Gtalk to VoIP Service Review
Sunday, September 16th, 2007Few days ago, I found a very interesting website called Gtalk2VoIP. By looking at its name, we can guess that Gtalk2VoIP provides a sort of communication bridge between GoogleTalk service and any other phone system. As shown in the Gtalk2VoiP website, the offered services are:
Free Service
- Voice calls between Google Talk, MSN/Live Messenger and Yahoo!
- Voice mail service, interoparable between major IM clients.
- Voice conferencing: with any number of participants of any IM type.
- Sending off-line messages and notifications.
- Calling SIP phones and SIP services.
- Receiving calls to your IM from any SIP phone.
- Receiving calls to your IM from mobile or landline phones using SIP Broker.
- Receiving calls to your IM from web users.
- Free toll-free calling to 1-800, 1-866, 1-877 and 1-888 numbers via SIP Broker.
Paid Service
- Outgoing calls from your IM to any telephone numbers throgh a number of VoIP carriers.
- Incoming calls to your IM from any phone number (PSTN DID assignment).
- Sending SMS messages from your IM to any mobile phone number.
In this post, I prefer to share about my experience of using Gtalk2VoIP services. If you want to get more detailed information regarding the service and its cost, please check the official website.
Ok, let’’s begin the review.
1. Create acount
You need to invite service@gtalk2voip.com from your gtalk account or just go to the Gtalk2VoIP website and use the invite form. After that. issue a “mypage” command and the system will return the specific URL for your account.
2. Buy Credit
Gtalk2VoIP is compatible with Paypal and Webmoney. Because I only have paypal account, I tried to buy credit using my paypal. By default, you can not buy credit directly, you need to ask the Gtalk2VoIP service team to open your account access towards Paypal or Webmoney gateway.
3. Call from Gtalk to PSTN or mobile phone
If you have enough credit, you can call any Mobile phone or fixed phone. The text command and the result are shown below (complete session report is available at the end of this post) :
me: call 6281210xxxxx
service: Welcome to GTalk2VoIP - Free Voice Gateway for Google Talk, MSN and Yahoo!
Type ‘HELP’ for more information
You entered: call 6281210xxxxx
You have 10.0200 USD.
Please, accept call from gtalk2voip !!!
Thank you!
Calling phone: 6281210xxxxx via AVANGARD (H323). Cost = 0.1582
Call in progress…
Trial number 1 of 5 failed. Reason = EndedByTransportFail
Calling phone: 6281210xxxxx via LUXOR (H323). Cost = 0.15372
Call in progress…
PM Trial number 2 of 5 failed. Reason = EndedByHostOffline
Calling phone: 6281210xxxxx via USCAMLLC (SIP). Cost = 0.16646
Call in progress…
Remote answered. Now talking…
Charged time: 32 secs. Reason = EndedByRemoteUser
Personally, the call quality is fair, it is not too good but not bad. From the log above, we can see which gateway that we used. The good thing of Gtalk2VoIP, if you already have experience with many PSTN gateway provider, you can create your own dialing plan, such as: you want to use provide A to reach all or some destination numbers. You even able to route the call to your own SIP server if you already have your own SIP server that connect to PSTN.
4. Voice calls between Google Talk, MSN/Live Messenger and Yahoo!
I am not sure if this kind of service is useful for many of us because personally i would prefer to do voice call from Gtalk to Galk or Yahoo to Yahoo. I prefer to have multiple instant messenger (IM) account instead of using Gtalk2VoIP service as a voice call bridge between different IMs.
5. Call from Gtalk to SIP phones and SIP services
This service is interesting. As we know, many companies or groups has established their own SIP network to reduce telecommunication cost between their members. As individual, sometimes we also join some free SIP service provider such as voipstunt, voipbuster, etc. Gtalk2VoIP make us able to call our colleagues who are using SIP phone. This service also helps the Linux user to be called by Gtalk user. Since there is no Gtalk client for Linux which supports voice call, Linux users need SIP server and this Gtalk2VoIP service as a bridge to Gtalk network. The text command and the result of this feature are shown below (complete session report is available at the end of this post) :
me: call xxxx@yyyyy.rendo.info
service: You entered: call xxxx@artaloka.rendo.info
You have 9.8037 USD.
*Please, accept call from gtalk2voip !!!*
Incoming call from service@gtalk2voip.com at 1:27 PM on Saturday
service
*Thank you! Calling SIP phone: xxxx@artaloka.rendo.info .*
service: Calling… xxxx@artaloka.rendo.info
service
Call in progress…
Remote answered. Now talking…
service: Talking to xxxx@artaloka.rendo.info
service
Charged time: 10 secs. Reason = EndedByRemoteUser
Yes, although there is a charging information, after looking at the session report, I am sure that the cost is free. In the sample log above, I did voice call from my Gtalk account to my SIP account. I have my own SIP server in artaloka.rendo.info and I am using sjphone as my SIP client. The quality is good but the delay is longer compare with direct gtalk to gtalk call. I suspect that my internet connection to Gtalk2VoIP SIP server is not too good and Gtalk2VoIP may use back2back user agent.
6. Call from SIP phones Gtalk
Yes, this service is the other way around of the previous service above. This feature enable Gtalk user to be called from SIP phone. The text command and the result of this feature are shown below (complete session report is available at the end of this post) :
Incoming call from rendo_at_artaloka.rendo.info@gtalk2voip.com at 1:46 PM on Saturday
rendo_at_artaloka.rendo.info: Call from SIP: rendo@artaloka.rendo.info
Call ended with rendo_at_artaloka.rendo.info@gtalk2voip.com at 1:46 PM on Saturday
7. Receiving calls to your IM from mobile or landline phones using SIP Broker
Gtalk2VoIP is also providing you with a unique code that make use able to be called from any PSTN/Mobile network all over the world for free. Gtalk2VoIP has many incoming PSTN gateway to Gtalk network so we can call our friend in Gtalk network using our mobile with local phone call cost. Unfortunately, there is no gateway in Indonesia yet :(. Few days ago, I tried to use Gtalk2VoIP gateway in Australia, and after I put my friend Gtalk2VoIP number code, I am able to connect to him. I am sorry, I don’t have
8. Sending SMS messages from your IM to any mobile phone number.
The text command and the result of this feature are shown below (complete session report is available at the end of this post) :
me: sms +6281210xxxxx test dari gtalktovoip
service: You entered: sms +6281210xxxxx test dari
Sending SMS message to 6281210xxxxx: test dari gtalktovoip
Sending SMS to 6281210xxxxx via CLICKATELL. Cost = 0.1275 USD.
You have 9.8037 USD.
Thank you!
9. Incoming calls to your IM from any phone number (PSTN DID assignment)
This feature is similar as SkypeIN service, you will get a local normal phone number. I haven’t tried it yet, to get called from landline phone, I am happy already with SIP broker in the previous chapter.
10. Callback service
By using callback service, we can create connection between landline phone, gtalk, SIP users and any other IM users by put a single text command only. I haven’t tried it from my PC but I have tried it using Java mobile client as described in the next chapter.
11. Gtalk2VoIP java client in Mobile Phone
Gtalk2VoIP also provides us with mobile phone client software in java format. You can find the client in http://www.talkonaut.com/
Currently, I am able to do call from my gtalk account from my mobile phone to any Gtalk, SIP and landline phone but I can’t do it from my other IM account. I have configured my YM account inside the talkonaut client but I don’t know how to connect it yet 
From the Talkonaut Java mobile client, I tried to call my friends gtalk account using my other mobile phone, so I put my other phone number as the source call and put my friend gtalk account as my destination. There were something funny when I tried it in the first time, I put the same phone number which I used it to connect to talkonaut service using 3G GPRS, so when Gtalk2VoIP create the first leg towards my mobile phone, the call always failed. In the 3G network, normally we are able to connect to GPRS and do voice call simultaneusly but in this case Talkonaut client block my phone screen so there is no incoming call indicator. You can see the session report of the callback service below.
As my promise, this is the sample of call sessions report
Date of use:GMT Destination:E.164 VoIP provider:reg. id Duration:secs Amount charged:USD Disconnect reason:Q.931 Service type:
2007-xx-15 07:50:23+00 gtalk:yyyyy@gmail.com Google Talk 40 0.0000 EndedByRemoteUser callback
2007-xx-15 07:50:17+00 phone:6281723xxxxx AVANGARD 46 0.1028 EndedByRemoteUser callback
2007-xx-15 07:45:49+00 phone:6281210xxxxx LUXOR 0 0.0000 EndedByHangup callback
2007-xx-15 06:46:20+00 zzzzz@gmail.com 11 0.0000 EndedByLocalUser sip2gtalk
2007-xx-15 06:27:30+00 xxxx@artaloka.rendo.info 10 0.0000 EndedByRemoteUser gtalk2sip
2007-xx-14 20:51:17+00 6281210xxxxx CLICKATELL 1 0.1275 SentBySMTP sms
2007-xx-12 14:36:23+00 6281210xxxxx USCAMLLC 32 0.0888 EndedByRemoteUser gtalk2voip
2007-xx-12 14:35:57+00 6281210xxxxx LUXOR 0 0.0000 EndedByHostOffline gtalk2voip
2007-xx-12 14:35:56+00 6281210xxxxx AVANGARD 0 0.0000 EndedByTransportFail gtalk2voip
2007-xx-12 08:24:08+00 yyyy@gmail.com 29 0.0000 EndedByRemoteUser sip2gtalk
As the conclusion, I am very impressed with Gtalk2VoIP service, especially for their ideas. Hope the services will improve both in terms of quality and in terms of type of services.
-rendo-
