Obihai Technology

Last updated
Obihai Technology
Company typeprivate corporation
Industry computer networking
Founded2010 (2010) in Cupertino, California [1]
Fatesold to Polycom, with Poly then sold to HP.
Headquarters
Campbell, California
,
United States
Products analog telephone adapters, softphones
BrandsObi, ObiTALK, OBiON
Parent Polycom
Website www.obihai.com

Obihai Technology was a company that manufactures analog telephone adapters that supported Session Initiation Protocol (SIP), XMPP, and Google Voice [2] compatible Internet telephony. Obihai was sold to Polycom in 2018, with Poly and Plantronics sold to HP in 2022. Most items in the former Obihai product line have been either rebranded as Poly or discontinued. [3]

Contents

History

The company, based in California's Silicon Valley, was founded in 2010 by Jan Fandrianto and Sam Sin, the same people who introduced the first analog telephone adaptors as Komodo Technology in the 1990s and formed Sipura Technology in 2002. Both prior companies were acquired by Cisco Systems, in 2000 and 2005 respectively, [4] and integrated into that company's Linksys division. Linksys was sold to Belkin in 2013. [5]

In January 2018, Polycom acquired Obihai. Polycom "expects to add more cloud-based capabilities and Analog Terminal Adapter solutions to its solutions portfolio". The deal is expected to close early in the first quarter of 2018. [6] In 2022, Poly was sold onwards to HP.

In December 2021, Obahai's consumer-oriented analogue telephone adapter line was discontinued, with support ended in December 2023. [3] This leaves no hardware ATA's from any source available for purchase for use with the Google Voice service. [7]

The OBiTALK Consumer Portal will shut down on October 31, 2024, affecting all connected devices. After this date, HP will not guarantee continued operation with Google Voice. While most OBiHAI devices may still function temporarily, the eventual expiration of security certificates will end their integration with Google Voice. [8]

Products

The Obi200 produced by Obihai Technologies and branded by Google Voice. Front face. Obi200 1.jpg
The Obi200 produced by Obihai Technologies and branded by Google Voice. Front face.

Obihai was notable primarily for manufacturing analog telephone adapters that connected standard push-button telephones to the Google Voice service using a wired or wireless broadband Internet connection. [9] As Google's voice over IP service is inexpensive (and, in some cases, was free), hardware that allowed the service to replace conventional landline telephony reduced costs to subscribers. [10]

The hardware came in various configurations, including OBi100 (1 x FXS, to connect to one phone), OBi110 (1 FXS + 1 FXO, to connect to one phone and one conventional outside line), OBi200 (1 x FXS, 4x VoIP services, T.38, USB, [wi-fi, BT optional extra]) and OBi202 (2 FXS + LAN with T.38, USB, wi-fi optional extra). [11] The devices, which at one point were distributed through US vendors such as Walmart, Newegg and Amazon, were normally sold unlocked and unconfigured. [12] The user was able to configure logins for multiple, simultaneous providers. [13]

The Obi200 produced by Obihai Technologies and branded by Google Voice. Back I/O panel. Obi200 2.jpg
The Obi200 produced by Obihai Technologies and branded by Google Voice. Back I/O panel.

Obihai operated its own preconfigured OBiTALK VoIP service to allow direct calling between its branded devices (using **9 and a nine-digit serial number), as well as a companion OBiON softphone app for Android [14] and iPhone. [15]

There was also a Service Provider Template for various individual providers (such as Anveo and Phone Power); [16] [17] earlier devices used an online wizard to automate the configuration process. [18]

Google Voice support, a popular feature due to the low cost of service, [19] was temporarily broken when that service dropped XMPP support in May 2014 [20] and officially restored in September 2014. [21] It was again broken at the end of 2017 for OBi100/110 devices due to update of Google certificates and previous end of support for Obi100/Obi100 in 2016. Later old certificates were temporarily restored by Google and service stopped again in May 2018. At the same time a community found a way to put a correct new Google certificates into Obi100/110 even without vendor support and anonymously described it in www.obifirmware.com.

The 2021 discontinuation of the Obahai 200-series analogue telephone adapters left no hardware devices from any source able to connect to the consumer Google Voice service. Google has no plans to make this capability available in the future.


See also

Related Research Articles

In telecommunications, a customer-premises equipment or customer-provided equipment (CPE) is any terminal and associated equipment located at a subscriber's premises and connected with a carrier's telecommunication circuit at the demarcation point ("demarc"). The demarc is a point established in a building or complex to separate customer equipment from the equipment located in either the distribution infrastructure or central office of the communications service provider.

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.

Linksys Holdings, Inc., is an American brand of data networking hardware products mainly sold to home users and small businesses. It was founded in 1988 by the couple Victor and Janie Tsao, both Taiwanese immigrants to the United States. Linksys products include Wi-Fi routers, mesh Wi-Fi systems, Wifi extenders, access points, network switches, and Wi-Fi networking. It is headquartered in Irvine, California.

A softswitch is a call-switching node in a telecommunications network, based not on the specialized switching hardware of the traditional telephone exchange, but implemented in software running on a general-purpose computing platform. Like its traditional counterparts it connects telephone calls between subscribers or other switching systems across a telecommunication network. Often a softswitch is implemented to switch calls using voice over IP (VoIP) technologies, but hybrid systems exist.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Analog telephone adapter</span> Type of telephone adapter

An analog telephone adapter (ATA) or FXS gateway is a device for connecting traditional analog telephones, fax machines, and similar customer-premises devices to a digital telephone system or a voice over IP telephone network.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Linksys WRT54G series</span> Series of wireless routers manufactured by Linksys

The Linksys WRT54G Wi-Fi series is a series of Wi-Fi–capable residential gateways marketed by Linksys, a subsidiary of Cisco, from 2003 until acquired by Belkin in 2013. A residential gateway connects a local area network to a wide area network.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Skype for Business Server</span> Real-time communications server software

Skype for Business Server is real-time communications server software that provides the infrastructure for enterprise instant messaging, presence, VoIP, ad hoc and structured conferences and PSTN connectivity through a third-party gateway or SIP trunk. These features are available within an organization, between organizations and with external users on the public internet or standard phones.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">VoIP phone</span> Phone using one or more VoIP technologies

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).

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Poly Inc.</span> American multinational corporation

Poly Inc., formerly Polycom, is an American multinational corporation that develops video, voice and content collaboration and communication technology. Poly is a subsidiary of HP Inc.

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.

Sipura Technology, Inc. was a voice-over-IP (VoIP) startup company based in San Jose, California founded in 2003 with its siblings VideoCore and Komodo Technology, Inc. Sipura made VoIP telephone adapters including the Sipura Phone Adapter SPA2100, SPA3000, SPA9000, as well as SPA series IP phones, like the SPA941.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Linksys iPhone</span> Line of internet appliances

The Linksys iPhone was a line of internet appliances from Cisco Systems. The first iPhone model—released by Infogear in 1998—combined the features of a regular phone and a web terminal. The company was later purchased by Cisco and no new products were marketed under the name between 2001 and 2006. At the end of 2006, Cisco rebranded its Linksys VoIP-based phones under the name, shortly before Apple released an iPhone of its own. This led to a trademark dispute between the two companies, which was resolved on February 20, 2007.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Google Voice</span> Telecommunications service by Google

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.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Deltathree</span>

Deltathree Inc. is an American company engaged in the business of voice over IP telephony services. The company was one of the first in the world to offer a telephony service over the internet, reducing the cost of international calls by over 90 percent.

Komodo Technology is an American voice over IP is company. It was acquired by Cisco Systems on July 25, 2000, for US$175 million in stock. It was a leading company in internet and enterprise telephone technology products, notable primarily for its introduction of the analog telephone adapter for voice over IP in the 1990s.

Wideband audio, also known as wideband voice or HD voice, is high definition voice quality for telephony audio, contrasted with standard digital telephony "toll quality". It extends the frequency range of audio signals transmitted over telephone lines, resulting in higher quality speech. The range of the human voice extends from 100 Hz to 17 kHz but traditional, voiceband or narrowband telephone calls limit audio frequencies to the range of 300 Hz to 3.4 kHz. Wideband audio relaxes the bandwidth limitation and transmits in the audio frequency range of 50 Hz to 7 kHz. In addition, some wideband codecs may use a higher audio bit depth of 16 bits to encode samples, also resulting in much better voice quality.

A telephone VoIP adapter (TVA), also called digital telephone adapter, is a device that interfaces digital private branch exchange (PBX) telephone sets to a Voice over Internet Protocol (VoIP) network, using, for example, the Session Initiation Protocol.

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<span class="mw-page-title-main">Phone Power</span> Voice over IP service provider

Phone Power is an American privately owned commercial voice over IP (VoIP) company, based in Winnetka, California that provides telephone service over the Internet via a broadband connection.

References

  1. ↑ "SEC FORM D". www.sec.gov.
  2. ↑ "Three Things You Should Know About Google Voice". PC World. 30 April 2012. Retrieved 4 November 2014.
  3. 1 2 "OBiTALK". www.obitalk.com. Archived from the original on 2024-01-17.
  4. ↑ Logan Abbott. "Company Spotlight: Obihai Technology Reinventing VoIP a Third Time". Voxilla. Archived from the original on 2012-07-09.
  5. ↑ Ngo, Dong (2013-03-15). "Belkin completes acquisition of Linksys from Cisco | Business Tech - CNET News". news.cnet.com. Archived from the original on 2013-05-04.
  6. ↑ Polycom Inc. (2018-01-04). "Polycom Announces Agreement for Strategic Acquisition of Obihai Technology". Archived from the original on 2018-01-07. Retrieved 13 March 2018.
  7. ↑ "Hardware replacement device for OBi 200". support.google.com.
  8. ↑ "End-of-Life Notice for OBiTALK". support.hp.com. Retrieved 2024-10-05.
  9. ↑ "How to Switch to VoIP and Ditch Your Home Phone Bill Forever". HowTo Geek. Retrieved 4 November 2014.
  10. ↑ Investopedia (26 April 2011). "6 Common Subscriptions You Can Live Without". Forbes. Retrieved 4 November 2014.
  11. ↑ "WiFi Setup". Obihai. Archived from the original on 28 October 2014. Retrieved 4 November 2014.
  12. ↑ "OBi110". PC Magazine. Retrieved 4 November 2014.
  13. ↑ "Obihai VoIP". Target PC. Archived from the original on 2014-11-03. Retrieved 4 November 2014.
  14. ↑ Obihai Technology. "OBiON Android". Appszoom.com. Archived from the original on 2012-12-12. Retrieved 4 November 2014.
  15. ↑ "Obihai Mashes Up Mobile, Landline, VoIP & Social Networking". TMCnet. Retrieved 4 November 2014.
  16. ↑ "2011 VoIP Device of the Year: Obihai OBi110 for Google Voice". Nerd Vittles. Retrieved 4 November 2014.
  17. ↑ "OBiTALK Approved Service Provider Program". Obihai. Retrieved 4 November 2014.
  18. ↑ "OBi100 ObiHai 100 Configuration and Review". Callcentric. Retrieved 4 November 2014.
  19. ↑ Marcelo Rodriguez. "Google Voice with OBi on your regular phone". Voxilla. Archived from the original on 2012-04-14. Retrieved 4 November 2014.
  20. ↑ "Obihai Offers New Low-Cost Home Phone Options As Technology Change At Google Ends Free Service". TechCrunch. 18 March 2014. Retrieved 4 November 2014.
  21. ↑ "Google Voice and Obihai Update". Obihai Technology, Inc. Archived from the original on 2014-11-26. Retrieved 4 November 2014.
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