The 25 Most Interesting VoIP Startups

Original author: Jim Higdon
  • Transfer
Here is a list of 25 new VoIP companies that need to change our usual working methods and business ... and their products are also cool.

VONAGE COMPETITORS: HOME SERVICE PROVIDERS

Sunrocket
Isn't it great to be the fastest growing fish in a huge shark pool? This is Sunrocket’s position in the VoIP market.

The company still has a relatively small subscriber base compared to Vonage or other corporate competitors, but Sunrocket has already become the fastest growing company in the market of home VoIP providers. They focused on user support, trying to become a telephone company that people really like.

How do they do it? Recently, Sunrocket announced a new tariff plan where tariffs for calls to Asia are reduced to one cent per minute.

As the Sunrocket subscriber base continues to grow, this startup is becoming a tidbit for one of the major VoIP providers.

ViaTalk
Unlimited phone service, so cheap that it’s more convenient for you to pay immediately for a year than every month - this is ViaTalk’s business model and it seems to work fine.

With 50,000 sites hosted by HostRocket's parent company, ViaTalk has quickly become one of the major players in the VoIP market with customers in all 50 states.

ViaTalk offers rates starting at $ 199 per year, with one year free. In addition, the operator provides all the functions familiar to traditional telephony, such as emergency calls (e911), telephone number (caller ID), voice mail and fax transmission.

COOL IT SOLUTIONS: SINGLE BUSINESS COMMUNICATIONS

FirstHand Technologies
Where is the boss? Again with a mobile phone outside the office. How to transfer calls from a landline phone to it? Or connect to an important, urgent teleconference? FirstHand Technologies knows how.

The technology of this startup from Ottawa will help the IT department connect mobile devices to the corporate telephone network and provide uniform numbers for all senior management. Formerly known as SIPquest, the Canadian company changed its name in May 2006, when it received another $ 7 million in venture financing.

GrandCentral
To win the game, you need to make the best mousetrap.

GrandCentral solves the same problem that LogiTell and FirstHand - integrating mobile phones into the corporate telephone network - and found perhaps the simplest solution: a common phone number.

Through VoIP channels, the system redirects the call immediately to all your devices, so that they make calls simultaneously. Voicemail is available through the web interface. The web-based system allows you to organize contacts, organize them into groups and set call processing rules for each group.

With an incoming call, the system shows who is calling and gives you the opportunity to choose: to accept the call or send it to voicemail. The third option: to accept a call with recording to a file. This function is called ListenIn: you can listen to how a person writes a voice message to you, and if you wish, at any time you can still pick up the phone and talk. By the way, the same function of writing to a file is activated during a conversation - any conversation starts to be recorded when you press the “4” button.

GrandCentral service is not yet available in other countries outside the United States, and in America the company does not yet work in all states, but this is only a matter of time.

LignUp A
California-based company with offices in Utah, China, and Japan, is developing systems for integrating, optimizing, and supporting the corporate IT infrastructure of VoIP and local area networks. The company is promoting a single IP platform, which includes telephone communications, voicemail, unified messaging and other web applications. The platform is completely based on SIP standards and allows you to quickly deploy and scale all the necessary services in the company. In June 2006, the startup received another $ 10 million in venture capital investments.

LignUp entered Pulver’s prestigious list of the hundred largest private VoIP companies and was awarded the TMC Labs Innovation Award and the EuroStart Channel Excellence Award for innovation.

LogiTel
Good ideas are in the air, but LogiTel thinks the fastest. It was the very first company to develop a system for the complete integration of mobile phones into the corporate telephone VoIP network.

Combining the highest reliability and ease of use, LogiTel products combine VoIP, TDM and mobile communications in an intelligent user interface. The interface is so simple that the LogiTel system is easy to install in any company without much difficulty.

COOL IT SOLUTIONS: COMMUNICATIONS FOR USERS

BlueNote Networks
When new guests enter the rooms of the four-star Seaport Hotel in Boston, they immediately see the touchscreen and voice-activated web portal at the place where the phone should be. The new BlueNote Networks production VoIP system allows you to make free calls throughout the country, as well as view important information about hotel services and local information, order video and audio entertainment services, and check your mail over the Internet.

Founded in January 2005, BlueNote Networks develops interactive communications systems for corporate customers. An advanced application is the well-known SessionSuite system, which allows you to integrate interactive communications into a wide variety of applications, websites and internal business processes.

Thanks to its promising developments, the company has already received more than $ 23 million in venture financing from such investors as Commonwealth Capital, Fidelity Ventures and North Bridge Venture Partners.

DiVitas Networks
Over the next year, many Americans will acquire mobile phones, which, if necessary, will automatically switch to WiFi mode, and this switch will be completely invisible to the owner of the phone. This was made possible thanks to DiVitas Networks.

This technology is only dreamed by users who live in the WiFi access zone, but it also solves many corporate problems, including in the field of security, management and the cost of mobile communications. In such a network, devices report their status, regardless of which transport protocol they are currently working on: cellular, WiFi, Internet / IP WAN or wired connection.

Fonality
Sometimes the best idea comes when you work on something else. Fonality has never intended to deliver superior telephone exchanges to thousands of customers in 25 countries. Instead, the startup was about to become a home VoIP provider. But when they started the business, they were shocked by the prices of traditional exchanges, so they decided to create their own IP PBX, adding features as needed.

Now the branded station is a powerful and economical product based on Linux and the Asterix platform. At the end of 2006, more than 40,000 companies made over 50 million calls using the Fonality system.

GotVMail
Despite its name, GotVMail is much more than just voicemail.

The founders of the GotVMail startup understood what large telephone companies still do not understand, namely the needs of entrepreneurs and the smallest businesses, often consisting of one person. The GotVMail service provides a single toll-free number with a custom greeting feature for only $ 9.95 per month.

Incoming calls can be redirected to one of the company's employees or to the corporate voicemail box using tone commands. A call can be redirected to any phone number within the globe. In addition to this, the service provides delivery by e-mail or through the website of all voice messages and faxes. Another plus: callers to a single number will never hear a busy signal, because the system can receive several calls at the same time.

Otum
When the phone rings, who is it? Is the call scheduled for a teleconference? Has he called three times already in the last hour? Is it the boss or someone else who has the right to call when you have set the Do Not Disturb mode? The Iotum VoIP service on the Asterisk platform tries to analyze every call and evaluate its relevance at a given moment.

It was this company that recently launched Talk-Now, an innovative program for Blackberry handheld computers. This is a potentially revolutionary program, because it allows you to receive selective calls on the list from the contact list, and also has a notification system when the person you want to talk to becomes available to talk with you.

Switchvox
The VoIP field is so crowded that some companies even set up the same scripts. For example, Switchvox entered the market in the same random fashion as Fonality.

As it grew, Switchvox found that corporate telephone systems were too expensive and required an army of employees to service. They also found that other PBX systems were not powerful enough, so Switchvox created its own Asterisk-based system. Today Switchvox is the largest provider of PBX and VoIP solutions for small and medium-sized businesses.

TalkPlus
What do you need for phone pranks, online dating, and running your own small business? One and the same: TalkPlus virtual telephone number.

By subscribing to TalkPlus services, the user receives one or more virtual phone numbers that can nominally belong to any country or any state, but will be redirected to your mobile phone. A local call in France will be paid at local rates, and you will receive it on your mobile phone in New York.

You also have an online control center where you can configure black and white lists, call and voicemail functions. For example, you can make it so that after 17:00 all calls to the “business number” will be automatically redirected to voicemail, and personal calls will continue to be received on the mobile phone. Another number can be exclusively “for distribution” at conferences and so on - all calls to it go directly to voicemail at any time of the day.

TalkPlus is used in online dating services, so people can talk to each other over the phone without revealing their real numbers. Theoretically, you can create a virtual number for each partner. TalkPlus services will cost about $ 10 per month.

Whaleback
The founders of Whaleback decided to create a service for medium and large businesses, when they realized that in each such company from five to 1,500 telephone exchanges were installed.
The proprietary CrystalBlue Voice Service includes a separate broadband channel for voice only. By purchasing this service, the company eliminates the problems of switching telephone channels: the service works the same for ten phones and for a thousand.

KILLER THE SKYPE

Jajah
Startup Jajah made a name for itself when it launched a web service for connecting landline phones over the Internet. You indicate your number, as well as the number of the person you are talking to from another country - and Jajah calls both of you, connecting you via VoIP. In early 2006, Yair Goldfinger, founder of the well-known Israeli company ICQ, joined Jajah. With such a person, Jajah now boldly competes with Skype, Google Talk and the Gizmo Project.

Recently, the company has expanded the service, and users can order calls even to mobile phones.

The Gizmo Project
When you compete with the Skype monster, available in 27 languages ​​of the world and with millions of users in almost all countries, you need more than just a program, you need a whole project.

Gizmo Project, developed by the companySIPPhone , is a VoIM platform that is compatible with Jabber and Asterisk. Gizmo has recently been selected to integrate voice communication into the Livejournal social network.

Calls to landline phones cost one cent per minute, and for $ 3 per month Gizmo offers a corporate unlimited tariff plan.

Nimbuzz
What to do if your interlocutor has MSN and you have a mobile phone? How to exchange messages or call? In this case, Nimbuzz will help.

Founded in the Netherlands in 2004, Nimbuzz startup has transformed mobile communications by providing the ability to call or exchange instant messages with users of Nimbuzz, Google Talk, and MSN.

Nimbuzz Voice gates are installed in more than 35 countries of the world - they provide communication at local rates. The company competes with similar systems from Fring, Talkster, Vyke, iSkoot, Rebtel, Hullo and other companies.

Wengo The
French company Wengo has created its own VoIP-communications system called the OpenWengo Project. Like the similar Gizmo system, it is based on the Asterisk platform. Unlike its competitor, French development is open source. This allows you to develop software with a wide community of developers.

Jaxtr
“Click-to-call” (banner call) will soon become a standard option on websites. Such an opportunity will be provided by companies like Jaxtr.

Jaxtr is committed to social communications and aims to provide voice communications for social networks and blogs. The company’s service allows you to attach your phone number to a banner on the site and receive calls from your online friends, without opening the number.

The Jaxtr widget can be posted to a blog or as an email signature, or as a profile on a social networking site. You can call on it with one click.

MOBILE VOIP

Fring
Avi Shechter, the founder of the startup Fring, spoke a few days ago at the World Economic Forum in Davos, where he told world leaders about the prospects of VoIP, that soon all communication in the world would become almost free.

He created Fring on the concept of combining the benefits of the Internet and the traditions of mobile communications. Fring users can call each other for free on their cell phone, as well as call Skype and Google Talk subscribers.

The Fring website is a single web page where you enter your mobile number and email address. Fring is downloaded to your mobile phone like a ringtone.

iSkoot
Service iSkoot is also developing a program for mobile phones. Which through special gates redirects voice traffic from cellular networks to an IP network. In January 2007, iSkoot secured official Skype support, becoming the first company of its kind to receive official approval.

Rebtel
For only $ 4 per month, US cellular subscribers can now call 38 countries around the world, including France, Germany and the UK and talk for as long as they like, paying only for local calls at the operator’s rates.

Rebtel is a Swedish startup founded in January 2006. During the year, Rebtel gates opened in 36 countries.

Like other gate networks, Rebtel offers mobile subscribers to make international VoIP calls at the price of local calls. To do this, dial the local gate number and a special code. It is very convenient and works from any mobile phone, you do not even need to download anything.

Tello
Tello has developed a versatile communications system that is supported by various IM programs and proprietary communications systems such as Sprint ReadyLink.

TelTel
TelTel has created the world's first WiFi flip phone. Of course, it doesn’t look as cool as the Nokia N80 with WiFi support, but close to it.

Founded in 2003, TelTel provides telephony services in the global PsipTN network based on SIP protocols. The network can transmit voice, media and content. This is the largest SIP community: it reads 1.8 million registered users. In March 2006, the company received $ 8.8 million in venture financing.

Truphone Truphone's
mission is to merge the world of mobile communications and WiFi. Now they offer a program that works on some models of Nokia phones. With each call, the subscriber can choose how to make a call: over a cellular or WiFi network.

In early January 2007, the company received $ 24.5 million in venture financing. This is enough capital to withstand the first phase of the upcoming war, which is expected between mobile operators and WiFi operators.

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