We made a short video demonstration for using the popular softphone X-Lite with mydivert.com
Okay, so we realise we are no video experts at the moment... but give it time and Josh will get better, and we'll be adding more videos in the near future.
x-lite is available to download free of charge at counterpath.com
Friday, July 31, 2009
Tuesday, July 28, 2009
VoIP Internet Speed Test
The most significant factor that affects VoIP call quality is the speed of the internet connection used for making and receiving phone calls. The overall quality and reliability of your VOIP communications are completely reliant upon the quality, reliability and speed of the Internet connection that it uses.
The internet speed (or bandwidth) in both UP and DOWN directions is important. A minimum bandwidth of 256 kpbs is recomended for clear VoIP calls.
If your available upload and download speeds are above 128kbps and you don't have other applications or computers using up your bandwidth, your connection should support a single VoIP line.
Take the Mydivert.com Internet Speed Test for VoIP and test the connection speed between your PC and our server. For best results, don't use any other programs which access the Internet while the test is running.
The internet speed (or bandwidth) in both UP and DOWN directions is important. A minimum bandwidth of 256 kpbs is recomended for clear VoIP calls.
If your available upload and download speeds are above 128kbps and you don't have other applications or computers using up your bandwidth, your connection should support a single VoIP line.
Take the Mydivert.com Internet Speed Test for VoIP and test the connection speed between your PC and our server. For best results, don't use any other programs which access the Internet while the test is running.
Monday, July 27, 2009
What is Voice Phishing
Voice Phishing, also known as Vishing is the criminal use of telephone communications, most often using features facilitated by Voice over IP (VoIP), to gain access to private personal and financial information. While scams such as Email Phishing have been around for some time, Voice Phishing exploits the public's trust in landline telephone services, which have traditionally terminated in physical locations which are known to the telephone company, and associated with a bill-payer.
VoIP technology, when abused, can make features of caller ID spoofing and caller anonymity for criminal purposes available. Voice Phishing is typically used to steal credit card numbers or other information used in identity theft schemes from individuals.
The proliferation of Voice Phishing, or Vishing, is a threat to the general public and businesses in the VoIP telephony sector. In our opinion it should be the responsibility of VoIP carriers to know who is using their services. For this reason mydivert.com strive to demonstrate due dilligence in this regard. Anyone opening or using an account at mydivert.com may be requested to supply a scan of photo ID or otherwise verify their identity.
One reason that we choose to use the PayPal system to accept payments is that this seperates us from the users credit card information. Mydivert.com users can send personal identification documents to us knowing that these are not held together with their credit card information.
It should be understood by anyone using mydivert.com that although the technology provides flexability, and fantastic communication opportunites, it should not be seen as an anonymous service. At any time, a law enforcement agency may contact us requesting the user information for a purchased phone number, and we may be obliged to forward these details. This policy is intended to protect the interests of the general public, mydivert.com users, and the VoIP business model.
VoIP technology, when abused, can make features of caller ID spoofing and caller anonymity for criminal purposes available. Voice Phishing is typically used to steal credit card numbers or other information used in identity theft schemes from individuals.
The proliferation of Voice Phishing, or Vishing, is a threat to the general public and businesses in the VoIP telephony sector. In our opinion it should be the responsibility of VoIP carriers to know who is using their services. For this reason mydivert.com strive to demonstrate due dilligence in this regard. Anyone opening or using an account at mydivert.com may be requested to supply a scan of photo ID or otherwise verify their identity.
One reason that we choose to use the PayPal system to accept payments is that this seperates us from the users credit card information. Mydivert.com users can send personal identification documents to us knowing that these are not held together with their credit card information.
It should be understood by anyone using mydivert.com that although the technology provides flexability, and fantastic communication opportunites, it should not be seen as an anonymous service. At any time, a law enforcement agency may contact us requesting the user information for a purchased phone number, and we may be obliged to forward these details. This policy is intended to protect the interests of the general public, mydivert.com users, and the VoIP business model.
Friday, July 24, 2009
Hong Kong Virtual Presence
What recession?? - Hong Kong is booming!
The implementation of a Free Trade and Low Tax business environment has led to huge growth in this major business city. Now you can also have a local presence with a local Hong Kong phone nuber for your business.
A Hong Kong Virtual Number provides you with a local telephone contact point in Hong Kong for your customers without the need to actually be there. Calls can be received on a VoIP telephone or forwarded to any telephone number in the world.
To setup your Hong Kong local presence requires virtualy no capital outlay. No staff costs, and No legal complications. Simple create an account with mydivert.com to apply for a Hong Kong number.
A Virtual Presence in Hong Kong is great news for those who require an office identity but do not have the budget for a physical office in the city. A fantastic opportunity for new business start-ups who wish to test a new market and cannot yet justify the cost of setting up a permanent office.
Many of our customers are individuals that work from home but require a city identity - or a telephone presence in a major city. With the call forwarding options available the virtual number can be useful by anyone who often travels but needs to be contactable on a local telephone numbers.
In order to purchase a virtual VoIP number for Hong Kong the end user must supply a scan of their passport or national identity card. This is a requirement of the Hong Kong Telcom Regulator.
The implementation of a Free Trade and Low Tax business environment has led to huge growth in this major business city. Now you can also have a local presence with a local Hong Kong phone nuber for your business.
A Hong Kong Virtual Number provides you with a local telephone contact point in Hong Kong for your customers without the need to actually be there. Calls can be received on a VoIP telephone or forwarded to any telephone number in the world.
To setup your Hong Kong local presence requires virtualy no capital outlay. No staff costs, and No legal complications. Simple create an account with mydivert.com to apply for a Hong Kong number.
A Virtual Presence in Hong Kong is great news for those who require an office identity but do not have the budget for a physical office in the city. A fantastic opportunity for new business start-ups who wish to test a new market and cannot yet justify the cost of setting up a permanent office.
Many of our customers are individuals that work from home but require a city identity - or a telephone presence in a major city. With the call forwarding options available the virtual number can be useful by anyone who often travels but needs to be contactable on a local telephone numbers.
In order to purchase a virtual VoIP number for Hong Kong the end user must supply a scan of their passport or national identity card. This is a requirement of the Hong Kong Telcom Regulator.
Tuesday, July 21, 2009
DID coverage extended to Iceland
We are pleased to announce the introduction of Icelandic DID virtual numbers for immediate purchase at mydivert.com
The Icelandic numbers are from the +354 497 xxxx range and include 5 channels for simultaneous VoIP calls.
Incoming calls call be received through the sip channel with your mydivert.com account, or peered using SIP or IAX protocols to your own pbx or VoIP carrier.
The new virtual numbers from Iceland cost 8 euro per month with unlimited Free incoming call minutes.
The Icelandic numbers are from the +354 497 xxxx range and include 5 channels for simultaneous VoIP calls.
Incoming calls call be received through the sip channel with your mydivert.com account, or peered using SIP or IAX protocols to your own pbx or VoIP carrier.
The new virtual numbers from Iceland cost 8 euro per month with unlimited Free incoming call minutes.
Setting up a Virtual Office
How to Set Up a Virtual Office and Local Geographical Presence
What is a Virtual Office?
Anyone who works from a remote location with a computer, telephone, email, or any other electronic means to perform their job and to communicate with their place of employment, is working in a virtual office. An employee may use a company telephone extension and email to communicate with customers and business associates, but they are not physically located in the company building. This ability to be away from ones company desk but continue to work in the usual manner gave rise to the terms 'telecommuting' and 'virtual office'.
The development of low cost telephone services and VoIP have extended this concept to include establishing a local telephone presence in countries around the world. This has become known as establishing a 'virtual presence'. With the trend towards globalisation the need for businesses to establish a telephone contact point in countries around the world has increased. Today businesses need to be easily contactable by telephone wherever their customers are located.
A virtual office now can be a telephone service that receives and routes telephone calls on behalf of a business - perhaps to another virtual office located in another country. The virtual presence is a means of receiving and passing on calls to a remote location while providing the customer with a local contact telephone number. The prime objective is to assure that customer contact is captured and followed up by whomever the call is relevant or important to. The business that has the virtual presence may not have fixed office premises or employ any staff in the same country as their customers.
In the past virtual telephone services were provided by a business center which would offer an answering and messaging service. Now, with Direct Inward Dialing (DID) telephone numbers which are peered to VoIP, any business can establish a local presence and open their own virtual offices around the world.
How to Set Up a Virtual Presence
In order to establish your virtual presence you will need a Direct Inward Dialing (DID) telephone number for the desired country. DID for VoIP use are still not available for every country, and all area codes, in the world although the coverage is increasing every day. DID numbers for most of the major business cities of the world are available, and an internet search will soon through up a list of providers.
The incoming telephone calls can either be forwarded to another number, messaging system, or VoIP telephone device. The PBX (private branch exchange) which routes the calls may be provided by a VoIP carrier, some other web based service, or could be software running on the end users own computer.
Things to Consider when Setting Up a Virtual Presence
DID and VoIP technologies work very well together when everything is configured correctly. As most DID/VoIP calls rely on more than one server or carrier working together, discrepancies in configurations can result in unstable communication. Common problems include, one way audio, loss of DTMF tones, echo distortion, and dropped calls. These problems generally arise from incompatible codec translations, or other restrictions affecting one or more of the services being used.
If you are planning to use a VoIP carrier it is important to check that an incoming call from your DID is going to be received. You may need to determine the originating IP address for your incoming DID calls and check that calls from this IP are accepted by your carrier. If you are using an Asterisk server, or some other pbx, you may need to add this IP address to the configuration (as an IP authenticated peer).
Check that your DID provider is supplying free, or very low cost, incoming call minutes. A DID with unlimited free incoming minutes, or at least 5000 minutes per month, would be considered reasonable in todays market. Do your research and check the per minute charges if you do exceed the monthly limit.
Check that your DID, VoIP carrier, and PBX are using compatible codecs.
The G711 codec is the most basic, and widely used, telecommunication audio codec. The G711 codec commonly ensures the most reliable transmission of DTMF tones (required for 'ring tones' and IVR answering systems), but does not use audio compression (causing distortion where internet bandwidth is restricted).
The G729 codec is also very widely used and produces excellent results for both DTMF and audio quality. However, with the G729 codec a licence is required by the PBX administrator if any transcoding is required.
It has been known for service providers to have an inadequate licence for the G729, restricted to a fixed number of simultaneous transcoded calls. In this circumstance users could experience loss of audio at times of high server usage. If all parties involved in the call route have G729 available then no transcoding is required and the calls will pass straight through.
The use of codecs will be negotiated between the servers involved in relaying your incoming call. The exact codec used will be determined by the codecs available on each server, and the preferred codec order list. Sometimes it may be necessary to experiment with calls to find the optimum configuration.
An Example Configuration & Quck Start Guide
Mr Bloggs is based in Colchester, a medium sized town in the United Kingdom. He runs a small, but growing, company that recruits specialist staff for the avaitaion industry.
While Mr Bloggs has been able to establish the company based on his previous years of experience in the aviation industry, the Colchester telephone number on his headed paper and website is now a restriction. Mr Bloggs feels that some of the bigger players in London don't bother to call his out-of-town telephone number, and the French contacts he met a last years trade show only call occasionaly for a few minutes.
Mr Bloggs decides the answer is to take his company international, opening virtual offices in both London and Paris. While he's at it he decides to open an American office in New York. This huge international expansion is estimated to require a capital investment of around 50 Euro (yes - 50 euro, or roughly $US 75).
As Mr Bloggs wants to answer his calls personaly when at his desk, he decides to use a hardware VoIP telephone. He had thought of using a softphone on his computer, but the loss of audio quality and connection delay persuaded him to invest in a simple hardware device. Mr Bloggs bought a Lynksys ATA telephone adaptor from ebay - it cost him 30 Euro and took 5 days to arrive. With this small adaptor plugged into his broadband modem, Mr Bloggs is able to use any old PSTN telephone to make and receive VoIP calls. There are many many VoIP telephones and adaptors. Mr Bloggs decides that the Lynksys ATA is simple to set up, cheap, and reliable, which is good enough for him.
In order to purchase his DID numbers Mr Bloggs checked out several providers, comparing their coverage, charges, and the number if incoming minutes available with each DID. He settles for the retail service at www.mydivert.com which meets his requirements. After opening an account Mr Bloggs is able to login to purchase his DID.
He purchases a London telephone number, and a New York number for €2.95 each. The French telephone number for Paris cannot be bought instantly because he has to email a scan of his photo-ID.
While this is a slight annoyance, Mr Bloggs appreciates that mydivert.com comply with the requirements of telecom regulators in each individual country, so sends a scan of his passport. He is okay with this because the Mydivert.com office do not retain a copy of his scanned photo ID. They submit it with the application for the virtual number and then delete it from their own records. The French number is allocated to his account within 4 hours.
The total account credit spent at mydivet.com is now €8.85.
Mr Bloggs follows the simple setup guide for his Lynksys adaptor, using the information he has for his sip account at mydivert.com, and is receiving calls on his London, Paris, and New York telephone numbers within minutes.
The bigger players in London see the new London telephone number at the top of Mr Bloggs website and don't hesitate to call when they are looking to recruit avaitaion staff.
The French contacts asked Mr Bloggs about his fancy Paris telephone number, and where the office was located. Mr Bloggs explained to them about the virtual presence, and how he was keen to open up the potential for his business in France. Impressed with his commitment and forward thinking approach, they and some of their contacts have started calling on a regular basis to discuss taking their businesses forward together. They even offered to provide some French language lessons - but even Mr Bloggs has his limit (for the time being!).
Mr Bloggs is off to a trade show in Florida next month and already has his business cards printed with his New York number.
If you, or anyone you know, is interested in finding out more about VoIP and DID telephone numbers, please feel free to contact the author at josh[at]mydivert.com
What is a Virtual Office?
Anyone who works from a remote location with a computer, telephone, email, or any other electronic means to perform their job and to communicate with their place of employment, is working in a virtual office. An employee may use a company telephone extension and email to communicate with customers and business associates, but they are not physically located in the company building. This ability to be away from ones company desk but continue to work in the usual manner gave rise to the terms 'telecommuting' and 'virtual office'.
The development of low cost telephone services and VoIP have extended this concept to include establishing a local telephone presence in countries around the world. This has become known as establishing a 'virtual presence'. With the trend towards globalisation the need for businesses to establish a telephone contact point in countries around the world has increased. Today businesses need to be easily contactable by telephone wherever their customers are located.
A virtual office now can be a telephone service that receives and routes telephone calls on behalf of a business - perhaps to another virtual office located in another country. The virtual presence is a means of receiving and passing on calls to a remote location while providing the customer with a local contact telephone number. The prime objective is to assure that customer contact is captured and followed up by whomever the call is relevant or important to. The business that has the virtual presence may not have fixed office premises or employ any staff in the same country as their customers.
In the past virtual telephone services were provided by a business center which would offer an answering and messaging service. Now, with Direct Inward Dialing (DID) telephone numbers which are peered to VoIP, any business can establish a local presence and open their own virtual offices around the world.
How to Set Up a Virtual Presence
In order to establish your virtual presence you will need a Direct Inward Dialing (DID) telephone number for the desired country. DID for VoIP use are still not available for every country, and all area codes, in the world although the coverage is increasing every day. DID numbers for most of the major business cities of the world are available, and an internet search will soon through up a list of providers.
The incoming telephone calls can either be forwarded to another number, messaging system, or VoIP telephone device. The PBX (private branch exchange) which routes the calls may be provided by a VoIP carrier, some other web based service, or could be software running on the end users own computer.
Things to Consider when Setting Up a Virtual Presence
DID and VoIP technologies work very well together when everything is configured correctly. As most DID/VoIP calls rely on more than one server or carrier working together, discrepancies in configurations can result in unstable communication. Common problems include, one way audio, loss of DTMF tones, echo distortion, and dropped calls. These problems generally arise from incompatible codec translations, or other restrictions affecting one or more of the services being used.
If you are planning to use a VoIP carrier it is important to check that an incoming call from your DID is going to be received. You may need to determine the originating IP address for your incoming DID calls and check that calls from this IP are accepted by your carrier. If you are using an Asterisk server, or some other pbx, you may need to add this IP address to the configuration (as an IP authenticated peer).
Check that your DID provider is supplying free, or very low cost, incoming call minutes. A DID with unlimited free incoming minutes, or at least 5000 minutes per month, would be considered reasonable in todays market. Do your research and check the per minute charges if you do exceed the monthly limit.
Check that your DID, VoIP carrier, and PBX are using compatible codecs.
The G711 codec is the most basic, and widely used, telecommunication audio codec. The G711 codec commonly ensures the most reliable transmission of DTMF tones (required for 'ring tones' and IVR answering systems), but does not use audio compression (causing distortion where internet bandwidth is restricted).
The G729 codec is also very widely used and produces excellent results for both DTMF and audio quality. However, with the G729 codec a licence is required by the PBX administrator if any transcoding is required.
It has been known for service providers to have an inadequate licence for the G729, restricted to a fixed number of simultaneous transcoded calls. In this circumstance users could experience loss of audio at times of high server usage. If all parties involved in the call route have G729 available then no transcoding is required and the calls will pass straight through.
The use of codecs will be negotiated between the servers involved in relaying your incoming call. The exact codec used will be determined by the codecs available on each server, and the preferred codec order list. Sometimes it may be necessary to experiment with calls to find the optimum configuration.
An Example Configuration & Quck Start Guide
Mr Bloggs is based in Colchester, a medium sized town in the United Kingdom. He runs a small, but growing, company that recruits specialist staff for the avaitaion industry.
While Mr Bloggs has been able to establish the company based on his previous years of experience in the aviation industry, the Colchester telephone number on his headed paper and website is now a restriction. Mr Bloggs feels that some of the bigger players in London don't bother to call his out-of-town telephone number, and the French contacts he met a last years trade show only call occasionaly for a few minutes.
Mr Bloggs decides the answer is to take his company international, opening virtual offices in both London and Paris. While he's at it he decides to open an American office in New York. This huge international expansion is estimated to require a capital investment of around 50 Euro (yes - 50 euro, or roughly $US 75).
As Mr Bloggs wants to answer his calls personaly when at his desk, he decides to use a hardware VoIP telephone. He had thought of using a softphone on his computer, but the loss of audio quality and connection delay persuaded him to invest in a simple hardware device. Mr Bloggs bought a Lynksys ATA telephone adaptor from ebay - it cost him 30 Euro and took 5 days to arrive. With this small adaptor plugged into his broadband modem, Mr Bloggs is able to use any old PSTN telephone to make and receive VoIP calls. There are many many VoIP telephones and adaptors. Mr Bloggs decides that the Lynksys ATA is simple to set up, cheap, and reliable, which is good enough for him.
In order to purchase his DID numbers Mr Bloggs checked out several providers, comparing their coverage, charges, and the number if incoming minutes available with each DID. He settles for the retail service at www.mydivert.com which meets his requirements. After opening an account Mr Bloggs is able to login to purchase his DID.
He purchases a London telephone number, and a New York number for €2.95 each. The French telephone number for Paris cannot be bought instantly because he has to email a scan of his photo-ID.
While this is a slight annoyance, Mr Bloggs appreciates that mydivert.com comply with the requirements of telecom regulators in each individual country, so sends a scan of his passport. He is okay with this because the Mydivert.com office do not retain a copy of his scanned photo ID. They submit it with the application for the virtual number and then delete it from their own records. The French number is allocated to his account within 4 hours.
The total account credit spent at mydivet.com is now €8.85.
Mr Bloggs follows the simple setup guide for his Lynksys adaptor, using the information he has for his sip account at mydivert.com, and is receiving calls on his London, Paris, and New York telephone numbers within minutes.
The bigger players in London see the new London telephone number at the top of Mr Bloggs website and don't hesitate to call when they are looking to recruit avaitaion staff.
The French contacts asked Mr Bloggs about his fancy Paris telephone number, and where the office was located. Mr Bloggs explained to them about the virtual presence, and how he was keen to open up the potential for his business in France. Impressed with his commitment and forward thinking approach, they and some of their contacts have started calling on a regular basis to discuss taking their businesses forward together. They even offered to provide some French language lessons - but even Mr Bloggs has his limit (for the time being!).
Mr Bloggs is off to a trade show in Florida next month and already has his business cards printed with his New York number.
If you, or anyone you know, is interested in finding out more about VoIP and DID telephone numbers, please feel free to contact the author at josh[at]mydivert.com
Wednesday, July 15, 2009
Columbian DID Numbers
We are pleased to announce the extension of our coverage area to include Columbia.
Columbian DID virtual numbers are now available for purchase from the following cites:
Cali, Buga, Palmira, Cartago, and Buenaventura
The new virtual numbers are available from €12 per month with unlimited free incoming minutes.
For further information regarding coverage availability and prices please see here, Columbian virtual DID numbers
Columbian DID virtual numbers are now available for purchase from the following cites:
Cali, Buga, Palmira, Cartago, and Buenaventura
The new virtual numbers are available from €12 per month with unlimited free incoming minutes.
For further information regarding coverage availability and prices please see here, Columbian virtual DID numbers
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
