Fring – VoIP for Pda
Talk and chat for free with fring mobile voip. Connect to Skype, Google Talk, MSN Messenger, Twitter & SIP contacts from anywhere.
“fring” is a free software program and service for Windows Mobile 5, 6 and Symbian phones that uses VoIP to allow you to make cheap and free calls and instant messages. If you’re looking for a way to bring down the cost of making a phone call, fring may be the solution you’ve been seeking.
It’s a unique offering that for the first time brings together connections to Skype, SIP, GoogleTalk, MSN Messenger, plus the sub-blogging service Twitter. You can choose whatever SIP service you like, including the GizmoProject, VoipCheap, VoipStunt, Free World DialUp and others, and even use SIP on fring with otherwise non-SIP enabled devices. These services come together on your mobile handset to give you the best possible chances to keep your phone costs low.
The arrangement works over over 3G, GPRS and Wi-Fi networks regardless of your carrier. All you need is your carrier’s data plan or a hotspot and you’;re good to go to make a free or low cost VoIP call. It allows you to conserve you airtime and save it for circumstances when no Wi-Fi connection is available. In addition, fring to fring calls are entirely free which makes buddy-to-buddy communications a snap. If you have a lot of friends, you’ll love fring.
To begin a conversation, you simply pick a contact and hit the green button, or go to options and then click either call or chat to begin a communication session. Does it get much easier than that?
fring allows you to organize all your IM and phone contacts in one place and rather than using SMS, you can chat freely using Messenger. For $30 per year you can use your SkypeOut account to make free calls to any phone in North America and low cost international calls.
If you have a lot of IM contacts, you can not only see when your friends are online, you can also see if they’re typing or not. It makes the chat feel more like a real conversation instead of waiting in limbo as they type their responses.
I’ve been a Skype user for years now and have all my phone numbers and contact information located there, so fring is a big plus in helping me to keep all this information together and make it available when I use the other services. The beauty of Skype (besides VoIP) is that it’s very much like GMail in that, your information does not exist on your device. You can access it from anywhere and on any device including your laptop, so it’s always available no matter what circumstances you find yourself in. All you need is an Internet connection and it’s always handy. That’s a big advantage for a person on the go and fring is a perfect tool to get the most out of the security and convenience this offers.
The beauty of the chat feature of fring as compared to SMS, is that you can view your entire chat conversation in real-time on your handset and reduce the high accumulated costs of SMS. However, fring does have some annoying aspects. Such as when you have 4 contacts named simply Joe and there’s no way to distinguish them. It’s a real oversight and needs to be corrected. Fortunately, it should only be a problem if you have too many people with the same identifying name on your list.
I laud the creators of fring for their efforts to create a different means for people to talk at much lower costs. The cellphone industry needs to be reigned in and taken to task for not providing cost effective services for people and businesses to use. Products like fring (if they become widely enough used) can put pressure on these companies and force them to lower the cost of phone calls for everyone. Hopefully, enough people will adopt fing, and services like it, quickly so that this can become a reality sooner rather than later.
VoIP Phones : Drawbacks You Need To Be Aware Of
Being one of the best ways to cut cost on international calling, Voice Over Internet Protocol (VoIP) is gradually becoming very popular all over the world. As using VoIP phones lets you avail the facility of International calling at price what you pay for local charges, it helps you saving a lot of monthly bill each month. For many like businessmen having their business abroad, MNCs, etc. VoIP solution is a boon. Despite several of advantages you avail through VoIP, there are some drawbacks attached with it. And knowing it can help you to use the VoIP service with greater ease.
The biggest drawback coming in the way of VoIP solution is its dependency on the the Internet connection. Suppose you have your connection down due to some reasons, you will probably fail to make calls. With dial up connection, you can make local calls, but if the broadband connection is down, you can’t make calls to any international location. Thus, any disorder in your Internet connection may keep you off making calls. Even speed and quality of your Internet connection are important factors enabling you smooth calling through VoIP phones. If your connection has got poor quality or speed, you may not be able to make any call.
The another important shortcoming of VoIP solution is its reliance upon power supply. Usually, a PSTN phone will keep working even the power goes off. Contrary to it, VoIP phones stops working if the power is off. This way, you may suffer some loses if your making calls are very important. Moreover, as the entire process of VoIP solution is attached to Internet, it may be infected by Internet viruses. Besides, Internet hacking is also one of the severe problems threatening the entire process of VoIP. While you are using this service, it is important that you consider such issues. It may help you being better prepared to meet with some shortcomings gifted by VoIP.
Is Skype a Good Corporate Tool?
The new age of information technology is strong in all corporations, and people understand that there are fast and easy methods of communication that haven’t been available before. One of the most modern being the Instant Messaging tool, in any form possible. And the most popular form of the day is Skype.
Furthermore, the modern corporate employees view the ability to use Skype at work as their constitutional right, not a corporate privilege.But let’s observe the pitfalls of Skype usage in corporate communication:
- Skype is designed to be an Internet communication tool – This means that each SkypeClient MUST connect to a SuperNode somewhere on the internet
- The Skype protocol is designed to enable communication between users via possibly blocking paths. It does this by using SuperNodes and Routing Nodes to transfer messages when direct client-to-client communication is impossible
- The Skype protocol is propriatery and encrypted, so there is no way to control or audit the content of the messages.
- Again through a characteristic of the Skype protocol, any Skype client can choose to become a Routing Node, potentially offering it’s services to any client on the Internet.
- Skype is designed as internet telephony protocol, and the voice functionality cannot be blocked. Using the voice functionality can cause unnecessary bandwidth usage and potential problems on the data network
- The Skype client is closed source, and any claims of the encryption algorithms used in it have to be taken for granted, since there is no way to confirm them. So, nobody really knows whether Skype or anyone else can eavesdrop. Even if all claims are true, the usual problem is not with the algorithm, but with it’s implementation. Bear in mind that one of iPhone hacker unlock mechanisms used a bug in the RSA encryption algorithm.
- The Skype binary is unnaturally large, most of it is encrypted, and it contains numerous controls and hooks that are designed to prevent an active debugging tool to reverse engineer it. Also, it contains intentional garbage code and padding designed to confuse any dissecting of the file. This mess of a binary is an excellent place to hide an undesirable element like backdoor, trojan or spyware tool, which would not be easily detectable through standard spyware tools.
- All passwords of the Skype users are kept on a centralized Skype Authentication Server. Skype claims that all passwords are irreversibly hashed. This fact as well as the hashing algorithm are impossible to confirm. This may not be a problem for private use, but in a corporate environment a large number of employees use the same password for all their business applications, so it is quite possible that they will use the same password for Skype, potentially releasing this password in the wild.
So, here is a summary of the pitfalls of using skype:
- All users must be allowed to connect to some servers on the internet to log on to the Skype network. This connection can be used to piggy-back an attack through the authenticated outbound session.
- No possibility to perform any audit on the communication – a corporate must!
- No possibility to block voice, thus opening the potential for bandwidth hogging
- No guarantees on what is within the Skype code
- No guarantees on Skype passwords
- No guarantees on Skype encryption
One must stress that these pitfalls mostly affect the organization as a whole (SysAdmins, NetAdmins, Security, Internal Audit et.c.), while the individual users are usually very happy to be served by Skype.
It is my strong opinion that the goal of easier corporate communication, is not well served by Skype
To address this goal, the corporation should implement an internal corporate messaging tool that has the following functions:
- Possibility for fine grained activation/deactivation of available services (text, voice, video, file transfer)
- Possibility for audit of both administrative events (logon, logoff) as well as messages
- Fully internal infrastructure, thus eliminating the requirement for internet access.
Also, with the advent of IP Telephony in the corporate world, the corporation should decide on a strategic selection of product that will complement the IP Telephony, not compete or conflict with it.
