For those who don’t know, Google has just acquired Central 4 months ago. I signed up for their service a few days after the acquisition. Unfortunately, the beta service has not been widely open. Today, I received an email from GrandCentral saying that I can now sign up to their service. Note that the service is still not publicly open yet; so you may not be able to sign up immediately.

What can we do with GrandCentral?

• One number. The first and most used feature is one number for life. Even if later you change your operator, you can keep your number. It’s yours forever.
• RingShare. It supports ringback tone, a feature that allows the caller listen custom sound that we choose.
• PhoneSpam. It is possible to block suspected spam callers.
• Greetings. You can record your personal voicemail greetings to your caller.
• Visual Voice mail. You can visit GrandCentral web site, http://m.grandcentral.com from your mobile device and check voice mail visually.

• and many more.

Bonus Links (other services from Google)

• Google and Your S60 Phones (Part I) – Google Web Services
• Google and Your S60 Phones (Part II) – Google SMS Service
• Google and Your S60 Phones (Part III) – YouTube
• Google and Your S60 Phones (Part IV) – GOOG-411
• Featured Freeware – Google Maps for Mobile
• Featured Freeware – GMail Application For Mobile

As I said earlier, none of the current VoIP applications satisfy met yet. Some of them have issues with usability, especially user interface. Some others are not reliable. Sometimes, they just drive me crazy because it is so difficult to initiate a call. All of them suffer from sound quality.

The last row of the table above contains score for each of the application. Score 1 is the worst and 5 is the best. As you can see, I don?t give score 5 to any of them.

My recommendation:

• If you are looking for SIP application, Truphone may be the choice.
• If your phone does not support SIP but has WiFi, fring may be the choice.
• If you have rather old phone that doesn?t have WiFi/3G, go with iSkoot.
• If IM support is important for you, then go with EQO.

Update (07-Sep-2007): It seems Gizmo has shown a lot of improvements in the latest version. That’s why; I raised Gizmo score.

• Which VoIP Applications To Use – Part I
• Which VoIP Applications To Use – Part II
• Which VoIP Applications To Use – Part III
• Which VoIP Applications To Use – Part IV

EQO

Web site: http://www.eqo.com

Technology: VoIP over cellular

IM support: MSN, Yahoo! Messenger, Google Talk, ICQ, AIM, Jabber

What I like:

• We don?t need WiFi hotspot to make a call. It uses VoIP over cellular technology; so as long as we have cellular connection, we can make a call. This solution does not suitable for us who are in a roaming area though.
• Support caller ID. It means the caller?s number appear on the callee?s phone. Not so many VoIP applications support this cool feature.
• It supports all popular Instant Messaging services.

What I don?t like:

• It is a Java application. This may be just my personal opinion, but I feel that Java applications are slow and require a lot of memory.
• The user interface is a little bit odd. For example, most S60 applications use left soft key for OK and right soft key for Cancel; EQO uses the other way around.
• Searching a contact is difficult. We can only search based on the first character of the person?s name.
• The service is not so reliable. The service number sometimes cannot route my call to the destination although the phone number is correct. EQO guy just contacted me regarding of this issue. The problem was because I switch between my 2 SIM card. It looks like EQO application is bound to our phone number. Surprisingly, I don?t find a way to change my phone number. I have asked EQO guy for explanation. Let?s see what their answer.

fring

Web site: http://www.fring.com

Technology: Proprietary, SIP

IM support: Skype, MSN, Google Talk, Twitter

What I like:

• It is my favorite VoIP application for S60 platform so far.
• It supports Skype and SIP. It is still very rare that VoIP applications support both of them.

What I don’t like:

• The user interface is a little bit complicated. For example, there are several icons at the top with Skype, Google Talk and MSN logos. My first impression was that we should be able to switch between those icons. In fact, it is not possible. Another example, it is difficult to find the phone number from the contacts list. We can only see the phone number if we select Call menu.
• No support of Yahoo! Messenger.
• Cannot use loudspeaker during call.
• Sometimes it is difficult to make a call. For some unknown reasons, the call is terminated immediately.

Compatible devices: S60 2nd, 3rd Edition, Nokia Nseries, Nokia Eseries.

Update (29-Jun-2007): Update one item at EQO review after EQO guy contacted me.

Bonus Links

• Which VoIP Applications To Use – Part I
• Which VoIP Applications To Use – Part III
• Which VoIP Applications To Use – Part IV
• Which VoIP Applications To Use – Part V

Gizmo

Web site: http://www.gizmoproject.com/

Technology: SIP, Jabber (for IM)

IM support: Skype, MSN, Yahoo! Messenger

What I like:

• It is integrated nicely into the built-in S60 Contacts application. No need separate application. Since it is integrated into S60 Contacts application, synchronization is not needed.

What I don?t like:

• It takes too long initiate a voice call. Sometimes, the call cannot be even initiated.
• Setting up the IM services is very complicated. It uses text console. Some end users may find it very difficult to use.

Update (07-Sep-2007): The latest version of Gizmo has shown improvements. I don’t see the problem with “initiating a voice call takes too long”.

iSkoot

Web site: http://www.iskoot.com/

Technology: VoIP over cellular

IM support: Skype

What I like:

• Since it uses VoIP over cellular technology, we do not need WiFi connection to make a phone call. Again, this solution is not suitable for us who are in a roaming area.
• The user interface is pretty simple. This has drawback too because it does not support many features, such as call log.
• Suitable for a Skype user. You don?t need to setup another ?call-out? account. Simply use your SkypeOut.

What I don’t like:

• No support of popular IM services, such as Yahoo! Messenger, MSN, Google Talk or Jabber.
• Cannot import contacts from the phone book.
• No caller ID support. Although it uses cellular to make a phone call; the caller’s number does not show up on the callee’s phone.

Bonus Link

• Which VoIP Applications To Use – Part I
• Which VoIP Applications To Use – Part II
• Which VoIP Applications To Use – Part IV
• Which VoIP Applications To Use – Part V

Now, I would like to discuss Truphone only. I was planning to discuss barablu; unfortunately I couldn?t make a single call using barablu. The application crashes very often on my phone.

Truphone

Web site: http://www.truphone.com/

Technology: SIP

IM support: Google Talk (limited)

What I like:

• The application is integrated into S60 Contacts application. No need separate application. It also means contacts synchronization is not needed.
• Initiating a call is very fast, compared to other VoIP applications.
• The call is free to many countries, including US, UK and Singapore. I am no sure until when they will offer the service for free.

What I don’t like:

• No support to IM services.

Update (29-Jun-2007): One of barablu representatives just contacted me. They said that they are going to release a new version of their application, which supposed to be more stable, some time next week. Besides that, they said that they are experiencing technical problem last Tuesday.

Bonus Links

• Which VoIP Applications To Use – Part I
• Which VoIP Applications To Use – Part II
• Which VoIP Applications To Use – Part III
• Which VoIP Applications To Use – Part V

As an S60 user, we may ask, which VoIP application to use. I have tried several VoIP applications for S60. Unfortunately none of the really satisfy me. The problems are mostly usability or quality. Hope that this situation is getting better in the near future.

In the next two postings, I would like to share my opinion about several VoIP applications for S60, i.e.:

• barablu
• EQO
• fring
• Gizmo
• iSkoot
• Truphone

There are some more VoIP applications for S60, SoonR; but I won?t cover them.

There are basically several technologies for mobile VoIP, i.e.:

• VoIP over cellular. This technology utilizes standard cellular network, such as GSM or CDMA, to make VoIP call. The idea comes from the fact that many mobile phones do not have enough processing power. Besides that, not so many phones have WiFi yet. EQO, iSkoot and SoonR are examples of application that use VoIP over cellular.
• SIP. SIP is the most popular standard for VoIP. There are a couple of S60 devices that support SIP, for example Nokia E61 and Nokia N80. We can expect more and more S60 phones will come with SIP support. Gizmo, fring and Truphone are examples of client applications that use SIP.
• Proprietary protocol. Skype is probably the most popular technology in this area. Although there have been rumors saying that Skype is coming to S60, it is still not available yet. However, there are already some applications that support Skype-like technology, for example barablu. fring can even make a call using Skype network.

Bonus Links

• Which VoIP Applications To Use – Part II
• Which VoIP Applications To Use – Part III
• Which VoIP Applications To Use – Part IV
• Which VoIP Applications To Use – Part V