India on Voip

Make Std Calls @15paisa Within India Thanks To Voip

admin — Tue, 13 May 2008 13:28:03 +0000

Soon Std calls would cost not more than 15paisa. If TRAI(Telecom Regulatory Authority) pass the Guidelines for just out consultation paper for full fledge voip in domestic calls from Indian phones to Indian phones. Currently voip in India allows only International and voip to voip calls.

Currently only Mtnl is the only major players offering voip service. All other Pvt operators have been given license since 2006 however none has launched it as it may hurt there other call business along with the limitation in domestic calls make it financially not viable. If this major step is taken then domestic call rates will fall further along with cheaper availability of voip hardware.

Cheap Voip India Unlimited

admin — Thu, 17 Apr 2008 08:26:12 +0000

Unlimited voip calls to India is almost impossible atleast in current scenarios because of the high termination charges voip company have to pay. So please do not look for these fake offers which will either loot you or will make it unsustainable for company in long run. Best is to search for lowest possible per minutes rates which are around 4 to 7 (US)cents/min currently.

So another list of best rates(per min ) for cheap calls to India follows

Voicestick.com rates from 6 to 8cents depending on plan and type of number(mobile or Landline).
CallEasy.com* offer rate of 2 euro cents to both mobile and landline(Sip calls not available).
VoipWise.com* offer rate of 2.5 euro cents per min for sip calls to India.
Smsdiscount.com* offer rate of 3 euro cents flat per min.
Nonoh.net* same 3euro cents per minute flat rate.
Joiphone.com offer rates in range of 7 to 9cents depending on type of number(mobile or Landline).

Enjoy Cheap Calls To India

*All the operators marked are Betamax providers, beware there rates change too frequently.

Voip calls to be monitored by Indian Security Agencies

admin — Thu, 07 Feb 2008 07:49:27 +0000

All Indian Voip Providers will soon have to implement monitoring system for calls routed through them called LI. LI is the interception of telecommunications by law enforcement agencies and intelligence services keeping in view the national security.

A technology called Lawful Interception (LI) , which would allow security agencies to keep a tab on the international voice calls made for subversive activities over the Internet. LI is the interception of telecommunications by law enforcement agencies and intelligence services keeping in view the national security. Globally majority of countries have LI requirements and have adopted global LI requirements and standards developed by the European Telecommunications Standards Institute (ETSI) organization. In the USA, the Communications Assistance governs the requirements for Law Enforcement Act.

The state-owned Mahanagar Telephone Nigam Limited (MTNL) is initiating the measure by commissioning the LI system. KS Choudhari, managing director, Aks Optifibre, informed that the trials on the project has been completed. He said that security agencies are verifying and are likely to come up with the results soon. “This is a part of our VoIP contract with MTNL. But it is the first time that interceptors for data packets have been tested in India. In VoIP calls, the voice is transferred from one person to another as data packets, which makes difficult for the agencies to monitor the calls,” Choudhari said.

However, the final call remains with the government to come up with the guidelines for LI system. Bharat Sanchar Nigam Limited (BSNL) is also planning to launch VoIP services through its network.

In the expression of interest issued by the operator, it has strictly stated to tie-up with solution providers offering LI technology. Currently there are more gray market operators existing in India compared to licensed ITSPs. Once the LI system comes in place, it would give a serious blow to the illegal ITSPs offering VoIP service.

Untimed Calling to India

admin — Wed, 05 Dec 2007 07:57:00 +0000

Pennytel an Australian Voip Provider has launched untimed call offer from 01 December 2007 to 31 January 29 February 2008. Calls to India are charged 28.88cents(Oz) per call … that’s right it is per call not per minute so you can consider it unlimited only. Destinations includes mobile calls to India and many other countries. For more details visit their website.
Enjoy Unlimted Voip calls to India this festive season.

Edit: Date Extended till 29 February 2008

New Voip Offerings

admin — Mon, 19 Nov 2007 07:41:00 +0000

India based Voip provider worldphone.in has started offering unlimited voip plans from this Diwali Festival. The service offered is a legal one with under regulation of DOT(department of Telecommunication) so there is an additional 12.5% service tax payable. Company has a range of unlimited and limited plans with incoming number of certain countries included. The Device or phone adapter itself cost 3000Rs which is on bit higher side compared to Mtnl which is offering it for Rs1500(Lifetime rental)

Unlimited plans are

1) Usa/Canada Unlimited for 1500Rs/month (Number of Limited Us states available).
2) Usa/Canada/Uk for Rs2000/month (Only London number available).
3) Usa/Canada/Uk/Australia for Rs2500/month (Only Sydney Number Available).

Limited plans with 500min/month free to 30 countries* are as follows

1) Basic Plan Usa Rs750/month includes incoming Us number.
2) Basic Plan Uk Rs950/month includes incoming Uk number.
3) Basic plan Australia Rs1150/month includes incoming Oz number.
3) Basic plan Hk/China Rs1350/month includes incoming Hk/china number.

All charges have taxes extra and free calls may not include cellphone for some countries. For more details log on to http://www.worldphone.in

Falling voip rates to India

admin — Wed, 17 Oct 2007 08:58:00 +0000

From past six month there has been a rather steep cut in voip rates to India. Call rates that hovered around 8-15cents/minute are now revolving around 4-10cents per minute thanks to increased voip competition among companies and also to drop in termination charges for international calls by Indian regulator called TRAI. Some of these operators with super Indian call rates are

1)nonoh.com 0.035$/min
2)voipwise.com 0.057$/min
3)voicestick.com .060$/min
4)penntytel.com .092$/min
5)mondotalk.com .0858$/min

Here operator 1 and 2 are from famous Betamax Group as there rates change quite frequently so beware.

Bsnl follows Mtnl to Launch Voip Soon!

admin — Thu, 27 Sep 2007 07:50:00 +0000

Bsnl the sister concern of Mtnl is close to launch Voip Services similar to what Mtnl launched a month back. The tariffs are expected to be same as Mtnl with calling to many international destinations at 1Re/min. This move seems significant in Voip market because private operators have so far refrained from matching MTNL’s move , BSNL’s entry into this segment is set to change the market dynamics and force other operators to follow suit.

All major telcos have not ventured into internet telephony as they fear it will eat into their revenues from traditional mobile and fixedline calls.

Dialer Based Indian Voip Providers (Net Telephony)

admin — Fri, 07 Sep 2007 06:54:00 +0000

Today I will introduce you to some of the famous softphone based Indian Voip Providers. All of these providers requires to download a softphone client on pc along with a prepaid card of Rupee value. This card is available from many Pc stores in India also you could buy it online from provider. Most of these cards allow you to call many destinations at just 1Re per minute. Important point to note is that none of these cards allows you to make outgoing calls locally(India). This is due to fact that India is yet to allow its local Voip provider to terminate call domestically and all these providers are India Based ISPs(In India only Isps could offer voip services). Also these cards have an additional service tax of 12.24% above call value so a 1Re per min call cost 1.12Rs effectively.

Some of these voip providers with major market presence along with there web address

1)Hello World From Vsnl in agreement with Dishnet and Net2phone. (http://www.dialhelloworld.in)
2)Part of world Wide Anyuser Group.(http://anyuserindia.com)
3)PhonewallaRed from Net4India.(http://www.phonewala.com)
4)Bolanmol From mtnl Different from voip service Mtnl launched recently. (http://anmol.bol.net.in)
5)Way2Talk From Sify.com. (http://way2talk.sify.com/products.html)

There are many other small providers however there prepaid cards are not readily available in market.

Using voip without a voip provider

admin — Sun, 02 Sep 2007 06:43:00 +0000

Most of the voip provider that provide unlimited voip calls always have a usage limit on it…read for the smallest font terms and conditions at bottom of the page.So the best way to call unlimited is to invite others to use same voip provider as almost all the voip provider have policy of free onnet calls(on same company voip network).

Now some of these voip providers are paid while others are free while it would be not appropiate to ask others to select same paid voip provider as there are many possible reasons for choosing a particular vsp(current setup, low ping, low rate to a particular destination) on the other hand free vsp won’t be reliable enough(with zero support) and no outage notification.

The only reliable and free way is to use direct ip2ip calling with dynamic dns. For a direct connection between 2 Voip Adapters you need to have a router having Dynamic DNS client on both ends. Dynamic DNS basically stands for dynamic domain name system and having a DDNS client built in will allow you to have a domain name inspite of
dynamic IP addresses which is a necessity for point to point calling on a Voip adapter.

The steps you will take are as follows:

1. Configure your ATA (or Voip Adapter) to accept IP calls. By making allow incoming calls to yes(in Linksys ata).

2. Make your router to allow SIP calls(port forwarding) through your router firewall.

3. Next u need to go to www.dyndns.com and create an account there. While signing up u need to choose the domain name of ur preference viz. abc.dyndns.org etc this will be the domain name that you will put in the domain name field in ur router. Username & password will be same with which you have created the account.

4. Now you need to choose dyndns as the DDNS server in the router. You need to fill in the details and enable the client in the router and then save & reboot.

Now anyone could call you just by making a dial plan that will forward to sip:username@abc.dyndns.org where username is your existing voip provider username that is currently feeded in ata. Everyone calling you via this way will be directly calling you without any voip provider involved.

Launch of Voip by Indian Telecom Behemoth Mtnl

admin — Mon, 27 Aug 2007 07:45:00 +0000

Many of you might have read in news if ever interested in India Telecom Market that Mtnl has launched voip service in Delhi. Voip service was available before also however was moslty on dialer based platform while this one is sip based that is you do not need a pc for usage. Thus overcoming the major roadblock for usage of voip as pc penetration is quite low in India.

This could be a giant step in free voice calls as in India free local landline calls regime is still non prevalent. Mtnl said it will provide voip ata or adapters on rental basis and also on one time fees of as low as 1000Rs. While it need to seen that these ata are locked or configurable to any other provider still the cost of device is quite reasonable.

This sip based voip call was already being provided by WorldCom, AnyUserIndia and Net4India however all of them are small Isps with subcriber base not worth to mention. Mtnl on other hand has is leader in fixed line and broadband market of Delhi and Mumbai with subsriber base of more than 4 million FixedLinePhone and 5lakh Broadband customers. It clearly has niche in voip market and soon it would be joined by its sister concern Bsnl(service the rest of India except Delhi and Mumbai). Both of them with substantial marketing budget would make Indians aware of voip services which they think is limited to Yahoo/Msn/Skype only.

There are two plans launched currently Plan A (VoIP400) and Plan B (VoIP200) with 800 minutes SIP-SIP Calls free and 400 minutes SIP-SIP Calls free respectively. These plans are limited on number of sip-sip calls which are mostly offered free in global voip market. Also you are limited to voip2voip and international calls only as the current Indian regulation does not allow voip calls to be terminated domestically it need to come via international long distance provider with all the termination charges to be paid thus eroding the voip cost advantage moreover dids or incoming numbers can’t be availed on a voip line. This may be a major drawback for voip penetration however we hope that in future when voip demand picks up this regulation might be relaxed.