It would be nice if I have a lot of people to call in US or Canada but as it is, I do not know a single person there.

I agree!!! I was not aware of it only until a few days ago. I haven't tried it but www.internetcalls.com from the same company also has it. Charges are quite high though if you call Malaysia mobile to mobile i.e. 8Euros which is about 38sen comparable to a prepaid call.

Wow!!! Didn't know that I was that convincing! Anyway, cheers to this new sticky thread and hopefully everyone contributes to make VOIP in Malaysia on par with other countries. Do share your experiences that you have read in other VOIP forums.

A good place to start reading on VOIP related articles would probably be

http://www.myvoipprovider.com

Cheers again and happy reading!

just register at tmbill.tm.net.my ... but i dont think u can register unless u have streamyx .... but actually u can set the ata to streamyx 015 ... wz the right setting

This post has been edited by cruzzmz: May 21 2006, 10:06 PM

Wow!!! Globe7 is offering rates to Malaysian numbers as low as 3.66sen fixed line and 15.6sen to mobile!

Please check this out at http://globe7.com/rateplan.php?code=M

Haven't tried it so don't know how good it is. Anybody who has tried, please let us know.

A Cool New Mobile VoIP Application PDF Print E-mail
MyVoipProvider, 21 May 2006

A small australian company (www.voxalot.com) is causing headaches for fixed line and mobile Telcos around the world with new innovative VoIP products enabling users to bypass expensive traditional phone services.

Only two months ago they launched a new Web activated VoIP application allowing users to sign up to almost any SIP based VoIP provider(s) and with the help of Voxalot's service connect any two phone lines in the world while paying only VoIP rates. Best of all this service is free of charge and does not require any additional equipment, headsets or software to download.

Voxalot have now taken their application a step further by launching a mobile version. As long as you have a GPRS enabled phone you can connect to their service and launch a call between any two phones (landline or mobile) in the world. This little application is especially of interest to anybody travelling or without direct access to the internet.

The service is still in an early test phase and it is not yet possible to change any configurations while browsing on your mobile phone, but developments are underway.

The idea is brilliant for those without access to broadband and the implications are far reaching:

1. Never pay ridiculous hotel phone bills again
2. Currently one only requires internet access to setup a list of contacts. From there onwards all one needs is a GPRS enabled mobile phone.
3. Some mobile operators in Europe and elsewhere are starting to ban VoIP calls over their network. Voxalot's service bypasses this "ban".

No doubt that this little application will develop further and cause waves in the industry. For further details please check out their site at www.voxalot.com.

VoIP use on the rise PDF Print E-mail

Techworld, 18 May 2006

By Tim Greene, Network World

Large companies are leading the way in adopting VoIP adoption, adding it to their corporate phone options as their traditional PBXs age.

That's according to a new survey from Infonetics Research, which found that 36 percent of large US corprations are already using VoIP equipment and VoIP services.

Only 23 percent of mid-size and 14 percent of small businesses have adopted VoIP gear and services but Infonetics said this percentage is set to triple by 2010.

The main reasons businesses give for deploying VoIP include integrating phone systems across different sites and converging voice and data networks. But they also say they hope to save money on the cost of operating their phone networks, in part by paying less for long-distance calls.

Infonetics has conducted a similar survey for the past three years and they show a steady rise in the use of V0IP that will continue for the next three years without a dramatic up-tick in the adoption rate, according to the author of the study, Mattias Machowinski.

He says the steady increase is due to businesses turning to VoIP as their traditional phone systems reach the end of their life or as voice service contracts expire. At the projected rate of adoption, a half to two-thirds of large businesses will use VoIP by 2010, he said.

Among the businesses surveyed, the most often used IP PBX vendors were Cisco, Avaya and Nortel, the study says.

The study compared the amount organisations spent on VOIP services in 2005 and compared that figure to projections of what they will spend in 2007. The amount spent on hosted VoIP services jumped from US$47,667 to $63,799; the amount spent on managed PBX services jumped from $10,865 to $28,367.

The study also finds that the percentage of users accessing VOIP via Wi-Fi grows from 5 percent in 2006 to 20 percent in 2008.

The study was the result of interviews with 240 businesses using VoIP now or that will by 2007, as well as the results of 450 shorter interviews to determine VoIP adoption rates.

Xybirium,

Thanks for posting some interesting news tidbits on VoIP providers.

The news clip about VoxAlot is interesting but in my opinion, their procedure for web-call back feature is not really ground-breaking or can cause big concerns for regular POTs providers for potentially losing revenue over their traditional phone calls. For PSTN-to-PSTN, you have to select two VOIP providers that can give you the best rate for untimed calls. Why the hassle? You still required to have a PC connected to the Internet, and if you have that, why bother, just use a softphone to make the call directly.

Besides, most VOIP already provided hefty discounted rate for IP network to PSTN network. Unless one makes a lot calls over the same number between two providers, web-call back option is not really attractive at all. Besides, their claims of "free" is misleading because of this disclaimer at the bottom says "This service is free for all VoXaLot members during our initial trial period. Once the trial completes, it will be available to Premium VoXaLot members."

Today, a lot (unfortunately, not in Malaysia) of traditional phone service carriers are already embracing VoIP as additional call services within and outside their service areas with their own ATAs (or BYO) and using their regular data network in their core backbone to transport voice calls over to the Internet gateway.

The fears that the incumbent carriers to ban VoIP is really unfounded. What we will see is the incumbent carriers won't ban VoIP but participate in this new business model with their choice of VoIP gear and market it directly to their customers plus value-add it with QoS over their network (meaning their infrastructure). The other VoIP providers that doesn't have any infrastructure may have tougher time to sell later because they can't provide the level of QoS as compare to the incumbent who can.

For example in Malaysia:
TMnet can sell their VoIP with better service quality than 'Ah Beng' VoIP service shop. Why? Because TMnet owns the infrastructure and they can control it.

This post has been edited by netfan: May 23 2006, 12:49 AM

netfan,

most tier-1 telcos in malaysia are already utilizing data network to some extent to transport voice calls as their backhaul link. i know my telco does and all those mobile telcos do. don't know about the big one. multiple E1 PRIs can be very expensive to support so VOIP is a huge cost advantage in terms of loading up calls on a single pipe.

This post has been edited by ihsan: May 23 2006, 01:22 AM

Try it out http://www.globe7.com/index.php?refcode=R1172212F
(If ok, please use the referal code above to help me to get more free minutes.)
Free 100 minutes per account registered.
Now I have 10 accounts.

This post has been edited by choonkeong: May 23 2006, 02:11 AM

netfan & ihsan

I agree with you. Even if we do subscribe to all those overseas VOIP providers, their call quality still leaves much to be desired. On the home front, even Jaring MY015 quality is still bad. If you make mostly voice calls, the TMNet Prepaid ONE option is still a very good choice as you can make calls from any fixed line (including payphone) at the low price of 18sen. Voice calls to other countries e.g. Australia is only 20sen which is the same as the rate from TM's 015.

In Malaysia, I suspect a lot of large corporations are using VOIP to call their customers and I would bet that their solutions are from TM. This is because when they (credit card companies) call to request for payment, the quality of the call is really bad.

Thanks again for participating in this thread and I suspect others would be very grateful if you could share your views and experience.

This post has been edited by Xybirium: May 23 2006, 08:24 PM

Already signed up about a month ago. Just wondering if you would like to share your credit. Hehe...

Hmm.. you mean like IP-based Contact Centers (aka Call Centers)?

Poor voice quality can be caused by anything on the network. It could be due to telco network congestion or it could caused by end-user equipment too.

If one has a converged network, and if there's problem, unfortunately, the blame always seems to hit the carrier first.

In order to provide good service quality (for both their data and voice network), both
the corp/enterprise and telco have to work together to build and put together a troubleshooting plan for repairs.

Most telcos should be able offer some form of QoS with SLA to differenciate packet-voice and raw data traffic within the boundary of its network (and also to isolate the troubleshooting domains). But, if the end-users POTS lines are provided by another carrier (like when it bridges off to a mobile phone carrier or another central office that has older equipment), it may be difficult to give service guarantee end to end.

This post has been edited by netfan: May 24 2006, 12:55 AM

most VOIP SLAs only covered areas which the provider can guarantee ie: if they own the network. in the case of dialing other provider numbers you can't certainly guarantee SLA of your own if you can't get just as stringent SLA from other providers which interconnect with your provider.

for example, how do you provide voice SLA when you know there will be a translation between VOIP->PSTN when the call crosses a transit/end provider which does not have VOIP enabled in their backhaul and it affects your SLA? to put it simply, you can't and you would be naive enough to believe that any providers can provide end-to-end SLA.

even IP-IP calls can also be affected if you have provider using MP3-quality voice calls and the end provider is using a lesser call quality ie: codec translation.

in short take it with a grain of salt if any provider can offer end-to-end SLA with regards to VOIP or even IP network. unless they own the network themselves, they are certainly skewing every means to get your business.

This post has been edited by ihsan: May 24 2006, 01:30 AM

netfan & ihsan

Just out of curiosity, where are you 2 guys/gals working anyway? You seem to be very, very knowledgable in VOIP.

recently i had this problem when trying to make conference call.. i can call 1 person no prob... when i conference an automated voice says " Your account is in use, thank you"

Whats going on ?

Ur account does not support more than one session of call..

I agree. Sometimes, the marketing dept of seems to overhype a product that they're selling. You have to really read the fine print with the magnify glass or have a lawyer to examine it.

Most telcos/carriers are only able to provide SLA for PE to PE within their cloud.

However, as I have found in a recent a RFP briefing with one carrier in US, they're are able to provide CE to CE SLAs and over another carrier networks with an established (private) NNI as well. Somehow, they're have stitched together an extended MPLS network over multi-carriers between two cities approx. 2400 km apart. Come to think of this, this can be difficult if both carriers' class of service model doesn't fit.

The question comes to mind is how does one give QoS priorization over another enterprise voice traffic if both are competitors (and futhermore over multi-carriers)?
eg. who do say my voice traffic is more important than the others? Huh?

Ihsan:
Btw, do you know if any NNI for MPLS is being done in Malaysia? For example: TMnet working with Jaring or maybe Maxis working with Digi on their IP network?

This post has been edited by netfan: May 25 2006, 07:48 AM

here where i work, we are certainly looking into it but there hasn't been any proactive movement towards it from the big ISPs unfortunately, since they believe the market is theirs. inter-provider IP-VPN is certainly a viable achievement, speaking from a technological standpoints but the only thing stand in between is just political/business egos.

xybrium,
i work with a local ISP but my specialization is not voice. i know a little or two on how phone works and that's about it.

This post has been edited by ihsan: May 25 2006, 08:15 AM

Sorry, can't reveal specific but I am working in research and educational network (not in Malaysia) with direct dealings with a lot of Tier1/Tier2 ISPs. However, I still considered myself a newbie in VoIP. Voice is not my specialty either. I am router and switches guy.

In the past, voice is solely the phone technician domain. For example, if the phones doesn't work, just call the phone tech at local telco, he'll come and to fix those bad copper lines or replace your phones.

With VoIP, if the calls have problem, the IP phones or the IP-PBX doesn't work, now, the network sys. admin or IT guy has to get involved. Heck, the noisy user will ask, hey did you bring down my network? Did you prioritize my traffic? blah-blah..
Somehow the network always get blamed.

Another thing, 'Triple Plays' ads hype are begining play on those CEO's mind. Sooner or later, we'll see tech support calls like 'TV doesn't work' - call your network administrator (whatever happen to call the local TV repair man?).

Hmmm, come to think of this, I don't think I like where it is heading.

This post has been edited by netfan: May 25 2006, 08:23 AM