Blog entries for RogerB

Skype's Grandfather - The oldest VoIP Internet Phone

RogerB

Almost 14 years ago the first commercially available "Internet Phone" was presented at the German IT fair CEBIT in 1994 by the company Vocaltec and released for sale to the public on the 15 February 1995 for $69.
This little application was way ahead of its time and apparently worked pretty well on 33.6 dial-up connections using Windows or Mac - something hard to believe in our broadband age.
All credit goes to the pioneer developers of this software, who without real [...]

The 100 Oldest Domains in the world

RogerB

Although this list of the 100 oldest domains in the world has nothing to do with our irregular VoIP blog we thought it was so interesting that we would publish this with a few modifications after we stumbled upon the original list on spdcc.com (the 61th oldest domain).
It is amazing that many domains (to be exact 16) are parked domains and/or inactive. Are the owners not aware of the value of these domains?
The Oldest dot com domains
Rank Date Domain S [...]

Duka Dial - more free calls to the US and Canada

RogerB

A few weeks ago we came across earthcaller.com offering free VoIP calls to US and Canadian numbers.
Now the developers ( Jaduka.com) have launched a new web activated service called Duka Dial offering the same free calls to the US and Canada. It is mainly targeted at US and Canadian residents as you require an incomming North American number to use the service, but there are ways and means to get hold of a free US number and forward this number to your current phone where ever you are [...]

Terrasip reduces VoIP rates by 10%

RogerB

Terrasip.com announced today that they would be reducing their alreaday dirt cheap call rates by a further 10%. This would make them one of the cheapest VoIP services in the world. As an added bonus calls to 50 destinations around the world are free of charge provided you have a balance in your account of 0.01 US$ or more.
The Free destinations are for example: Argentina, Brazil, Canada, China, Germany, India, Italy, Spain, Switzerland, Portugal, Poland, Russia, United Kingdom, USA and m [...]

ooVoo - Free Phone Calls and Video Conferencing

RogerB

oovoo.com have just released version 1.5 of their high quality video conferencing software. As a promotion until March 1, 2008 all users who download ooVoo 1.5 will receive two hours of free outbound calls on ooVoo to any landline or mobile phone in the U.S. and Canada from anywhere in the world.
Currently more than 1 million video conversations take place on ooVoo every month, and now users can record a face-to-face "reunion" with friends and family members from anywhere in [...]

The worlds 80 most popular VoIP Services - according to Alexa.com

RogerB

With over 1500 VoIP providers worldwide we thought it was about time that we have a look at the popularity of these VoIP services and identify the most successfull (at least according to Alexa.com). Most succesfull in this case means the sites with the most traffic and not the most financially viable.
From our VoIP directory of 1500 VoIP providers from around the world we identified the 80 most visited sites and ranked them according the the data from Alexa.com. We only considered pure VoIP [...]

Betamax Scam Update

RogerB

A few weeks ago we published an article on the growing growing perceived credit card scam regarding the Betamax group of companies' VoIP services.
Betamax have contacted us and have provided the following email to contact them with your complaints:
myvoipprovider@betamax.com and alternatively star@betamax.com .
Should your credit card be compromosed in any way please dispute the charges with your card provider or bank and cancel the card immeditely. Most likely you will have [...]

Betamax VoIP Credit - Scam - Fraud - Cheating

RogerB

These are the heading of emails or phone calls we get on an almost daily basis from users of one of the Betamax group of companies VoIP providers.

If you use VoIP to make phone calls you have probably come across at least one of them. Just in case you are not aware, the Betamax group is made up of at least the following websites:
- www.voipbuster.com, www.sipdiscount.com, www.voipcheap.com, www.voipcheap.co.uk, www.netappel.fr, www.sparvoip.de, www.voipstunt.com, www.internetcalls [...]

Voipax - free VoIP calls to 40 destinations

RogerB

Voipax is a relatively new VoIP service, based in Germany, offering free VoIP calls to over 40 destinations worldwide.
Launched towards to the end of 2007 Voipax already appear to have quite a following with their "Free VoIP" feature.
Just downloading their SIP based softphone client and registering will entitle you to make 60 minutes of free phone calls to any of the following "free" destinations.
Free Destinations
Andorra Landline, Austral [...]

Free VoIP Service In Canada

RogerB

Well the service is not free for ever and only avaialble for 12 months for new suscribers (BYOD ATA or Softphone) and only to certain areas in Canada.
Toronto 647
Montreal 514
Ottawa 613
Vancouver 778
London 519
There are hardly any strings attached except for the following:
1. Users are obliged to write a small review about their current service with Acanac on any Voip or DSL related review web site.
2. Users must include a link to their review in [...]

Free Phone Calls to the USA and Canada

RogerB

We came across this VoIP service today offering free PC to Phone calls to the USA and Canada. Although we have not tried the service ourselves there seem to be no strings attached. Their site offers a very simple interface and no account is required for the free calls and no hefty software to download.
It appears that this service has been going for a few months now and recently Earthcaller.com started offering calls to other destinations as well for pretty decent rates. For example calls [...]

171 VoIP services worldwide shut down in 2007

RogerB

2007 has been a devastating year for many hopefull VoIP services. In a follow up of our market research carried out 12 months ago in 2006 (85 VoIP services shut down), this year saw a substantial escalation of retail VoIP services shutting down resulting in the death of 171 VoIP providers in the period November 2006 to October 2007.

The exponential growth of the VoIP industry in the past 3-4 years is now leading to an exponential growth in fatalities within the industry. The ba [...]

WiFi Tools for VoIP and Surfing

RogerB

A great summary of websites and tools from around the web to find and utilize WiFi hotspots as well as making those free VoIP calls.
BT Openzone - Users can surf broadband internet with their Wi-Fi enabled laptops, in cafes, hotels and other public places in UK, Ireland and other parts of world.
DeviceScape - Users can connect mobile devices to hotspots and Wi-Fi networks.
Free Wireless Internet and Broadband Internet - Directory of Free Wi-Fi locations all over Australia.
[...]

Sick and Tired of Skype

RogerB

No we are not sick and tired of Skype, just extremely tired of seeing thousands of articles flying around the internet in the past week trashing Skype in every conceivable manner.
We are not even going to bother to list any of these articles , a quick search on Yahoo or Google news will reveal 2699 article postings alone on Google News on the evening of the 21 August 2007!!
All these so called doomsday experts comming out of the woodwork now to add their 2 cent opinion on what appears to [...]

VoIP Provider Sunrocket in financial difficulties

RogerB

A few days ago, on the 29 June 2007 to be exact, Gigaom reported rumors that VoIP provider Sunrocket were planning to layoff 40 of their staff.
It was already common knowledge in the Industry that Sunrocket were no longer paying their affiliates and some affiliates reported that they had not received commissions since March of this year.
Due to the non payment Sunrocket have received 4 months of free advertising and now Linkshare, their affiliate manager, has placed Sunrockets' affi [...]

allfreecalls.net relaunches as yak4ever.com

RogerB

Until a few months ago allfreecalls.net used to allow unlimited free calls to landlines in around 30-40 countries around the world. They managed this through a loophole in the US system by cashing in on phone subsidies from "rural" states in the US.
Now, after being shutdown by AT&T in February 2007 they have just relaunched their service under the name yak4ever.com. The difference is now that all users have to register to become"members of the club" and have to prov [...]

Stanaphone - One of the oldest VoIP services hits the bucket

RogerB

Oh dear - when one of the oldest and most respected VoIP providers decides the shut down their services then one should start wondering.

Early April 2007 Stanaphone.com closed their doors for new retail customers and may start focusing on the business market instead - that is if you believe the brief statement on their website.

It is not an easy market to be in and with international call rates dropping monthly any new VoIP services will require deep, very deep pockets or [...]

SMSDiscount launched by Betamax - SMS for �0.01

RogerB

This week Betamax in Germany launched yet another online VoIP service, adding to the previous 13 or 14 services already available (Voipbuster,VoIPCheap etc) - SMSDiscount.com .

Whilst this is no longer a newsworthy event, this time Betamax have added a dirtcheap web based SMS service. Using SMSDiscount it is now possible to send SMS's to many destinations around the world (around 50-60 countries) for 0.01 Euro. This is cheap, very cheap in any language and will most certainly caus [...]

250 Alternatives to Vonage in the US and Canada

RogerB

Will Vonage be around in a few months time? They may have chunks of cash stacked away, but this will not last forever if their legal battle with Verizon draws out for any protracted period of time.

Vonage customers need not be worried. There are so many alternative VoIP services to choose from in the US and Canada ( Selecting from over 250 VoIP providers is not an easy task) that making the right choice is probably going to cause more of a headache. It is probably best to contact a [...]

Betamax VoIP Credit Cologne - Fraudulent credit card charges

RogerB

The company Betamax in Cologne, Germany is a Holding company for various VoIP providers (* see below) and you will most likely to have found this post by searching for the following keywords on Google or Yahoo:

Betamax VoIP Credit Cologne

Over the past few months we at My VoIP Provider have received numerous complaints from users reporting fraudulent charges on their credit cards and in all cases "Betamax VoIP Credit Cologne" was listed on their statements. We rec [...]