Raketu is busting out some cheap international calling rates through a browser-based application for BlackBerry. To see just how cheap we’re talking, check out their rates page and see what you can get for your area – I know I was pretty happy with the results. Outside of that, Raketu also offers this cool social networking/TV thing called Raketu TV. As for their new voice over IP calling service, head on over to blackberry.raketu.com on your mobile browser to sign up.
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Raketu offers VoIP to BlackBerry
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We just read on Gizmodo about some upcoming Wi-Fi chip from Atheros which will be very forgiving to battery life. The AR6002 claims to be “The World’s Lowest-Power Mobile WLAN Solution” and will take 100 hours to drain a 3.7V, 800mAh battery running on VoIP, and has virtually no drain while the handheld runs in standby. We all know how much stock RIM puts into battery life, so maybe this little sucker will find its way into 8820s, 8120s, and 8320s after first quarter of 2008 when they get released.
Gizmo has been doing a desktop client for SIP VoIP calls, but now they’re moving into mobile territory with a beta version of their Skype-esque software. Keep in mind that this is still in beta and by the sounds of the forums there’s still a lot of ironing out to be done, but who can argue with cheaper long-distance calling? Besides the calls, they’ve also got a meta chat client which lets you IM buddies on Gizmo, MSN, AIM, Yahoo, and Jabber.
While cruising the forums, I found a little interview with director of RIM’s Wi-Fi development, Kevin Oerton. The conversation was mostly broad strokes: why wait so long to bring Wi-Fi to BlackBerry, what technical difficulties there were, that kind of thing. Oerton geared the BlackBerry 8820 as primarily an enterprise device targeted at campus-based companies with large Wi-Fi coverage. Most notably, Oerton says that carriers’ acceptance of VoIP and Wi-Fi handoff has been the primary reason for RIM moving forward with the technology. It’s not a huge leap from there to say that had carriers been more open to it, we would have seen a Wi-Fi BlackBerry sooner. As Oerton also said elsewhere, Wi-Fi is a way of extending the carrier’s reach to areas previously inaccessible. Once again, it’s solidified that RIM serves the carrier.
You might not have heard of Devicescape, since they work largely behind the scenes, but apparently they play an integral role in getting Wi-Fi into BlackBerrys. The folks at Ars Technica got a chance to talk with CEO Dave Fraser, who, in the midst of talking about Skype and their own mobile Wi-Fi connectivity solution dubbed Devicescape Connect, had this to say about the future of VoIP in handhelds.
“[There's] nothing we can announce yet, but within a few months new types of devices will be hitting the market like dual-mode handsets, VoIP phones, game systems, media players, GPS systems, digital cameras… we have designs in all of these areas.”
So VoIP phones are going to be as widespread as Wi-Fi dual-mode handsets? At very least, you’ll be able to subscribe to Devicescape’s service to get access to an alternative to UMA handoff. The interview postulates an enterprise situation where their Wi-Fi solution would be especially helpful; if SIP doesn’t end up coming to the BlackBerry 8820, Devicescape Connect could be the second-best way for enterprise to use Wi-Fi for voice.
Mobile carriers have taken the hint that they need to expand services to better appeal to enterprise customers, as a recent report from Infonetics Research concludes that 80% of carriers plan to offer fixed-mobile convergence plans to corporations by April 2008 at the risk of traffic falling off their network. (FMC involves merging office voice and data services with your handheld – a phone call on a single line can be answered from either office or cellphone.) That being said, enterprise VoIP will supposedly become more and more supported, and with Wi-Fi-enabled BlackBerrys pulling in to harbour, carriers don’t have much choice but to follow suit. Now, if the BlackBerry had session initiation protocol supported, RIM could have a solid foothold to get in on the ever-growing PBX phone integration business that carriers are moving towards. This isn’t to say the UMA handoff that the 8820 uses right now doesn’t have a place in new IP multimedia subsystems, but working with SIP sure would open up some possibilities.
The folks at Reg Hardware managed to get their mitts on a BlackBerry 8820 and aren’t overtly impressed with the Wi-Fi capability. The UMA format of voice handover works fine, depending on your network, but doesn’t jibe with many VoIP clients, let alone how the lack of SIP support gets in the way of corporate PBX phone systems. The reviewer also had some issues getting Google Talk running and BlackBerry Maps while on the Wi-Fi. On top of that, e-mails wouldn’t send if the radio receiver was off. It sounds like if both Wi-Fi and cellular connections are on, things should work hunky-dory, but that’s quite the strain on your battery. Besides Wi-Fi, the BlackBerry 8820 is supposedly packing the microSDHC support which we love so very, very much. Hopefully the shortcomings of Wi-Fi will be ironed out before widespread sales start. It seems that in the haze of voice handoff hype, we forgot that there’s a lot of other things, like e-mail, that we’d like to hand off to Wi-Fi as well.
Seems like today is Wi-Fi day here at BlackBerry Cool. While Thought is asking BlackBerry users whether or not they need a Wi-Fi BlackBerry, Cellular-News is telling us that Wi-Fi phone sales are expected to take a big jump in the next few years.
Although worldwide Wi-Fi phone revenue actually fell 8% to $5 billion in the first quarter of 2007, those crazy cats at Infonetics Research are projecting Wi-Fi will post strong double-digit growth every year through 2010, eventually hitting the magic number of $145 billion. Infonetics offers a two-pronged reason for the uptake: enterprise users want to use Wi-Fi’s corporate LAN and IP PBX capabilities, while consumers want to make use of wifeless broadband and VoIP.
Check out some Wi-Fi statistics from the report after the jump, as well as some more general wireless industry metrics.
Continue reading ‘Wi-Fi phone sales expected to top $145 billion in 2010′
EQO’s been packing BlackBerry support since October, but they’ve recently announced expanded service for newer models, including the Curve. Although EQO used to piggyback on Skype, they’ll have grown into a fully-independent client as of July 31st. They’re only covering North America and Europe for now, so the internationality these guys are harping on is just a wee bit limited. In any case, more options for cheap over-the-pond calling is nothing to sneeze at.
Vonage in partnership with UTStarcom has announced that they will be soon offering Wi-Fi phones in the spring or summer of 2005. I am very doubtful that a pure Wi-Fi phone will work at this time, maybe in a few years where there is a bigger coverage of Wi-Fi hotspots. Other companies like Motorola and Samsung have the right idea by incoporating Wi-Fi capabilities technology into their regular cell phones. We will see if a pure Wi-Fi VoIP handset will work …
