 | This article has multiple issues. Please help improve it or discuss these issues on the talk page . (Learn how and when to remove these messages)
|
| Company type | Privately held company |
|---|---|
| Industry | Telecommunications |
| Founded | 2008 |
| Headquarters | , |
| Products | Mobile VoIP solutions |
| Website | https://www.acrobits.net |
Acrobits is a privately owned software development company creating VoIP Clients for mobile platforms, based in Prague, Czech Republic.
Acrobits was founded in November 2008, and builds mobile VoIP software with a polished user interface, supporting encrypted calls using SRTP/SDES and ZRTP, Google Voice integration, and the G.729 Annex A audio codec. [1]
In 2009 Acrobits Softphone was released on the iTunes App Store. [2]
The following year Acrobits released their SIP Client with business features, Groundwire. In early 2011 Acrobits Softphone was released on the Android Market.
In 2010 Acrobits also launched a service allowing SIP providers to appear on the list of pre-configured providers in Acrobits Softphone. [3]
In 2012 Acrobits added video calls over WiFi support for the iOS version of its softphone. [4]
Acrobits Softphone is a VoIP client which uses Session Initiation Protocol. Acrobits Softphone is the leading SIP Client on the App Store, featuring push notifications and the G.729 Annex A audio codec, backgrounding, Google Voice integration and encrypted calls through ZRTP. [1]
The first version of Acrobits Softphone was released on the App Store in April 2009. Version 1.0 supported only a single SIP account and the G711 and GSM codecs. During the following months new updates were released rapidly, adding new features, and the app quickly became the most downloaded paid SIP app for iOS worldwide. Support for push notifications for incoming calls was added to Softphone in September 2009, shortly after push notifications were introduced in iOS3. The G729 codec was added in Apr 2010. In August 2010, a business-caliber version of Softphone called Groundwire was released on the App Store, adding support for conferencing, voicemail, call transfers, call forwarding and other advanced features of business-grade phones.
With the release of Groundwire, the app reached the level of maturity and completeness and attracted much interest from VoIP providers, who asked for white-label versions of the app, optimized and fine-tuned for their network only. Until now, around 50 different white-label versions were created.
Later, the following features were added to Softphone: ZRTP support (December 2010), NAT Bridge to help NAT traversal in difficult networking conditions (July 2011), support for video calls (Dec 2011), support for ICE (March 2012)
Acrobits Softphone for Android was released in Feb 2011, followed by Android Groundwire in April 2012. Android apps are now on par with their iOS counterparts, with the exception of video calls which are not yet supported on Android.
Acrobits Softphone and especially Groundwire support all features and technologies expected of the modern SIP client, plus some unique features described below.
The challenge with VoIP on mobile devices is to make sure that the device is ready to receive incoming calls while keeping the power consumption as low as possible. Due to the inherent mobility of mobile devices, the network conditions change often and frequent SIP re-registrations and keep-alive traffic are needed to make sure the mobile client is properly registered and will receive incoming call at all times. This has a significant impact on battery life.
Acrobits Softphone uses a proprietary SIP Instance Server (SIPIS) to register on behalf of user when the mobile app is not running in foreground on the mobile device. As soon as the app is suspended to background or exited completely, SIPIS server takes over, registers the account and starts listening for incoming calls. When a call arrives, the mobile app is woken up using the Apple Push Notification Service (APNS) and the call is handed over to the mobile app.
The advantage of this solution is that the mobile app does not need to run at all on the device, consuming no additional battery power, and is still able to receive incoming calls. The media of the call (audio and video) are still transferred directly to the mobile app, for lowest latency and security - no extra relaying is done. Using push notifications doesn't require any support on the SIP server side and uses only SIP protocol standard.
An important point and a potential drawback of this solution is the need to transfer full SIP account credentials to SIPIS server, as it needs them to be able to register, which is an obvious security risk. One way to avoid it is to install the SIPIS server on the premises of the VoIP service provider, in which case the security risk is eliminated - the provider already knows the passwords anyway.
Acrobits Softphone supports encrypted voice and video calls using the standard SRTP protocol. It is able to encrypt media packets with the AES-128, AES-192 or AES-256 ciphers and authenticate them using either 32-bit or 80-bit HMAC-SHA1 algorithm.
For key exchange, Acrobits Softphone offers support for SDES and ZRTP protocols.
Acrobits Softphone supports the following algorithms employed by ZRTP:
In addition to their flagship products Acrobits creates white label SIP Solutions for VoIP providers around the world. [5]
The Session Initiation Protocol (SIP) is a signaling protocol used for initiating, maintaining, and terminating communication sessions that include voice, video and messaging applications. SIP is used in Internet telephony, in private IP telephone systems, as well as mobile phone calling over LTE (VoLTE).
Voice over Internet Protocol (VoIP), also called IP telephony, is a method and group of technologies for voice calls for the delivery of voice communication sessions over Internet Protocol (IP) networks, such as the Internet.
A VoIP phone or IP phone uses voice over IP technologies for placing and transmitting telephone calls over an IP network, such as the Internet. This is in contrast to a standard phone which uses the traditional public switched telephone network (PSTN).
A secure telephone is a telephone that provides voice security in the form of end-to-end encryption for the telephone call, and in some cases also the mutual authentication of the call parties, protecting them against a man-in-the-middle attack. Concerns about massive growth of telephone tapping incidents led to growing demand for secure telephones.
Gizmo5 was a voice over IP communications network and a proprietary freeware soft phone for that network. On November 12, 2009, Google announced that it had acquired Gizmo5. On March 4, 2011, Google announced that the service would be discontinued as of April 3, 2011.
The Secure Real-time Transport Protocol (SRTP) is a profile for Real-time Transport Protocol (RTP) intended to provide encryption, message authentication and integrity, and replay attack protection to the RTP data in both unicast and multicast applications. It was developed by a small team of Internet Protocol and cryptographic experts from Cisco and Ericsson. It was first published by the IETF in March 2004 as RFC 3711.
QuteCom was a free-software SIP-compliant VoIP client developed by the QuteCom community under the GPL-2.0-or-later license. It allows users to speak to other users of SIP-compliant VoIP software at no cost. It also allows users to call landlines and cell phones, send SMS and make video calls. None of these functions are tied to a particular provider, allowing users to choose among any SIP provider.
Multimedia Internet KEYing (MIKEY) is a key management protocol that is intended for use with real-time applications. It can specifically be used to set up encryption keys for multimedia sessions that are secured using SRTP, the security protocol commonly used for securing real-time communications such as VoIP.
Zfone is software for secure voice communication over the Internet (VoIP), using the ZRTP protocol. It is created by Phil Zimmermann, the creator of the PGP encryption software. Zfone works on top of existing SIP- and RTP-programs, but should work with any SIP- and RTP-compliant VoIP-program.
ZRTP is a cryptographic key-agreement protocol to negotiate the keys for encryption between two end points in a Voice over IP (VoIP) phone telephony call based on the Real-time Transport Protocol. It uses Diffie–Hellman key exchange and the Secure Real-time Transport Protocol (SRTP) for encryption. ZRTP was developed by Phil Zimmermann, with help from Bryce Wilcox-O'Hearn, Colin Plumb, Jon Callas and Alan Johnston and was submitted to the Internet Engineering Task Force (IETF) by Zimmermann, Callas and Johnston on March 5, 2006 and published on April 11, 2011 as RFC 6189.
This is a comparison of voice over IP (VoIP) software used to conduct telephone-like voice conversations across Internet Protocol (IP) based networks. For residential markets, voice over IP phone service is often cheaper than traditional public switched telephone network (PSTN) service and can remove geographic restrictions to telephone numbers, e.g., have a PSTN phone number in a New York area code ring in Tokyo.
Mobile VoIP or simply mVoIP is an extension of mobility to a voice over IP network. Two types of communication are generally supported: cordless telephones using DECT or PCS protocols for short range or campus communications where all base stations are linked into the same LAN, and wider area communications using 3G or 4G protocols.
SDES for Media Streams is a way to negotiate the key for Secure Real-time Transport Protocol. It has been proposed for standardization to the IETF in July 2006
The SIP URI scheme is a Uniform Resource Identifier (URI) scheme for the Session Initiation Protocol (SIP) multimedia communications protocol. A SIP address is a URI that addresses a specific telephone extension on a voice over IP system. Such a number could be a private branch exchange or an E.164 telephone number dialled through a specific gateway. The scheme was defined in RFC 3261.
Linphone is a free voice over IP softphone, SIP client and service. It may be used for audio and video direct calls and calls through any VoIP softswitch or IP-PBX. Linphone also provides the possibility to exchange instant messages. It has a simple multilanguage interface based on Qt for GUI and can also be run as a console-mode application on Linux.
Jami is a SIP-compatible distributed peer-to-peer softphone and SIP-based instant messenger for Linux, Microsoft Windows, macOS, iOS, and Android. Jami was developed and maintained by the Canadian company Savoir-faire Linux, and with the help of a global community of users and contributors, Jami positions itself as a potential free Skype replacement.
A softphone is a software program for making telephone calls over the Internet using a general purpose computer rather than dedicated hardware. The softphone can be installed on a piece of equipment such as a desktop, mobile device, or other computer and allows the user to place and receive calls without requiring an actual telephone set. Often, a softphone is designed to behave like a traditional telephone, sometimes appearing as an image of a handset with a display panel and buttons with which the user can interact. A softphone is usually used with a headset connected to the sound card of the PC or with a USB phone.
Sipdroid is a voice over IP mobile app for the Android operating system using the Session Initiation Protocol.
MicroSIP is a lightweight, open-source software application that enables users to make Voice over IP (VoIP) calls using the SIP standard. It is designed to be simple, easy to use, and resource-efficient, making it an ideal choice for low-resource devices, such as older computers, and for users who need a minimalistic VoIP client. MicroSIP allows users to initiate audio and video calls, as well as exchange messages, via SIP-based VoIP networks.
