TMCnews Featured Article
November 19, 2007
Tpad Now Provides Free Mobile VoIP Calls via Wi-Fi
By Calvin Azuri, TMCnet Contributor
Tpad (News - Alert) is reportedly entering the mobile phone market with a service that will allow users to make free calls worldwide using Wi-Fi.
The VoIP provider's service uses the Session Initiation Protocol (News - Alert) (SIP), the major open standard that is used by most major mobile phone service providers. The service offered enables GSM mobile phone users to make free calls to any SIP enabled user anywhere in the world. Most existing mobile phone VoIP methods are either not cost effective or face set–up difficulties.
"At Tpad we give you a free personal SIP phone number that you can use to make and receive calls,” said Chris Morris, Tpad general manager, in a press release. “You just simply dial the SIP number of your friend anywhere in the world and the call is totally free. For instance, I can call my friend in Spain for free from my mobile when I am in a WiFi Hotspot by just dialing his seven digit Tpad number.”
SIP, which enables the free calls provided by Tpad, is not available in Skype's new 3 Skypephone or Apple's iPhone (News - Alert). That is why their users are unable to make free or low costing international calls.
"The main advantage of SIP is that it works easily with other applications," Morris added. "It's open and very flexible as it allows you to make free calls to any type of SIP Device."
The Tpad service is currently available on any Wi-Fi mobile phone that has a built-in SIP client. Presently all Nokia (News - Alert) N and E-Series phones have this facility. It is expected that as more phones with the dual-mode (standard mobile phone service and Wi-Fi) facility are made available to consumers, the attraction of this service will increase.
Leading mobile phone producers such as Samsung and Motorola (News - Alert) will soon be releasing brand new phones that are compatible with the SIP protocol.
Tpad has recently added detailed step-by-step SIP guides to their website to help make the service easy to use so that even a novice can easily use it. The guides clearly mention the process of quickly setting up your mobile / SIP device with the Tpad Global VoIP Network.
We want to make the whole process as easy as possible in order to reach all types of customers,” Morris said. "It is our aim to be the first choice VoIP provider for mobile users who wish to make VoIP calls. Shortly we will be sending an SMS text to our customers that will automatically setup their phone with their personal Tpad settings."
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Calvin Azuri is a contributing editor for TMCnet. To see more of his articles, please visit his columnist page. Session Initiation Protocol (SIP) | X |
SIP is the real-time communication protocol for VoIP. SIP is a signaling protocol for Internet conferencing, telephony, presence, events notification (emergency calling) and instant messaging.
SIP...more |
Wireless Fidelity (WiFi) | X |
The IEEE 802.11 wireless LAN standard is usually referred to as Wi-Fi-Wireless Fidelity or RLAN-Radio Local Area Network. The 802.11 standard has evolved into a number of sub-standards 802.11a/b/g/n....more |
Voice over IP (VoIP) | X |
A real-time communications system that converts voice into digital packets containing media and signaling data that travel over networks using Internet Protocol....more |
802.11 (Wi-Fi) | X |
The IEEE 802.11 wireless LAN standard is usually referred to as Wi-Fi-Wireless Fidelity or WLAN Wireless Local Area Network. The 802.11 standard has evolved into a number of sub-standards 802.11a/b/g...more |
Dual-mode | X |
Dual-Mode handsets give cellular and WiFi a "voice" enhancing corporate data infrastructure and lowering telephone system costs. Dual Mode uses unlicensed low-power short-distance WiFi 2.4 GHz and li...more |