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 VoIP
for Palm, finally: Ready for the Prime Time |
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| Voice over Internet Protocol (VoIP)
technology enables converged voice and data communications.
Wireless industry leader, MantraGroup
Inc., makes the first attempt in the Palm industry to bring
VoIP technology to your Palm PDA with its mobiVoIP solution.
mobiVoIP allows you to place a telephone call directly from
your PDA thus expanding your PDA’s capabilities to be
used as a converged device. |
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| Executive
Summary |
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| MantraGroup
Inc. is a popular name in the Palm industry which has provided
a popular unified messaging solution in the past. As a communications
technology oriented company, we believe in the power of human
communication and continue to better our messaging solutions.
We have analyzed the growth of VoIP technology in terms of the
market available for Palm PDAs and saw the need for a converged
communication solution for PDAs. Our idea is to transform the
millions of Palm PDAs available in the market into powerful
converged communication devices. |
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| Business
Challenge: |
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| New technologies allow you to make
telephone calls through your PC using a new and growing technology
known as “Voice over Internet Protocol” or VoIP.
With VoIP technology, the call is routed through your internet
and gets terminated to a PSTN or other VoIP client. Instead
of passing the telephone call to your telephone operator, it
uses your existing internet connection and thereby provides
cost savings on your phone bills. Market research firm, ABI
Research has forecasted that “Dual mode cellular/voice
over WiFi enabled handsets will surpass 50 million by 2008
and voice over IP will replace the cellular networks”.
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| Industry
Landscape:: |
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Since the introduction of Palm
Pilot, the Personal Digital Assistant popularly known as PDA
has become an important component to organize in business
affairs. Palm Inc. has reported
that they have shipped 1.2 million mobile devices during the
last quarter of 2005. Of those, about 44 percent were smart
phones with the rest are PDAs.
With the ever increasing demand for PDA functionalities,
mobile phones have started incorporating them and the convergence
is taking place at a rapid pace. Gartner predicts that “By
2010 all devices will be smart phones with PDA capabilities”.
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| The
Solution: |
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| MantraGroup
Inc. realizing the need for a VoIP solution has developed
mobiVoIP, the first application to bring VoIP technology to
the Palm PDAs allowing you to call a telephone. |
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| Use
Benefits |
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mobiVoIP’s capabilities
can help businesses realize competitive advantages through:
- Increased productivity with your PDA and the usability
of the PDA as a mobile phone
- Lower communication cost
- Free calls within the mobiVoIP community
mobiVoIP allows you to call any telephone in numerous countries
including United States of America, Canada, Mexico, UK, Germany,
Italy, Switzerland, Australia, New Zealand, Singapore, Hong
Kong, China, Taiwan and MANY others. |
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| mobiVoIP
Architecture: |
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mobiVoIP comes as a client application
for Palm OS devices. It is a typical SIP client that can connect
to VoIP servers. The VoIP server will respond to the client’s
input requests and plays an important role in placing calls
to traditional telephones or to other mobiVoIP clients.
Unlike the standard telephone call which gets routed through
the telephone operator, mobiVoIP calls are routed though the
internet.
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| Requirements: |
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Devices with Palm OS 5.0 or greater
with a processor of at least 200 MHz are supported.
mobiVoIP is compatible with Palm TreoTM 650, TungstenTM,
LifeDriveTM and ZireTM.
mobiVoIP can use connection types like Bluetooth, [pause]
WiFi [pause] depending on what the device supports.
Bandwidth requirement depends on the Codec that you use:
G.711:Suitable for wideband connections
with a minimum bandwidth of 160kbps.
GSM: Suitable for narrowband connections
with a minimum bandwidth of 60kbps
Use of headset is recommended to minimize
the noise. |
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| Features |
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Ability to make PSTN calls over IP! |
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Free Calls within mobiVoIP
community! |
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Caller-ID [via SIP] |
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Profiles Settings Dialog [for configuring user Account] |
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Secure Account Authentication
using SIP MD5 Authentication |
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Network Settings Dialog [for
IP address related settings] |
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Automatic IP resolution [via
STUN servers] |
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Detecting Dynamic IP [when
STUN is disabled] |
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Codecs supported: G.711
andGSM 6.10 [GSM 6.10 FR for
low speed connections > 60kbps,
G711 for high speed connections > 160kbps] |
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Call Timer [should be enabled
from Debug Prefs] |
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Audio Configuration Dialog
[to save your bandwidth with voice activity detection] |
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Calibration Test - estimate
your environment noise and use for noise suppression. |
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Noise Suppression - a great
feature to save your bandwidth usage - use your connection
only to transmit your voice. |
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Touch-tones [DTMF] |
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Mute Speaker/Microphone |
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Lookup Phonebook - Dial right
from your contacts. |
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Bandwidth Test - a simple
echo test to get an estimate of your bandwidth! [latency
= time to hear your voice back/2; (as your voice makes
a round trip)] |
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Recommended Connections –
Wi-Fi, Bluetooth |
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Treo 600/650 extras - Easy five-way navigation |
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non-Treo extras - No worries of network disconnection
on device entering sleep mode |
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Real time auto update - over the air. |
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| Conclusion: |
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| With mobiVoIP, you can enjoy huge
cost savings on your phone call without compromising on voice
quality. Additionally, mobiVoIP expands your existing PDA’s
capabilities to be used as a telephone eliminating the need
to invest in buying a separate telephone for voice communication. |
