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Toshiba Adds VoIP to PCs

Posted by Hemos on from the cutting-out-the-telcos dept.

securitas writes "PC World/ IDG reports on the new Toshiba SoftIPT SoftPhone software that turns Windows XP-based computers into VoIP telephones. The software features call answering and forwarding, voice mail retrieval and conference calling and costs $200. Now if only Toshiba managed to come up with a version of the software that runs on 802.11 WiFi handhelds like the e800/e805 ... More details in the press release."

30 of 96 comments (clear)

  1. Cheaper to buy a hardware phone! by CoolRay · · Score: 5, Insightful

    The hardware-based options are computer-independent AND cost less... so why spend $200 on a sofware license?

    1. Re:Cheaper to buy a hardware phone! by PPGMD · · Score: 5, Insightful
      Because it will bring inroads of VoIP to the average Toshiba (in this case) computer user. Most users don't seek out Vonage, and the other companies, but if it's pre-installed they might try it and like it.

      Also if they want a cordless one they can purchase a 802.11b access point and a e800 handheld, thus making more money for Toshiba.

    2. Re:Cheaper to buy a hardware phone! by ramzak2k · · Score: 2, Interesting

      Just how long before VoiP becomes standardized enough for open source software to be developed ?
      Then cost of a software license becomes irrelevant.

      Hardware based options are too expensive - think Internation Calls.

      --

      Siggy Say, Siggy Do
    3. Re:Cheaper to buy a hardware phone! by buffer-overflowed · · Score: 4, Informative

      GnuPhone. Sister project to Asterisk.

      Already here, well, you need some speciality hardware, but it's already here.

      I'll stick with my POTS tho, pls nod thanx. It never has any problems, I've yet to see a VoIP service that can match it on anything other than price in my area.

      --
      The key to the enjoyment of pop music is to replace any instance of "love" with "C.H.U.D."
    4. Re:Cheaper to buy a hardware phone! by Jozer99 · · Score: 2, Informative

      If anyone cared to look at the specs for the e800/e805, you will see that there is VoIP software included in ROM. Check out their PDF document at Toshiba.

    5. Re:Cheaper to buy a hardware phone! by bug-eyed+monster · · Score: 2

      "... but if it's pre-installed they might try it and like it."

      But it's not pre-installed, it costs $200. If a user wants to try VoIP, they can go to iconnecthere (or similar service), download the software and signup for a free trial. It takes just a few minutes.

  2. consumer market by kjba · · Score: 2, Interesting

    It intrigues me that although many people have a high-speed internet connection nowadays, VoIP does not seem to have taken off on that market in any significant way. Any insights on why that is so?

    1. Re:consumer market by Biogenesis · · Score: 2, Interesting

      Maybe people just dont want to sit at there computers all day long.

      --
      ...just so Google finds it.
    2. Re:consumer market by milgr · · Score: 5, Interesting

      To get a high speed internet connection at an affordable price, I needed a phone line (I got DSL). I can call anyone in North America without incurring any charges. Why would I want to use VOIP?

      If I were to use VOIP, would I need to leave my computer on? I turn it off when not in use to save electricity and cooling (it generates an inordinate amount of heat).

      Until people can use VOIP to talk to people who are using POTS, I don't think it will catch on.

      --
      Where law ends, tyranny begins -- William Pitt
    3. Re:consumer market by dirty · · Score: 4, Informative

      As far as leaving your computer on, with an IP phone you don't need to, but they cost anywhere from $70 to $500 per phone. And there are services such as IConnectHere and VoicePulse, which both will give you a real phone number and connect you to non-voip phone numbers. I think with VoicePulse for something like $25 a month you get a real phone number, voicemail, callerID and all of that, and 600 minutes of US calls per month. IMHO that's a pretty good price.

      BTW, I think VoicePulse uses a bunch of Linux boxes running Asterisk to handle the calls.

      --

      -matt
    4. Re:consumer market by diersing · · Score: 2, Informative
      For me:

      My cell phone has free long distance so often it is more convienent then a computer based solution.

      And, when I tried it a couple years back, the lag was terrible causing a broken conversation. I fully admit that the experience has spoiled me a bit on the idea and in time, I'm sure I'll give it another go. Hopefully, the technology will mature into a usable service for the home user. I want to say my upload speeds (or those of the person I was calling) is the source of the lag but that is pure guesswork.

    5. Re:consumer market by jandrese · · Score: 4, Funny

      Yeah, it really sucks how you have to sit by your phone all day to recieve calls. If only there were some way to notify people of incoming calls that would work thoughout the entire domocile. Perhaps an audio alert of some sort?

      --

      I read the internet for the articles.
    6. Re:consumer market by twisty7867 · · Score: 3, Insightful

      I think then that you have pointed out the real flaw: insufficient marketing. Although your argument about DSL requiring a phone line is valid, most broadband users in America use cable modems. Even so you might find that a basic phone circuit + VoIP price is less than you currently pay for your unlimited POTS price. I have VoIP phone service from Vonage. I have an ordinary 212 phone number, use my ordinary cordless phone to call any other phone number in the world in the usual way. the only difference is that instead of hooking up to the local telco's box, my phone hooks into a piece of Cisco hardware (free from Vonage) which connects in turn to my router and broadband circuit. For $27/mo I get unlimited local calling, 500 minutes US/Canada long distance (3.9c/min after that) and all manner of features (voicemail, caller id, call waiting, forwarding, blah blah blah). Combine that with the $30 I pay for cable modem service, and for $57 I have broadband + telephone.

  3. Something similar in LindowsOS 4.5 by heironymouscoward · · Score: 3, Informative

    Details here.

    --
    Ceci n'est pas une signature
    1. Re:Something similar in LindowsOS 4.5 by Snocone · · Score: 4, Informative

      Actually, what's shipping with Lindows is our X-Lite softphone version, complete details on the product line here.

      http://www.xten.com/

      Disclaimer: I do the OS X softphone versions and the X-Tunnels/X-Cipher/X-Vox servers, so I might perhaps be a bit biased towards assuming that our stuff doesn't suck.

  4. So... by xie · · Score: 2, Interesting
    VOIP technology is being considered by some companies that wish to manage only one network for both voice and data communications in order to cut operating costs.
    These companys have to 1st upgrade to systems running XP and they have to be Toshiba brand PC's/laptops and then purchase @ $200 a pop a licence for each peice of software. I could see why they might be waiting to jump on this.
  5. what happens by way2trivial · · Score: 2, Interesting

    when I use my sprint pcs unlimited data for 10$ a month
    for voip- no more voice minutes used.

    --
    every day http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Special:Random
    1. Re:what happens by H8X55 · · Score: 2, Insightful

      You get away with it for a bit. Then sprint figures out what you (and a few thousand others) are doing, gets rid of that option, and at your next renewal you find out you're sol.

    2. Re:what happens by gl4ss · · Score: 2, Interesting

      they won't have that option for quite long then.

      unlimited data is just stupid in a device like that(from providers pov).

      there was a company that offered unlimited gprs transfers for like ~40$ per month. didn't last(now all providers around here have some service that's like 17e or so per month with ceiling of 100mbyte after which you pay for per mbyte like regularly, which is quite convinient for irc & etc low traffic / high connection time activity from phone), it ended up costing them too much when people really did use it 24/7 like maniacs(well, fuck, that's how they advertised it so can't really blame them).

      --
      world was created 5 seconds before this post as it is.
  6. So what? (and here's what I WANT) by extra+the+woos · · Score: 4, Interesting

    I'm not trolling, its an honest question. Why does this matter, the article is very short on details (yes, i read it)... I remember using a mic and speakers and free software that all i had to do was plug in his IP, we connected, and chatted...just as I'm seeing this as, only this includes conference calling and can take advantage of some toshiba hardware...

    the article says " It works on both wired and wireless PCs running Microsoft Corp.'s Windows XP."....

    why wouldn't it work on both wired and wireless pcs? am i missing something?

    Why would someone buy this instead of some hardware only solution or some "phone" that just uses some free protocols over wireless ethernet?

    such features as "conference calling, voice mail retreival" etc...thats not exactly anything new here folks!!!

    I a phone with a built in vid cam/little screen, that opens up and is a headset with the screen/cam about a foot in front of my face, uses WIFI and i can wander around the house with, connects to ALL the popular messaging systems (aim msn yahoo etc) and lets them view my webcam automatically (which happens to be mounted on my headset out a foot or so) and automatically displays there webcam on my screen (which is a 1.5 or 2" lcd about a foot in front of my face as well, mounted on the headset), AND if the user i'm talking to is on chat but doesn't have the capability to hear my voice, I want it to do some decent speech recognition, I want my voice to integrate seemlessly into text and get sent to someone's IM client. Dont tell me the technology isn't there yet, a directional microphone can pick up my voice and NOTHING else, and folks, dorm-mates of mine were using dragon dictate to type papers with FIVE YEARS AGO... Tell me that wouldn't be a killer product?

    --
    replacing it with NEW Folger's Crystals! (lets see if they notice the difference)
  7. Uhhhh... by Talez · · Score: 4, Informative

    Ahead, the makers of Nero, have created an IP phone for the PC. It's called Sippstar and you can get a free 2 month demo.

    I was using it to talk to a friend on his Cisco IP phone. Took up a bit of bandwidth (8K/sec in both directions) but the quality was fairly good.

  8. Or.... by dirty · · Score: 4, Informative

    Or you could use X-Lite, Gnophone, SJphone, or Diax. All of which are completely free. Add about $15 / month for IConnectHere or VoicePulse account with a phone number and you're done.

    --

    -matt
  9. Compare to Cisco's SoftPhone by aredubya74 · · Score: 3, Informative

    As one might expect, the press release is a bunch of marketing crap, utterly lacking in tech specs. Still, it leaves me wondering how this software will compare to Cisco's Windows-based Softphone. At my company, we tried it out on our laptops, while also using their hardware 7960G. The hardware phone was consistently superior, as the SoftPhone took huge resources to run (you could barely run other apps with it up and dialing). I still use the hardware phone from home today, in conjunction with a company-managed IP telephony gateway, calling folks over a VPN as well as calling others nationwide. Call quality is pretty solid, although only after a lot of mystery codec installation by our IT admin. I also use Vonage at home, and it's clearly better than both Cisco solutions (although it also uses a Cisco ATA 186 analog-to-VoIP adapter).

    --

    RW

    1. Re:Compare to Cisco's SoftPhone by aredubya74 · · Score: 2, Informative

      Heh AC, you were lucky not to be running some of their initial codecs. They came out with a codec for high latency clients (like mine, >50ms RTTs between client on the east coast and gateway on the west coast) about a year ago, and it's been excellent. And we did train up two IT folks on the product, watching it go from working-but-occasionally-crap-sound to working-with-generally-good-sound.

      --

      RW

  10. "Toshiba Support" is an oxymoron by jgaynor · · Score: 4, Interesting

    Now if only Toshiba managed to come up with a version of the software that runs on 802.11 WiFi handhelds like the e800/e805

    Toshiba does not provide support for it's customers and even re-negs on advertising promises. Many people will no longer be buying from them - including me, my family and any corporate/educational group that I work for and have purchasing decision power with.

  11. My VoIP dream by swb · · Score: 4, Interesting

    I can't give up my voice line -- I get DSL on it and my wife would never tolerate it.

    But what I want is:

    A box similar to the Vonage VoIP bridges that you can plug into your IP network and your voice network. It would sit between your POTS phones and the POTS line. Incoming POTS and some VOIP calls would be routed to the phones as usual. But outgoing calls would be routed over VoIP for certain programmable number sequences; either direct dial to other VoIP phones or to other bridges for completion to POTS lines. With the right authentication, incoming VoIP callers would be able to use my POTS line as a gateway to the POTS network.

    With one at work and one at home:

    1) Mirror my work phone at home
    2) Make work calls and make work LD calls using work's LD provider
    3) Make personal VOIP calls to home
    4) Make personal calls on my home line from the road

    With a device at a relative or friend's house, I could theoretically make free LD calls local to their setup and vice versa.

    Does something like this exist? It seems fairly trivial, especially if you make analog call routing pretty basic.

    1. Re:My VoIP dream by ptimmons · · Score: 2, Informative

      Your dream come true?

      NB: I haven't tried one of these devices myself.

    2. Re:My VoIP dream by PhiberKut · · Score: 2, Informative

      Something like this does exist. See www.asterisk.org

      --
      Elijah Chancey www.elijahsadventure.com nomadic IT consultant, bicycling across america "all that you touch / and all
  12. Ok, so you go to... by Mr.+Dop · · Score: 3, Informative
    Vonage and get the soft phone (as many as you want) with all those features and a CISCO 186 for $14.95 a month.

    If I read this right its jut for the softphone not for the sevice that will make it work on top of that. If all you want is the soft phone, there are plenty of freeware ones available with the same featues. I've used X-Lite in the past and found it to not suck.

  13. Why is this press release/empty marketing on /. ? by petree · · Score: 2, Interesting

    Two and a half years ago I played with the Cisco version of this product. Just as previous comment spoke about, this is not news, it offers nothing special. In fact, theCisco SoftPhone is not only a standalone IP phone, but it can also be used to control the 7960, 7940 or 7910. Although that was marginally useful, the java app (I can't remember the product name) that let our receptionists use their computers to monitors lines and transfer calls was really cool. Just open up your browser, login and then enter the extension of your phone. Bang instant operator. Once they got into it (3-4 days) they were handling twice the load they were before...it rocked. Softphone was more of a novelty than anything else though. People seem to like the idea, but either a real IP phone (even a barebones one like the 7910) or even the Cisco ATA 186 analog to ip phone adapter is was more useful than a softphone for most people. And if you want to be untethered, check out the Symbol NetVision phone. (Note, it came out two years ago!)

    This is all old news. And by the way, no I don't work for cisco, nor do I work at a company that uses IP telephony now.