telephony

T-Mobile USA said Thursday it's testing a new Internet telephony service in Dallas and Seattle that will replace consumers' wireline home phone service.

Subscribers will be able to connect any regular home telephone to a T-Mobile router that will send calls over the Internet much the same way as services like Vonage operate. The service costs $10 a month plus taxes and fees for unlimited domestic local and long distance calls. But customers also have to be signed up for a T-Mobile wireless service costing at least $39.99 a month. The required router, which also provides access to … Read more

Sprint Nextel and Verizon Communications both see an opportunity to make a buck on their IP telephony patents after successfully suing Vonage Holdings last year.

On Thursday, Sprint Nextel said in a U.S. District Court in Wichita, Kan., that it was suing four small phone companies. Sprint alleges that Nuvox Communication, BroadVOX Holdings, Big River Telephone, and Paetec Communications are infringing on six of its patents.

Those patents, part of a larger portfolio of patents that cover voice over IP technology owned by Sprint, are the same ones used to successfully sue Vonage. The two companies eventually settled the … Read more

The "dial-around" phone service, Jajah, just launched a new service that lets you access it without going near a PC.

Dial-around services usually work by asking you what number you want to call. Then the service will make two calls, one to that number and one to your phone. The services then connect the two phones via their own VOIP networks. Calling rates on dial-around services are low since traditional telephone networks are only used to make two local phone calls.

Jajah's latest trick is that it can assign a local Jajah Direct number (local to you) … Read more

Start-up IP telephony providers Jajah and Jangl are teaming up to take on the competition, the companies said Thursday.

The companies are part of a new generation of voice-over IP providers that have crept up recently hoping to replicate the success story of Skype, which was bought by eBay two years ago for $2.6 billion. The market is already crowded with dozens of these small players. Typically at this stage of the game, start-ups are too busy duking it out against each to forge partnerships, but executives at Jajah and Jangl say it makes sense for them to partner … Read more

Talkster has been getting some buzz from fellow CTIA-goers. The new international dialing service is offering free global calls in exchange to listening to a few ads. The VoIP-based, phone-centered service feels like the perfect Skype (download) and Pincity mashup. It's free like Skype, and also relies on a VoIP backbone, but like Pincity, Talkster makes use of local numbers to initiate mobile and landline calls.

It sure sounds irresistible, and I've read a few glowing reviews, but in actuality it's a bit tricky. Talkster members enter their number and the number they're calling, and Talkster assigns a new, local number for callers on each end of the line. Say what?

If I want to call my sister in England, I enter both our phone numbers and receive a third number in my 415 area code. That's my permanent number for the phone number I just entered. My sister will get a number for me too. If I want to catch her at home, work, and on her cell phone for free, I'll need to enter each phone number and get three separate Talkster lines.

It wouldn't be so confusing if that were all, but of course it's not. Initiating a call isn't merely the result of dialing one of my Talkster-issued local numbers. There's an order to the calling system. Let's say I initiate the call to my darling sib using a Talkster phone number. I dial the appointed number in my area code and she picks up. But we can't talk yet. She first has to hang up while I stay on the line. My sister then quickly locates her local number, and while Talkster servers do some speedy math to connect our loose ends together, we both listen to an ad. Or that's the plan as soon as Talkster's ad deals are in place.… Read more

NoiseFree VoIP has just launched a fresh all-software solution to those often noisy VoIP calls. Skype, Yahoo Messenger with Voice, and Google Talk are great ways to save money on long distance, but if you're calling anywhere near civilization, you're bound to get interference. A noisy line can undo the advantage of free Internet calls.

Until December 31, 2007, NoiseFree VoIP is offering a free beta of its noise-canceling software to registered users. I gave it a go at CTIA (coverage), and was impressed with the demo. There was noticeable improvement in call quality when I toggled the … Read more

Despite SunRocket's recent implosion, venture capitalists are hot to invest in voice over IP start-ups.

A company called Jaxtr announced Tuesday that it's raised $10 million. The company, which hopes to emulate the success of eBay's Skype, actually attracted some of the same investors as Skype. Draper Richards, Draper Fisher Jurvetson and Mangrove Capital, all early stage investors in Skype, contributed to Jaxtr's first round of funding.

Jaxtr is one of a growing number of IP telephony start-ups hoping to make it big. These companies are leaning more toward Skype's business model as a complementary … Read more

One of the best choices for online telephony for Mac just got better. The latest Skype update pushes the program to version 2.6, adding a call transfer feature and some new chat options so you can stay in touch with friends and family around the world. Skype has always been one of my favorite apps for its familiar chat-like interface and the ability to talk to users around the world for free (provided they're also using Skype). For a little extra money, you can sign up with Skype and make calls to anyone in the world (including land … Read more

Vonage may finally be catching a lucky break. A Supreme Court decision handed down on Monday may help save Vonage in its patent infringement appeal against Verizon.

On Tuesday, Vonage asked the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit in Washington, D.C., to send the patent infringement case back to the lower court to be retried based on the Supreme Court's decision in the KSR International v. Teleflex case.

The court's decision, handed down on Monday, implied that the patent system has tilted too far toward protecting patents that in many cases were filed for … Read more