Roland Tanglao's Weblog

Truphone-ing to South Africa was a success on the N80i but the quality wasn't as good as my call to Holland. There was no echo but there was a noticeable lag between the time I spoke and the time it was understood at the other end and vice versa.

After the call the N80i "crashed". In quotation marks because the phone still worked but it wouldn't re-acquire my cellphone provider, Fido. Instead of displaying my provider, it displayed nothing (as if the SIM had been deactivated or I was in offline mode).

A bug in the SIP stack on the N80i, a bug in TruPhone, a bug somewhere else in my S60 V3 firmware manifesting itself (I am running V 4.0632.0.38 13-10-2006 RM-92 Nokia N80 (01)) ?

I fixed it by rebooting the phone!

Just spoke with my sister in Holland on the N80i using TruPhone. Crystal Clear quality. Our 10 minute and 33 second call cost $USD 0.37 I can see how this can get addictive. Great quality (better than Skype - sounded like a local call), easy to make calls and with a familiar phone interface unlike Skype!

Hmmm who needs a limited device like the Sony Mylo when you have easy to use VoIP with the N80i and Truphone. Don't forget too that the N80i has the flexibility and openness of Series 60 along with many 3rd party apps unlike the closed Mylo!

Need to try lots more calls e.g. to South Africa and China but Truphone feels like a killer app for WiFi phones!

Truphone was easy to setup (Alec Saunders has a nice post about it) if you are familiar with WiFi on series 60 phones (getting much closer to something normal people can use!) and I verified it works with my land line. Nokia put the VoIP software in all of your WiFi phones not just the N80i!

I encountered a minor bug when trying to add $5 USD to my account with PayPal (PayPal worked but the redirect back to Truphone's site failed! Cheese Louise, it's 2006 why is ecommerce so hard!) but other than that it looks like a solid product.

Now the real test: cheap calls to Holland, and maybe even China and South Africa.

If you want to check it out call +13604880717 or better yet get an E61 or N80i and call me for free via Truphone!

My free trial N80i with built in Sip VoIP client that supports Gizmo was delivered today but nobody was home so I have to pick it up tomorrow. I can't wait to try Gizmo over WiFi! Very cheap phone calls to my relatives in Holland wherever there is WiFi. Yes! And 3 mega pixel camera and quad band so I'll have ShoZu over EDGE again! Yes!

This is cool. Wish I had to time to play with this!

From Easy PABX - voip-info.org (via Alec Saunders).:

QUOTE

With Easy PABX you can create your own virtual PABX online in just minutes. Easy PABX is based on Asterisk and best of all - it's completely free.

END QUOTE

Remember my predictions are worth what you pay for them :-)

Prediction number 1: There will be a usable (for early adopters, power users and geeks only unfortunately, the one for "humans" will come in 2007) Voice over WiFi client (using Skype or SIP) on a WiFi phone like the N91. All hail the start of the route around the mobile carriers.