July 21, 2006
Soft VoIP For Your Mobile Devices
The other day, I reflected on SoonR, a relatively new application that integrates with Skype to supposedly let you Skype from your cell phone, PDA, or other mobile device, provided it has both a phone number as well as a wireless data plan.
I didn't have much luck getting SoonR to work on my Palm Treo 650, as I pointed out in that post, where someone supposedly named Keith Richards left a comment. "Keith" openly left his email as being on the rock.com domain, where I'm currently listening to the screamingly funny Dave Navarro live streaming Spread Radio show - music + (uncensored) talk. Dave is of course married to the ultra-heavenly Carmen Electra, and is a producer of the Rockstar Supernova TV show, where the unbelievably revolting Tommy Lee is a judge. While I seemingly digress, Dave was actually talking about IMing one of his DJ friends, but didn't mention what software he used. Anyway, on to "Keith Richard's" question:
What about installing softphone software on your mobile device? Could this be used for VoIP mobile conference calls on Skype or is this PC only software?
Well, Keith, if it's really you, you and Mick and the boys should drop by some time for some of my Curry Elvis' special curry chicken, seasoned with Brown Sugar. I could explain it to you then; just leave the syringes elsewhere.
Otherwise, I'll say that most PC-based softVoIP clients simply cannot be installed on PDAs or other smartphones. There are text IM clients designed for Palm OS such as Chatopus, which is built on the open Jabber/XMPP, and thus compatible with your Google Talk account. However, that's just for text, not VoIP.
As for VoIPing from a mobile device, there are various solutions that work for Microsoft Mobile OS-based as well as for people running Skype on Mac OS X devices. For Palm OS, there are fewer solutions, and most do not work on Treo 650, or suffer from some other technical issue - at least in my experience.
I've also tried EQO for Palm OS, but my mobile carrier isn't supported, and my support question has gone unanswered. The problem is that Palm Treos, and some other PDAs, seem to have a problem, especially if they are running the Palm OS operating system, of handling simultaneous data and cell usage. Which is why SoonR, because of the way it works, simply will not work for some Palm OS devices. (Palm devices running Microsoft apparently do not have this problem.)
To answer the last part of your question, Keith, SoonR actually sets up a conference call between your cell phone and the party you're calling, using your computer's Skype to initiate the VoIP conference. They also claim on their website to be able to handle conference calling, so presumably you'd be able to have mobile VoIP conference calls. Just not on Palm devices running Palm OS.
--
Did you enjoy this post?
« TalQer Enhances VoIP For Google Talk | Main | Creating A Real Global Village »
