The 25 Most Interesting VoIP Startups
Here is a list of 25 new VoIP companies that should change our usual ways of working 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 the position of the Sunrocket 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 for home VoIP providers. They focused on user support, trying to become a phone company that people really like.
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How do they do it? Sunrocket recently announced a new tariff plan, where tariffs for calls to Asia are reduced to one cent per minute.
As the subscriber base of Sunrocket continues to grow, this startup becomes a tasty morsel for one of the major VoIP-operators.
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 looks like it works great.
Due to 50,000 websites hosted by HostRocket, the parent company, ViaTalk quickly became one of the main players on the VoIP market with customers in all 50 states.
ViaTalk offers fares from $ 199 per year, with one year free of charge. Additionally, 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: UNIQUE COMMUNICATIONS IN BUSINESS
FirstHand Technologies
Where is the boss? Again with a mobile phone outside the office. How to transfer calls from a landline to it? Or connect to an important, urgent newsgroup? 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 top management. Formerly known as SIPquest, the Canadian company changed its name in May 2006, when it received an additional $ 7 million in venture capital.
Grandcentral
To win the game, you need to make a better mousetrap.
GrandCentral solves the same problem that LogiTell and FirstHand - the integration of mobile phones into the corporate telephone network - and found, perhaps the simplest solution: a common telephone number.
Through VoIP channels, the system redirects the call to all your devices at once, so that they ring at the same time. Voicemail is available via the web interface. The web-based system allows you to organize contacts, distribute them into groups and set call processing rules for each group.
When an incoming call, the system shows who is calling, and gives you the opportunity to choose: take the call or send it to voice mail. The third option: take a call to the recording file. This function is called ListenIn: you can listen to how a person is recording a voice message to you, and if you wish, you can always pick up the phone and talk at any time. By the way, the same function of recording to the file is activated during a conversation - any conversation starts being recorded when you press the “4” button.
The GrandCentral service is not yet available in other countries outside the United States, and in America the company still does not work in all states, but it 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 corporate IT infrastructure for VoIP and local area networks. The company promotes a single IP platform, which includes telephone, voice mail, unified messaging and other web applications. The platform is completely based on SIP standards and allows you to quickly deploy and scale in the company all the necessary services. 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 for innovation with the TMC Labs Innovation Award and the EuroStart Channel Excellence Award.
LogiTel
Good ideas are in the air, but LogiTel thinks the fastest. It was the very first company to develop a system for fully integrating mobile phones into the corporate VoIP telephone 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, so that the LogiTel system is easy to install in any company without much difficulty.
FAST 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 the voice-activated web portal where the phone should be. The new VoIP-system manufactured by BlueNote Networks 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, check your email over the Internet.
Founded in January 2005, BlueNote Networks develops interactive communications systems for corporate customers. The advanced application is the well-known SessionSuite system, which allows integrating 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 investors such as Commonwealth Capital, Fidelity Ventures and North Bridge Venture Partners.
DiVitas Networks
Over the next year, many Americans will acquire mobile phones that, if necessary, will automatically switch to WiFi mode, and this switching will be carried out completely unnoticed by the owner of the phone. This was made possible thanks to the company DiVitas Networks.
This technology is only a dream for users who live in the WiFi access zone, but it also solves many corporate problems, including 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 communication.
Fonality
Sometimes the best idea comes when you work on something else. Fonality has never intended to supply excellent telephone stations for thousands of customers from 25 countries. Instead, the startup was going to be a home-based VoIP provider. But when they started the business, they were shocked by the prices of traditional PBXs, 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 more than 50 million calls using the Fonality system.
Gotvmail
Despite its name, GotVMail is much more than just voicemail.
The founders of the startup GotVMail realized that they still do not understand the major telephone companies, namely the needs of entrepreneurs and the smallest businesses, often consisting of one person. GotVMail provides a single, free phone number with customizable greeting function - for only $ 9.95 per month.
Incoming calls can be redirected to one of the company's employees or to the corporate voice mail box using tone commands. The call can be redirected to any phone number within the globe. In addition, the service provides delivery of all voice messages and faxes via e-mail or via the website. Another plus: callers to a single number will never hear the “busy” signal, because the system can receive multiple calls at the same time.
Iotum
When the phone rings, who is it? Is the call scheduled to participate in the newsgroup? Did he call already three times in the last hour? Is it the boss or someone else who has the right to call when you have Do Not Disturb? The Iotum VoIP service on the Asterisk platform tries to analyze each call and evaluate its relevance at this particular moment.
It is this company that recently released Talk-Now, an innovative program for Blackberry handhelds. This is a potentially revolutionary program, because it allows you to receive selective calls on the list from the contact list, and also has an alert system about when the person with whom you want to talk becomes available to talk with you.
Switchvox
The VoIP field is so crowded that some companies are even created using the same scenarios. 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 maintain. They also found that other PBX systems are not powerful enough, so Switchvox created its own system on the Asterisk platform. Today Switchvox is the largest provider of PBX and VoIP solutions for small and medium businesses.
Talkplus
What do you need for telephone raffles, online dates and running your own small business? The same thing: TalkPlus virtual phone number.
By subscribing to TalkPlus services, the user receives one or more virtual phone numbers that may nominally belong to any country or 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 management center where you can set up black and white lists, call and voice mail functions. For example, you can make it so that after 5:00 pm all calls to the “business number” will be automatically redirected to voice mail, and personal calls will continue to flow to the mobile phone. Another number can be exclusively “for distribution” at conferences and so on - all calls to it immediately go to voice mail at any time of the day.
TalkPlus is used in online dating services, so people can talk to each other on 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 1500 telephone stations were installed.
Corporate service CrystalBlue Voice Service includes a separate broadband channel only for voice. Buying this service, the company saves itself from the problems with the switching of telephone channels: the service works the same for ten phones, and for thousands.
SKYPE KILLERS
Jajah
Startup Jajah made a name for himself when he launched a web service for connecting city phones via the Internet. You specify your number, as well as the number of the interlocutor from another country - and Jajah calls you both, connecting you via VoIP. In early 2006, Yair Goldfinger, the founder of the famous Israeli company ICQ, joined the Jajah. With such a man now Jajah bravely competes with Skype, Google Talk and Gizmo Project.
The company recently expanded its service, and users can order calls even to mobile phones.
The gizmo project
When you compete with the monster Skype, available in 27 languages ​​of the world and with millions of users in almost all countries, then you need not just a program, you need a whole project.
The Gizmo Project, developed by SIPPhone , is a VoIM platform that is compatible with Jabber and Asterisk. Recently, Gizmo was selected for voice communication in the Livejournal social network.
Calls to landline phones cost one cent per minute, and for $ 3 per month Gizmo offers a corporate unlimited data plan.
Nimbuzz
What to do if your interlocutor MSN, and you have a mobile phone? How to exchange messages or call? In this case, Nimbuzz will help.
Founded in Holland in 2004, Nimbuzz has transformed mobile communications by providing the ability to call or instant messaging with Nimbuzz, Google Talk and MSN users.
Gates Nimbuzz Voice installed in more than 35 countries around 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 built its own VoIP communications system called the OpenWengo Project. Like the similar Gizmo system, it is based on the Asterisk platform. Unlike a competitor, French development is open source. This allows software to be developed by a wide community of developers.
Jaxtr
“Click-to-call” (calling the banner) will soon become a standard option on websites. Such an opportunity will be provided by companies like Jaxtr.
Jaxtr is engaged in social communications and sets its mission to provide voice communication social networks and blogs. Corporate service allows you to bind your phone number to the banner on the site and receive calls from your online friends, without disclosing the number.
Jaxtr widget can be hung up in a blog or in the signature to an e-mail, or in profile on the social networking site. You can call it with one click.
MOBILE VOIP
Fring
Avi Shechter, founder of the Fring startup, spoke several days ago at the World Economic Forum in Davos, where he told world leaders about the prospects of VoIP, that all communications in the world would soon become almost free.
He created Fring on the concept of combining the benefits of the Internet and mobile communication traditions. Fring users can call each other for free on their mobile phone, as well as make calls to Skype and Google Talk subscribers.
Fring website is a single webpage where you need to enter your mobile phone number and email address. The Fring program is downloaded to a mobile phone as a ringtone.
iSkoot
The iSkoot service also develops a program for mobile phones. Which through special gates redirects voice traffic from cellular networks to an IP network. In January 2007, iSkoot gained official support from Skype, 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 local calls at operator 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. Very convenient and works from any mobile phone, you do not even need to download anything.
Tello
Tello has developed a universal 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 phone-flip for WiFi. Of course, it doesn't look as cool as a Nokia N80 mobile phone with WiFi support, but close to it.
Founded in 2003, TelTel provides telephone communications in the global PsipTN network based on SIP protocols. The network can transmit voice, media and content. This is the largest SIP community: it has 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. It is sufficient capital to withstand the first stage of the upcoming war, which is expected between cellular operators and WiFi operators.
VONAGE COMPETITORS: HOME SERVICE PROVIDERS
Sunrocket
Isn't it great to be the fastest growing fish in a huge shark pool? This is the position of the Sunrocket 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 for home VoIP providers. They focused on user support, trying to become a phone company that people really like.
')
How do they do it? Sunrocket recently announced a new tariff plan, where tariffs for calls to Asia are reduced to one cent per minute.
As the subscriber base of Sunrocket continues to grow, this startup becomes a tasty morsel for one of the major VoIP-operators.
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 looks like it works great.
Due to 50,000 websites hosted by HostRocket, the parent company, ViaTalk quickly became one of the main players on the VoIP market with customers in all 50 states.
ViaTalk offers fares from $ 199 per year, with one year free of charge. Additionally, 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: UNIQUE COMMUNICATIONS IN BUSINESS
FirstHand Technologies
Where is the boss? Again with a mobile phone outside the office. How to transfer calls from a landline to it? Or connect to an important, urgent newsgroup? 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 top management. Formerly known as SIPquest, the Canadian company changed its name in May 2006, when it received an additional $ 7 million in venture capital.
Grandcentral
To win the game, you need to make a better mousetrap.
GrandCentral solves the same problem that LogiTell and FirstHand - the integration of mobile phones into the corporate telephone network - and found, perhaps the simplest solution: a common telephone number.
Through VoIP channels, the system redirects the call to all your devices at once, so that they ring at the same time. Voicemail is available via the web interface. The web-based system allows you to organize contacts, distribute them into groups and set call processing rules for each group.
When an incoming call, the system shows who is calling, and gives you the opportunity to choose: take the call or send it to voice mail. The third option: take a call to the recording file. This function is called ListenIn: you can listen to how a person is recording a voice message to you, and if you wish, you can always pick up the phone and talk at any time. By the way, the same function of recording to the file is activated during a conversation - any conversation starts being recorded when you press the “4” button.
The GrandCentral service is not yet available in other countries outside the United States, and in America the company still does not work in all states, but it 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 corporate IT infrastructure for VoIP and local area networks. The company promotes a single IP platform, which includes telephone, voice mail, unified messaging and other web applications. The platform is completely based on SIP standards and allows you to quickly deploy and scale in the company all the necessary services. 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 for innovation with the TMC Labs Innovation Award and the EuroStart Channel Excellence Award.
LogiTel
Good ideas are in the air, but LogiTel thinks the fastest. It was the very first company to develop a system for fully integrating mobile phones into the corporate VoIP telephone 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, so that the LogiTel system is easy to install in any company without much difficulty.
FAST 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 the voice-activated web portal where the phone should be. The new VoIP-system manufactured by BlueNote Networks 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, check your email over the Internet.
Founded in January 2005, BlueNote Networks develops interactive communications systems for corporate customers. The advanced application is the well-known SessionSuite system, which allows integrating 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 investors such as Commonwealth Capital, Fidelity Ventures and North Bridge Venture Partners.
DiVitas Networks
Over the next year, many Americans will acquire mobile phones that, if necessary, will automatically switch to WiFi mode, and this switching will be carried out completely unnoticed by the owner of the phone. This was made possible thanks to the company DiVitas Networks.
This technology is only a dream for users who live in the WiFi access zone, but it also solves many corporate problems, including 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 communication.
Fonality
Sometimes the best idea comes when you work on something else. Fonality has never intended to supply excellent telephone stations for thousands of customers from 25 countries. Instead, the startup was going to be a home-based VoIP provider. But when they started the business, they were shocked by the prices of traditional PBXs, 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 more than 50 million calls using the Fonality system.
Gotvmail
Despite its name, GotVMail is much more than just voicemail.
The founders of the startup GotVMail realized that they still do not understand the major telephone companies, namely the needs of entrepreneurs and the smallest businesses, often consisting of one person. GotVMail provides a single, free phone number with customizable greeting function - for only $ 9.95 per month.
Incoming calls can be redirected to one of the company's employees or to the corporate voice mail box using tone commands. The call can be redirected to any phone number within the globe. In addition, the service provides delivery of all voice messages and faxes via e-mail or via the website. Another plus: callers to a single number will never hear the “busy” signal, because the system can receive multiple calls at the same time.
Iotum
When the phone rings, who is it? Is the call scheduled to participate in the newsgroup? Did he call already three times in the last hour? Is it the boss or someone else who has the right to call when you have Do Not Disturb? The Iotum VoIP service on the Asterisk platform tries to analyze each call and evaluate its relevance at this particular moment.
It is this company that recently released Talk-Now, an innovative program for Blackberry handhelds. This is a potentially revolutionary program, because it allows you to receive selective calls on the list from the contact list, and also has an alert system about when the person with whom you want to talk becomes available to talk with you.
Switchvox
The VoIP field is so crowded that some companies are even created using the same scenarios. 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 maintain. They also found that other PBX systems are not powerful enough, so Switchvox created its own system on the Asterisk platform. Today Switchvox is the largest provider of PBX and VoIP solutions for small and medium businesses.
Talkplus
What do you need for telephone raffles, online dates and running your own small business? The same thing: TalkPlus virtual phone number.
By subscribing to TalkPlus services, the user receives one or more virtual phone numbers that may nominally belong to any country or 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 management center where you can set up black and white lists, call and voice mail functions. For example, you can make it so that after 5:00 pm all calls to the “business number” will be automatically redirected to voice mail, and personal calls will continue to flow to the mobile phone. Another number can be exclusively “for distribution” at conferences and so on - all calls to it immediately go to voice mail at any time of the day.
TalkPlus is used in online dating services, so people can talk to each other on 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 1500 telephone stations were installed.
Corporate service CrystalBlue Voice Service includes a separate broadband channel only for voice. Buying this service, the company saves itself from the problems with the switching of telephone channels: the service works the same for ten phones, and for thousands.
SKYPE KILLERS
Jajah
Startup Jajah made a name for himself when he launched a web service for connecting city phones via the Internet. You specify your number, as well as the number of the interlocutor from another country - and Jajah calls you both, connecting you via VoIP. In early 2006, Yair Goldfinger, the founder of the famous Israeli company ICQ, joined the Jajah. With such a man now Jajah bravely competes with Skype, Google Talk and Gizmo Project.
The company recently expanded its service, and users can order calls even to mobile phones.
The gizmo project
When you compete with the monster Skype, available in 27 languages ​​of the world and with millions of users in almost all countries, then you need not just a program, you need a whole project.
The Gizmo Project, developed by SIPPhone , is a VoIM platform that is compatible with Jabber and Asterisk. Recently, Gizmo was selected for voice communication in the Livejournal social network.
Calls to landline phones cost one cent per minute, and for $ 3 per month Gizmo offers a corporate unlimited data plan.
Nimbuzz
What to do if your interlocutor MSN, and you have a mobile phone? How to exchange messages or call? In this case, Nimbuzz will help.
Founded in Holland in 2004, Nimbuzz has transformed mobile communications by providing the ability to call or instant messaging with Nimbuzz, Google Talk and MSN users.
Gates Nimbuzz Voice installed in more than 35 countries around 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 built its own VoIP communications system called the OpenWengo Project. Like the similar Gizmo system, it is based on the Asterisk platform. Unlike a competitor, French development is open source. This allows software to be developed by a wide community of developers.
Jaxtr
“Click-to-call” (calling the banner) will soon become a standard option on websites. Such an opportunity will be provided by companies like Jaxtr.
Jaxtr is engaged in social communications and sets its mission to provide voice communication social networks and blogs. Corporate service allows you to bind your phone number to the banner on the site and receive calls from your online friends, without disclosing the number.
Jaxtr widget can be hung up in a blog or in the signature to an e-mail, or in profile on the social networking site. You can call it with one click.
MOBILE VOIP
Fring
Avi Shechter, founder of the Fring startup, spoke several days ago at the World Economic Forum in Davos, where he told world leaders about the prospects of VoIP, that all communications in the world would soon become almost free.
He created Fring on the concept of combining the benefits of the Internet and mobile communication traditions. Fring users can call each other for free on their mobile phone, as well as make calls to Skype and Google Talk subscribers.
Fring website is a single webpage where you need to enter your mobile phone number and email address. The Fring program is downloaded to a mobile phone as a ringtone.
iSkoot
The iSkoot service also develops a program for mobile phones. Which through special gates redirects voice traffic from cellular networks to an IP network. In January 2007, iSkoot gained official support from Skype, 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 local calls at operator 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. Very convenient and works from any mobile phone, you do not even need to download anything.
Tello
Tello has developed a universal 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 phone-flip for WiFi. Of course, it doesn't look as cool as a Nokia N80 mobile phone with WiFi support, but close to it.
Founded in 2003, TelTel provides telephone communications in the global PsipTN network based on SIP protocols. The network can transmit voice, media and content. This is the largest SIP community: it has 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. It is sufficient capital to withstand the first stage of the upcoming war, which is expected between cellular operators and WiFi operators.
Source: https://habr.com/ru/post/30899/
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