The PhoneBoy Blog

Nokia Says: We Didn’t Remove the VoIP

28 Aug 2008

Om Malik says: “some of [Nokia’s] new handsets, such as the new N78, are not VoIP compatible anymore.” Charlie Schick of Nokia Conversations says the report of the death of VoIP has been groosly exaggerated.

While I haven’t seen the N78 or the N96 up close and personal for more than a minute or two, I’m not surprised that the “upgrade” to S60 3rd Edition Feature Pack 2 “broke” some stuff, or that the VoIP client was “left out” of the phone. Based on past experience with feature pack upgrades, that’s not unusual. (Why does the E71 still have it’s VoIP client, Om? It’s because the E71 is an FP1 device.)

Removing the SIP stack doesn’t make sense. Heck, the carriers themselves use it in some capacities. They may not want you making VoIP calls, but any carrier that implements Kodiak Networks Push-to-Talk service uses–you guessed it–SIP. This includes companies like AT&T, MetroPCS, Telstra, and others.

So TruPhone and the other software vendors that use Nokia’s SIP stack will have to do a little bit of work to get their excellent VoIP over WiFi software working on the newer handsets. It’s par for the course, particularly with feature pack upgrades. Om will get his VoIP and life will go on.