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.
Sabeer Bhatia is an Indian businessman who co-founded the first free web-based email service, Hotmail.com in 1996.
Premium-rate telephone numbers are telephone numbers that charge callers higher price rates for select services, including information and entertainment. A portion of the call fees is paid to the service provider, allowing premium calls to be an additional source of revenue for businesses. Tech support, psychic hotlines, and adult chat lines are among the most popular kinds of premium-rate phone services. Other services include directory enquiries, weather forecasts, competitions and ratings televoting. Some businesses, e.g. low-cost airlines, and diplomatic missions, such as the US Embassy in London or the UK Embassy in Washington, have also used premium-rate phone numbers for calls from the general public.
A telephone call or telephone conversation, also known as a phone call or voice call, is a connection over a telephone network between the called party and the calling party. Telephone calls started in the late 19th century. As technology has improved, a majority of telephone calls are made over a cellular network through mobile phones or over the internet with Voice over IP. Telephone calls are typically used for real-time conversation between two or more parties, especially when the parties cannot meet in person.
A toll-free telephone number or freephone number is a telephone number that is billed for all arriving calls. For the calling party, a call to a toll-free number from a landline is free of charge. A toll-free number is identified by a dialing prefix similar to an area code. The specific service access varies by country.
GSM services are a standard collection of applications and features available over the Global System for Mobile Communications (GSM) to mobile phone subscribers all over the world. The GSM standards are defined by the 3GPP collaboration and implemented in hardware and software by equipment manufacturers and mobile phone operators. The common standard makes it possible to use the same phones with different companies' services, or even roam into different countries. GSM is the world's most dominant mobile phone standard.
In Argentina, area codes are two, three, or four digits long. Local customer numbers are six to eight digits long. The total number of digits is ten, for example, phone number (11) 1234-5678 for Buenos Aires is made up of a 2-digit area code number and an 8-digit subscriber's number, while (383) 123-4567 would be an example of a Catamarca number.
Direct inward dialing (DID), also called direct dial-in (DDI) in Europe and Oceania, is a telecommunication service offered by telephone companies to subscribers who operate private branch exchange (PBX) systems. The feature provides service for multiple telephone numbers over one or more analog or digital physical circuits to the PBX, and transmits the dialed telephone number to the PBX so that a PBX extension is directly accessible for an outside caller, possibly by-passing an auto-attendant.
Jajah was a VoIP provider, founded by Austrians Roman Scharf and Daniel Mattes in 2005. The Jajah headquarters was located in Mountain View, CA, USA, and Luxembourg. Jajah maintained a development centre in Israel. On 23 December 2009, it was announced that Jajah had been bought by Telefónica through its subsidiary Telefónica Europe. In December 2013, Telefónica announced that Jajah would shut down at the end of January 2014.
Numbers on the Irish telephone numbering plan are regulated and assigned to operators by ComReg.
International telephone calls are those made between different countries. These telephone calls are processed by international gateway exchanges (switches). Charges for these calls were high initially but declined greatly during the 20th century due to advances in technology liberalization. Originally they were placed via long-distance operators. The calls were transmitted by cable, communications satellite, radio, and more recently, fiber optics and Voice over Internet Protocol (VoIP). International direct dialling was introduced in the 1970s, so calls can be dialed by country code without an operator.
Google Voice is a telephone service that provides a U.S. phone number to Google Account customers in the U.S. and Google Workspace customers in Canada, Denmark, France, the Netherlands, Portugal, Spain, Sweden, Switzerland, the United Kingdom and the contiguous United States. It is used for call forwarding and voicemail services, voice and text messaging, as well as U.S. and international calls. Calls are forwarded to the phone number that each user must configure in the account web portal. Users can answer and receive calls on any of the phones configured to ring in the web portal. While answering a call, the user can switch between the configured phones. Subscribers in the United States can make outgoing calls to domestic and international destinations. The service is configured and maintained by users in a web-based application, similar in style to Google's email service Gmail, or Android and iOS applications on smartphones or tablets.
Yahoo Voice was a Voice over Internet Protocol (VoIP), PC-PC, PC-Phone and Phone-to-PC telecommunications service. It was provided by Yahoo via its Yahoo Messenger instant messaging application.
Skype offers a number of features based around calling, messaging, video chat, and file and screen sharing. The following is a partial list of Skype's features:
Ribbit was a telecommunications company based in Mountain View, California. It was acquired by BT Group on July 29, 2008 for $105 million.
Iristel is a Canadian provider of telecommunication services that is a competitive local exchange carrier (CLEC). The company was founded in 1999 and is headquartered in Markham, Ontario.
Voxofon was a VoIP company that developed mobile apps and communication services that utilised over-the-top (OTT) voice and messaging technologies for smartphones, tablets, and web applications. It was founded in 2008 and enabled free app-to-app domestic and international calls and texts, as well as provided the option for users to make international calls and texts to friends and family that use feature phones or landlines.
A virtual number, also known as direct inward dialing (DID) or access numbers, is a telephone number without a directly associated telephone line. Usually, these numbers are programmed to forward incoming calls to one of the pre-set telephone numbers, chosen by the client: fixed, mobile or VoIP. A virtual number can work like a gateway between traditional calls (PSTN) and VoIP.
Mobile Dialer is a software application installed and used on mobile phones. Various software providers offer branded mobile dialers. They are used to make VoIP calls from a mobile hand set. The "Mobile Dialer" or "Mobile VoIP Dialer" uses SIP signaling and can be mapped to a Softswitch or an IP device to work a device for voice communication. Newer mobile dialers also allow users to originate a Voice Call or SMS using their mobile handset. In many countries, VoIP is considered as "illegal Business" and is banned by the government. Mobile Dialer application can run behind network address translation (NAT) and on private IP and can pass through firewalls or blocked networks when combined with tunneling software.
Upptalk was a proprietary voice-over-IP service and software application that provided mobile phone numbers in the cloud and allows users to call or text any phone for free whether or not the device receiving the calls and texts has the Yuilop application. The service was discontinued in 2017 and even its domain was abandoned.
