grew.
The 97 destinations include all the popular destinations that are mostly offered for free by most providers and other countries such as India, South Africa etc. So if live in france and makes lots of international calls this might be one of the best deals for you if not the best. More information available at Free.fr