OnSIP and Fring: Smart PR
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Perhaps I am getting a bit too cynical for my own good. To me, it just seems obvious that Junction Networks OnSIP hosted PBX solution can connect up with Fring, a mobile VoIP/IM client that supports many phones, including the Apple iPhone and my beloved Nokia S60 handsets. You might, therefore, wonder why it’s worthy of a press release since it seems so obvious.
Both Fring and OnSIP speak SIP, the lingua franca of voice over IP. OnSIP allows you to use any old SIP client as an extension to the hosted PBX. Fring can be configured to talk to any SIP-enabled service. Put the two together, and you’ve suddenly extended your PBX to the mobile phone.
Of course, given the Nokia handsets I carry, I don’t even need Fring. I can just configure my Nokia handsets to talk to OnSIP directly. Of course, it’s not something that I would expect the average Joe to try and do. Fring would certainly make it a lot easier to do.
While I am a bit ho-hum about this press release myself, in general I think it’s smart PR. It’s functionality people want. It’s free functionality for both OnSIP and Fring, simply by speaking SIP and making it easy to interoperate. Letting the world know about it is the right thing.
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Tags: fring, iphone, junction networks, Mobile phone, nokia, onsip, Voice over Internet Protocol, voip Fnord
Comment by Michael Oeth
It was really my 12yo son who got me excited about the press release. I had setup fring on my iPhone and showed it to my son. I made a SIP call out fring telling him it was a free call. He was absolutely thrilled about the idea of a free call using wifi which he then used as justification for me to get him an iPhone. Sorry, that’s not happening. However, it did prompt me to write my fring blog post which I shared with our PR firm first. They got excited and contacted fring for a quote and decided to make it it’s own release. Sometimes the excitement just catches.
fring is a SIP proxy and my preference would be that the iPhone work more like the Nokia in that it has a native SIP stack on the phone. We’re working with TruPhone and CounterPath toward that end.
I was interviewed for this article and the sharp reporter – Adam Stone – asked exactly what you are saying, “What’s the big deal, it should just work.” He and you are both right. It *should* just work. However, there are very, very few business VOIP providers where it does work. We are 100% SIP compatible AND we allow you to be registered on up to 10 separate SIP devices simultaneously. With Junction Networks you are not locked into our hardware and we don’t track your IP addresses for validation. Most VOIP providers either lock you into their hardware, or since you pay ‘per extension’ you can only be logged into one device at a time. For us, fring (and Nokia) are a validation of our business model. For us, that’s exciting.
Thanks,
–Mike Oeth
CEO
Junction Networks, Inc.
Comment by PhoneBoy
The only real bummer about the iPhone piece of it is that you can’t receive a call over WiFi. I blame Apple for not allowing background apps and/or making their device a little too carrier friendly.
Business VoIP solutions, even when they employ open standards, tend to be walled gardens. You guys are showing it can be done by actually being a bit more open. Being open and “easy” for normal folks at the same time is quite a challenge.