Another day, another VoIP client!
The Internets are starting to buzz about a new VoIP peer-to-peer client of ambiguous origins called Barablu. They want to take down Skype. Yup, just like Napster wants to shank iTunes and iPod. The client, leaves me cold for many reasons, the biggest being I cannot be sure about the company behind this product. They can do PC-to-PC calling! Yawn! And then there are their lofty claims. IP phone to Mobile phone calling for free? Actually, that’s no different from what Skype does right now. The who claim of free mobile-to-mobile calls.
Barablu will be launching free calls from mobile to mobile (Wi-Fi enabled) by using VoIP technology over Wireless LAN, making it the world’s first company to do so. It also offers free calls from broadband phones and PCs along with instant messaging between mobiles and PCs.
What a load of #*^!. What they really mean to say that you can make free phone calls from Barablu on one WiFi enabled mobile phone to another mobile phone that also uses has a Barablu client installed on that. Since Skype can already do this, this cannot be seen as a gee-whiz feature. The only marginal advantage I see right now is that they have a client that works on Nokia 9500 Communicator. And if this is a SIP based client, which is hard to say at least from their website, then it is something notable. Otherwise, lets move on….
agreed. in my ever-so-inconsequential book, anything that attempts to do real-time communications without SIP is utterly irrelevant. Here’s to hoping they do use SIP.
It looks like this service is based on SIP. After all they list various equipments that are compatible to their service ( http://www.barablu.com/Productsbtequipments.htm ). What with Linksys PAP2 and Grandstream IP phones, I am pretty sure it is SIP based; it is a mystery why they do not paste it all over their site. They may try to take Skype down, but in my mind it is a Vonage-clone.
Their S80 client is for IM only, no voice, no SIP:
http://80.74.225.119/forums/showpost.php?p=50&postcount=5
The company behind is http://www.vectone.com/main.htm
Check out VoipStunt (http://www.voipstunt.com). They offer free PC-to-phone calls to many parts of the world. Its nice and it works.
As well as not being the first to offer mobile-to-mobile “free” calls I suspect the number of calls that can actually take advantage of this kind of service will be minimal for a long time to come.
This is what is required to make a free mobile-to-mobile call;
1) Caller needs a compatible Wi-Fi enabled phone
2) Caller needs to have downloaded the compatible Barablu (or other) software
3) Caller needs to be in a free Wi-Fi zone that has the right kind of contention ratio
4) Callee needs to have a Wi-Fi enabled phone
5) Callee needs the software and have registered
6) Callee needs to be in a Wi-Fi zone when call is made
Mass market? Not for sometime unfortunately.
Yawn is right. 39 active members on the forum – not exactly viral is it.
The nail in the coffin is the brochure that a colleague handed me from 3GSM. Considering how excited he got the previous year about the Gizmondo I think it is safe to say that this one is going nowhere.
ps James Enck is cool.
I just don’t know why my comment has been removed
This is a forum and I think anybody can express their point of view but seems that you just want everybody to read and agree to your comments and you don’t accept any critics. Good for you! You will see your number of readers going down very soon!
I agree with John. I don’t understand why you remove comments which are not the same idea of yours ones.
I’ve downloaded Barablu to use on my i-mate sp5 and it works perfectly so I can call from free from my work anyone and anywhere in the world who are on the barablu network, in this case I call some friends of mine abroad.
I don’t want neither to change your mind nor people’s mind, I just want to give my point of view, that simple and as I told before I am very happy with the service barablu provides.
i tried that voipstunt but the problem is when i try to register like a new user they say that there is a problem on the server, anyone have a solution for that ?
Well i tried Barablu for s80 and it has voice as well as IM…and boy oh boy it works perfectly well. I fail to understand how cum ppl have written all this $%^& here! Plus their forum doesn’t have 39 members as posted by inscrutable chicken…it has double the members and considering that this is a new company its not bad for a start. Skype is ages away from launching free calls from mobile…so this is definetly one up on skype!! All u guys here shud definetly try it out!
I agree with Chris. Barablu is really good. Why are u guys so stuck up with Vonage and Skype. Its time u move on and try something new…which is Barablu. Its really a different technology and a welcome break from Skype and Vonage. I have tried Barablu and works pretty fine for me! I’d particularly like to mention that they are a lot more cheaper that Skype for their calls to regular landlines and mobiles.
Sorry Om, but you’re wrong here. Unless you have a phone-enabled PDA (such as the i-mate JAM), Skype won’t work on your WiFi-enabled cell phone… Current Skype versions for Windows Mobile require a 400 MHz CPU, and most WiFi phones (e.g., i-mate SP5 a.k.a. Qtek 8300) have a lame 200 MHz chip. This is why Skype recently released a text-only (i.e., chat) version for Windows Mobile. Just wanted to get this right…
To all wondering this does use SIP, I’ve downloaded and installed the application to my T-Mobile Dash, This also works on an Edge Connection. I’ve taken a look at the Log file created when the application is launch from the phone. There is all kinds of proof that they are indeed using a SIP protocol.
BaraBRAUD, that is what. I purchased a nokia 9500 and I joined Barablu while waiting for a Skype client. The company simply does not exist. After you download the software, you discover: you can’t place a call with the communicator closed, and you can’t answer a call either. The reason is that you have to press a button inside dfor speaking and listening. That is right, you say something, press the button to listen, and press to talk again, as in a WWII radio. But there is more: once you buy the number and dial it in a cnormal phone, the number you have purchased does not exist! And when you right to their client attention, it does nto exist either:
Postmaster postmaster@switchlab.com to me
show details 9:41 pm (17 minutes ago)
Unknown user: r.prakash@vectone.com
Additional RCPT TO generated following response:
550 r.prakash@vectone.com: Recipient address rejected: unknown user r.prakash@vectone.com
Original message follows.
Received: from SMTP32-FWD by barablu.com
(SMTP32) id AD86000E40118AD19; Mon, 13 Nov 2006 20:41:09 +0000
Received: from barracuda.switchlab.com [80.74.225.105] by switchlab.com with ESMTP
(SMTPD32-8.10) id A860E40118; Mon, 13 Nov 2006 20:41:04 +0000
Barablu seems to be a scam, and I have fallen into it completely.
Right girls and boys here;s my problem. I intend to load either Barablu or Skype to my laptop and XDA IIs. from what I read Barablu seems the better option on the XDA. But can I communicate one with the other or are they mutually exclusive. By the way I all ready have Skype on the PC at home.
Ok..just to add fuel to the fire…I have a Barablue account (I got fed up with waiting for Skype) and down-loaded the software on my Nokia 9300i. … 1.) I checked my account online and saw a bunch of calls I have never made to Pakistan. 2.) So I call Barablu to get a few answers… and got none. What I did get was a bizarre crackly conversation with someone who spoke little to no English … but I was assured that I was speaking to someone in East London and not the Far East … but it might as well have been. From the little I could understand from the conversation, I was told to email my complaints to them … huh? I don’t get it!.. Barablu has produced software that Skype can’t manage (very good) … easy to use website (good) …but the company back-up and customer service that comes nowhere near (were are talking light years away) the product they represent (that is very very bad and just does not make sense at all)… it just doesn’t smell right.
I’m really starting to wonder now about just who is Barablu? I’ve parted with my CC Number and personal details and some money … BUT am I in trouble??? Should I cancel my credit card?
To “Chris on March 17th, 2006 at 2:15 am”:
18 months on and they’re up to 1,687 members – global domination by the year 3000 then?
BaraBRAUD, that is what. I purchased a nokia 9500 and I joined Barablu while waiting for a Skype client. The company simply does not exist. After you download the software, you discover: you can’t place a call with the communicator closed, and you can’t answer a call either. The reason is that you have to press a button inside dfor speaking and listening. That is right, you say something, press the button to listen, and press to talk again, as in a WWII radio. But there is more: once you buy the number and dial it in a cnormal phone, the number you have purchased does not exist! And when you right to their client attention, it does nto exist either:
Postmaster postmaster@switchlab.com to me
show details 9:41 pm (17 minutes ago)
Unknown user: r.prakash@vectone.com
Additional RCPT TO generated following response:
550 r.prakash@vectone.com: Recipient address rejected: unknown user r.prakash@vectone.com
Original message follows.
Received: from SMTP32-FWD by barablu.com
(SMTP32) id AD86000E40118AD19; Mon, 13 Nov 2006 20:41:09 +0000
Received: from barracuda.switchlab.com [80.74.225.105] by switchlab.com with ESMTP
(SMTPD32-8.10) id A860E40118; Mon, 13 Nov 2006 20:41:04 +0000
Barablu seems to be a scam, and I have fallen into it completely.
Ignacio on November 13th, 2006 at 1:04 pm – #
YOU JUST WANT TO INCREASE THE POPULARITY OF THIS #*^! BARABLU.
Vectone is the company behind Barablu (we all know that), Switchlab is the backbone of Vectone and Barablu. All of their technical opearations occured in Switchlab. So mate don’t pretend.
Interesting, just tried download barablu pc version, overall barablu software is at level 50 and Skype is at level 95 on scale 100, I don’t think they can beat Skype. Symbian version? I think fring.com is better.
However everyone may have a dream, including Barablu. Good luck new player
Some of the negative comments about Barablu are unfortunate. Clearly sopme people have had a bad experience. But in short, the product and service that is being offered by Barablu is competitive at the very least to other Mvoip Players such as EQO, Nimbuzz, Fring, Trutap, Palringo, Skype etc etc. The Barablu rates are extremely competitive; the call quality is excellent, the range of phones that they cover has increased dramatically, the innovative service offerings are increasing all the time, and it is more user friendly than Skype.
They are certainly progressing well and they seem to be ironing out the sticky points that have created some negative comments. I’m not sure they will acquire world domination ‘inscrutable chicken’, but it seems very likely that over the next few years, there will be just a handful of succesful players in this space and Barablu are likely to be one of them.