sipgate offers VoIP service for iPhone
San Francisco-based sipgate, Inc. is offering software for your jailbroken iPhone to make and receive VoIP calls using any SIP-compatible VoIP service. The service appears to be similar to those offered by Fring and PhoneGnome.
The service is in early beta stage, with several caveats mentioned on its FAQ page. You won't be alerted to incoming calls unless the software is running, which drains the battery with some quickness. The company also promises revisions for the upcoming App Store. It's unclear if the setup suffers the same kind of delay and echo problems that other VoIP solutions do.
Plus, it may eat your firstborn. Seriously. It says it right there.
If you're interested in testing out the product, sipgate is also throwing in 111 free minutes if you sign up for their own VoIP service.
The software is free, and requires iPhone firmware 1.1.4.
Thanks, Martin!
![TUAW [Cafepress]](http://www.blogsmithmedia.com/www.tuaw.com/media/tuaw-cafepress-promo.png)
Reader Comments (Page 1 of 1)
Christian A. Stroemmen said 11:42AM on 6-04-2008
Eh… Didn't Jobs specifically say no VOIP on the App Store?
Reply
Jerid said 11:53AM on 6-04-2008
I think it was "no VOIP over Edge." Wifi's a different story though.
donnacha said 12:15PM on 6-04-2008
Don't get too excited:
Sipgate is such a perfect example of a company that should concentrate on their existing product before venturing forth into exotic new areas. I've had a Sipgate account for almost 3 years and, although it is a "good enough" service, there have been no improvements or new features added to the core service during that entire time.
Probably their best feature is that they send voice messages left for you to your email address. Unfortunately, they send it as a WAV files, so, if you are using any sort of webmail account, such as Gmail, you can't simply play it right there, in the page, using Flash. Instead you have to open a WAV-playing application such as Winamp or iTunes, simply to listen to what will probably be two seconds of someone hanging up their phone.
A year ago, I wrote to them suggesting that they at least give the option to have them sent as MP3 files, so that Gmail users could play them immediately, right there within the page. This was there reply:
"thank you for your suggestion.
We will forward it to the responsible engineers."
I figured there was a good chance it would get adopted, after all it would only involve adding an MP3 encoder to their server and adding a few lines of code to their web interface, a tiny amount of work for a significant increase in usability.
Never happened. Sipgate's service has remained unchanged until this unexpected foray into the world of jail-broken iPhones. I own an iPhone and am excited by the many possibilities but, seriously, Sipgate should do their investors a favor, get off this band-wagon and focus on improving their core service.
Reply
Thilo Salmon said 1:02PM on 6-04-2008
Donnacha,
being with sipgate I am the first to admit the we have not introduced
many new features, but focused strictly on ironing out bugs.
We felt it would be better to design the next release of sipgate
rather than patching up the current interface. While this looks like
our development has stalled, we have all the more features lined up
to be released later this year.
sipgate for iPhone is really just a technology preview right now.
All the best,
Thilo
Dave said 12:31PM on 6-04-2008
The second VOIP over EDGE/HSDPA starts cutting into AT&T's voice minutes two things will happen:
1) - they'll make every effort to block it by shutting down ports or packet shaping or whatever else IPs do to curb torrents and other bandwidth hogging applications.
2) - they'll start looking for a way to impose data caps on our "unlimited" data plans, or jack up the prices come contract expiration.
This is actually one set of applications I hope never work well on the non-WiFi side of the phone, for fear it will drive AT&T to one of the two above options. :-(
Reply
diego said 1:07PM on 6-04-2008
fring
Reply
Andy said 1:29PM on 6-04-2008
Man, I hope apple delivers. I just bought 16K of their stock yesterday @ 187. I wrote more about it here -
http://www.savingtoinvest.com/2008/06/oh-noi-just-bought-16k-worth-of-apple.html - and am hoping they over deliver as usual. Great product info in this post.
Andy
Reply
Matty said 5:38PM on 6-04-2008
With unlimited cell phone plans at $100, I don't need wi-fi to make voip calls. I just use rf.com. I've been using sipgate on the iPhone for several months now. rf.com works perfectly with the service, or any voip service, and it's free. It's not a native app and it works over the cell connection (no wi-fi), but so what. I call England while driving on the expressway using my Sipgate account and just use my unlimited cell minutes. Even if Stevo won't let me make voip calls over the cell phone, there's nothing he can do about it because rf is a web app.
Reply
MILE said 7:16PM on 6-04-2008
Well, I just tried it out on my iPhone with my German sipgate account and so far it works like a charm...! Feels faster and snappier than fring, too...
Not a bad start...
Reply
Nikolas said 3:28AM on 6-05-2008
This is my first post on TUAW
First, I want to excuse me for my bad English. I'm just trying.
I installed the app on my iPhone.
On my browser, I filled in my sip-provider information.
When I then type in a number on my iPhone and press the call button... it says "calling".
But I hear nothing, no beep, no voice at the other side, really nothing!
Also, the phone at the other side is not ringing.
I have a voipstunt account and I know that is works, because I use it with my mac. There's enough money on it, there are enough freedays left... no problem!
But when I log into my account at sipgate.com with my browser, I can there set up the "Using sipgate with your VoIP provider" part:
Remote SIP username: nikolasvoip
Remote SIP password: ************
Remote SIP server: sip.voipstunt.com
Remote SIP realm:
What do I have to write after 'Remote SIP realm'? I just left this blank.
I think the major part (for not saying almost everyone) doesn't know what "SIP realm" means.
But ok, I klicked "Save" and my account was set up.
Back to my iPhone, I filled in my sipgate usernamen and password. All went well. I tried to make a testcall, but it just says "calling"... nothing more, like said before.
Can someone help me?
Another question... the 111 free minutes... for what is that? Is it just to phone from sipgate to sipgate?
Reply
Athabasca said 3:45PM on 6-06-2008
I've installed this application on the iPhone and every time I try to call somebody it says its ringing but I can't hear anything. When the other person picks up it says "in call" and I still can’t hear anything...really strange. Anyone else getting this problem?
Regards,
Athabasca
Reply