AIM Callout has been closed

Dear blog readers,

I am writing to let you know that the AIM Call Out service has now been closed.

I really hope this does not cause an inconvenience. It’s never an easy decision to shut down a wonderful service like AIM Call Out, but we are looking carefully at all our features to ensure we’re providing maximum value to our users.

  

I have gained a lot of lessons architecting and deploying this product on a global scale.Most importantly I had the privilege of working with some great voip companies all over the world to integrate their services with AOL Open Voice platform.I would like to thank everyone who had worked with me and the aol team over the last few years.

We are going to focus on our core voice products AOL Call Alert ,AOL Voicemail , AOLByPhone services going forward.I will continue to provide information on any new features that we add to our product offerings

Jack

Mobile VOIP calls with AIM Call Out on iPhone ,iPhone 3G and iPod touch

I have been working with our friends over at Fring to enable support for Mobile phones with our Open Voice platform.
Finally, AIM Call users can now download the fring app from the itunes App Store making it easy for anyone to use AIM Call Out on the original iPhone, iPhone 3G or iPod touch.

Fring™ is a free mobile VoIP software that lets you talk and live chat (IM) using your handset's Internet connection instead of costly mobile airtime cellular minutes. It enables free mobile calls over Wi-Fi Internet access or your GPRS, EDGE or 3G Internet data plan.VoIP using fring is of course restricted to WiFi connections - it won't work over 3G, but still its a great way to call long distance / International directly from your Mobile phone .Also you can IM over 3G, GPRS, EDGE, or WiFi, so you can use fring as your centralized IM application on your iPhone. Users will also have one searchable contact list with all your instant messaging buddies from Skype®, MSN® Messenger, Google Talk™, ICQ, Twitter, Yahoo!™ and AIM® .So you can easily see whose available and where they can be reached before dialing or starting a live chat session.In short, you can finally interact with all your favorite internet applications, services and communities from your iPhone.

To add AIM Call Out on your iPhone do the following,
Select the "add ons" option from the apps main dialer page ; Choose SIP ; Enter your AIM Call credentials
*Your AIM Call Out screename
*SIP Device Password ( Set this password on https://dashboard.voice.aol.com/settings/sip )
*AOL SIP Proxy : SIP.AOL.COM

Once you are subscribed to AIM Call ,make a call directly from the Fring phone dialler and choose the "SIP Call" option to dail any phone number in the world with AIM Call Out.

Here is a brief demo from Roy from Fring describing this iphone app.

For more Videos on using AIM Call with your Mobile phone or other VOIP devices visit my youtube channel , http://youtube.com/VoIPalicious

Fring iphone website : http://www.fring.com/download/iphone

AIM Call Out : http://call-out.aim.com

AOL Voice Services : http://voice.aol.com

Iam working with the fring people to have a seperate client for AIM Call users.
So stay tuned.

Happy Voiping on your iPhone!

International phone calls on AIM Call Out using free Linux Softphones

Its been a while i wrote about new ways to make phone calls with AIM Call Out.
Finally, I decided to write an article to all the tech savvy voip users around the world to describe howto use AIM Call Out using free Linux softphones.
Last week , jamie one of our senior SA's showed me how easy it is to setup a softphone called Twinkle.
Twinkle is a feature-rich softphone that uses the SIP protocol.It can be utilized as a direct IP phone to IP phone communication or in a network using a SIP proxy to route calls and messages.This VOIP Softphone even has the ability to call any phone number directly from the KDE addressbook.Visit this link http://voice.aol.com/devices/twinkle-linux-softphone to learn howto setup twinkle with AIM Call Out.
There are several Linux softphones including zioper ,xten (X-lite) ,wengophone ,Ekiga (formerly GnomeMeeting) ,Linphone ,SIP Communicator etc..
Instruction to setup Zoiper Softphone: http://voice.aol.com/devices/zoiper-20-softphone-client
We have already tested softphones like xlite(xten),Twinke,Zoiper in our labs and have instructions on our voice portal http://voice.aol.com/devices

Let me know if anyone has tried any other linux Softphones with AIM Call Out .
As always your feedback is much appreciated.

VOIP Calls on Apple iPhone using AIM Call Out !

Monday, August 11, 2008

Great news for all our AIM Call users having an iPhone !

   

   Apple iPhone mobile users can now make Long distance / International calls with AIM Call Out.

Our friends at Ringfree have recently enabled support for AIM Call , so now anyone having an iPhone can call anywhere in the world for only a few cents/min. This service does not require any software installs , hacking or jailbreaking, nor does it require the presence of a WiFi network. RingFree is a web-based application. 

You have to sign up for the service from your iPhone, which is currently free.A data only unlimited plan is not even necessary. 

RingFree is a callthrough application which needs only a small amount of data over the 3G/EDGE network to signalize the call.

The rest is a local phone call to the RingFree call in number.There a server takes over and sends the call over the internet.

RingFree doesn't use VoIP on the mobile leg of the call.

Simply go to http://rf.com on the iPhone’s web browser, sign-in (or sign-up) to your account and you are ready to start calling. For first time users, all you need in order to set-up the RF Dialer with your AIM Call Out account is to goto the Settings option,choose Calling services and choose Add provider .Enter your AIM Call user name/password, and for the proxy server enter : SIP.AOL.COM

To make a call with an iPhone, click on the RF.com icon; A dial pad pops up.Now select the type of call to be made ,choose "AIM Call Out" as the provider from the drop down options and dial any number in the world.For all US customers , calls will goto a 415 local area code number.

Here are some details of how this works , Ringfree call sends a bit of JavaScript over 3G/EDGE to retrieve a local number , which the user is prompted to dial with the iPhone's native phone application.When this number is dialed, the AIM Call is triggered to dial the number entered in the Web app, and the call goes through. In other words, RingFree is a sort of virtual dialer — it acts as an automatic link to AIM Call that uses standard voice minutes to make VoIP calls.Only a small amount of data is transferred over 3G/EDGE (or other GPRS network) to make the call.The net effect is this: you can use your local, US AT&T minutes to make calls to anywhere in the world for only the cost of the local minutes plus the few cents per min for the call.

It essentially works like a call-through service. The first leg of your call goes to a local number ( 415 area code) and then the calls are sent using RingFree via the internet to the destination recipient's phone. For users who are already on the at&t plan dialing this number would just be a local call. You use your iPhone calling plan minutes whether you're talking to a someone down the block or your buddy in Beijing.

This service is currently in beta with customers in the US and Canada and plans to go live in Europe sometime soon. Now go ahead and enjoy International calling using your iphone for only few cents/min.

For detailed instructions of howto use AIM CallOut on your iPhone visit,

                                        http://voice.aol.com/devices/ringfree-iphone

                                         AIM Call Portal ,  http://call-out.aim.com 

Free Phone Calls from the Web Browser using AIM Call Out !

Wednesday, July 2, 2008

Flashphone now offers free calls to Russia (Moscow and St. Petersburg).

Flashphone now offers AIM users to use AIM Call Out directly from Flashphone.  

AIM users can use Flashphone make calls directly from the browser without installation of specific software.
It’s very easy to use AIM callout service from Flashphone. Just login toAccount Manager using your flashphone user’s credentials , click Add VoiP provider account and select AOL/AIM from dropdown list, enter your AIM or AOL screen-name (AOLScreenName@aol.com or AIMScreenName@aim.com) into Username and AIM password, save your account. 

That’s all you need to do in order to use Flashphone for making calls through your AIM call-out account.

Users can also initiate a video call to a video client such as X-Lite or even any SIP videophone device.The latest version of Zingaya Media Server supports video calls to SIP softphones or hardphones with H.263 video codec support. 
Visit AIM Call Out : http://call-out.aim.com
Flashphone portal : http://flashphone.ru
Mobile Client: http://flashphone.ru/en/mobile(PDA's, iPhones, Mobile Phones will all be able to make calls over 3G or Wireless networks )

I have made a video of howto setup Flashphone with AIM Call Out and its on my Voipalicious Channel on Youtube 

 

Visit my youtube channel for more videos: http://www.youtube.com/user/VoIPalicious

Something like 99.1% of PCs and Macs have Flash installed, so basically you can take your voip credentials to any PC worldwide without having to install a softphone.

Visit : http://voice.aol.com/SIP-Client-List for detailed instructions

Happy Voiping !!

VOIP phone calls on MAC Softphones with AIM CallOut

Thursday, June 5, 2008

We have been getting a lot of requests to enable voip sip support for the MAC Soft phones.We have listened to your requests and now have enabled support for both Inbound and Outbound calling from these soft phones.Now users can make calls to any regular phone worldwide directly from their MAC computer.We have tested AIM CallOut and AIM Phoneline with some open sip mac softphones like X-lite, Eyebeam, Sjphone and iSoftphone.If you do not wish to download a software to your MAC, just make calls directly from your Safari, Firefox or Opera web browser using a Flashphone like Tringme. 

If you are having problems using your MAC softphone client, let us know and we will test the software in our voice labs for any compatibility issues with our open sip gateway.
For your home office or small business, you can connect any sip phone or soft phone from the MAC to an open source telephony software like Asterisk or Freeswitch and make long distance International calls with cheap rates as low as 1¢/min
Note: Currently we have stopped new registrations for AIM Phoneline which had both inbound and outbound calling in one service .

All existing AIM Phoneline customers can still receive free inbound calls but for Outbound calling to 200+ countries users must sign-up for AIM Call Out at  http://call-out.aim.com
As always all calls between AIM Clients worldwide are always free !

AIM Phoneline supports free Inbound Phone calls to any SIP Device !

Wednesday, June 4, 2008

"Great news for all our existing Aimphoneline users" 

Now you can get free inbound calls to your favorite  sip device (IP phones, Wifi phones) or even to Softphones like X-lite. Also if you have a regular phone , use any one our certified TA's listed on our Voice Portal and receive inbound calls .Aimphoneline users now have the ability go hands free with no headsets and without the need to run the AIM Client all the time on their computer.

To enable inbound calls for your sip device, just follow our AIM Call Out sip device instructions at http://voice.aol.com/SIP-Client-List and turn on registration in your client settings.Then sign-up for a free AIM Call Out account with your Aim Phoneline screename and setup a sip device password through the AIM call Out Dashboard .
Use the same password to setup your sip device and enjoy unlimited free inbound calls.

Now that you have a AIM Call Out account ,go ahead and add credit for a few dollars and call the whole world for as low as 1¢/min. http://call-out.aim.com

Happy Voiping !

Cheap International Calls with best Voice quality using AIM Call Out !

Friday, May 30, 2008

"Call landline or mobile phones in United States, Canada and worldwide for as low as 1¢/min"

            The success of our free worldwide calling Mother's day campaign demonstrated a huge demand for cheap international calling.We listened to your request for cheap calls and are happy to announce that the per minute calling rates to many of the 200+ worldwide destinations have been reduced substantially.     

           Visit http://call-out.aim.com/rates to find out about our new rates to all these countries.
           Highlighting just a few of our impressive per minute rates:  United Kingdom(1¢), Canada(1¢), China(1.5¢), United States(1.6¢),  India(5.9¢), France(1.5¢), Australia(2¢), Germany(1.5¢), Sweden(1.5¢), Argentina(Buenos Aires-(1¢), Hong Kong(1¢) all these with premium voice quality.
         We do not ever compromise on call quality and do not force flat rates like regular telephone or voip companies. There are no value added taxes ,no connection fees ,no monthly bills and no hidden charges of any kind.The only exception to that is for Canadians residents, who will be charged sales tax at the time of credit purchase. 
International calling has never been easier and AIM Call Out can be usedfrom any phone to call 200+ countries without changing companies. Users can enjoy great customer service , highest quality connections, low rates, plenty of value added features and crystal clear call quality, anywhere they are.
           AIM Call  makes it easy to for low cost calls to any country worldwide because it can be used from any kind of phone (home, business, Mobile, Internet phone or even an enterprise ip pbx). With the recent launch of our Open Voice Platform , users can make calls with their existing home phones using TA's , Mobile Wifi phones, IP phones or even with a web based flash phone like Tringme.
Customers will also get on-line account management and call history so they can see what they spend on each call.
             Visit our voice portal sip devices page  http://voice.aol.com/SIP-Client-List to see the list of clients we have already certified after testing them in our lab.
              Finally i would like to thank everyone for providing extensive feedback & support over the last few months and would encourage everyone to subscribe to my blog using any rss reader so that you can benefit from all the wonderful features that we are about to announce shortly for all users worldwide. One feature that we currently working on now is a total worldwide inbound calling service to compliment the AIM Call Out product.
                   For more details visit our AIM Call portal @ http://call-out.aim.com

AIM Call Out enables SIP Trunking support for Enterprises and open sip stacks

Wednesday, May 14, 2008

I want to take the time to answer some questions i recently got from some embedded software developers who wanted to know if we would support open sip stacks with our voice platform .The Open Voice platform consists of a number of service offerings, all based on open standards, that allow any application to use the AIM Call Out infrastructure to place calls from any standards-based hardware device, or, for a developer more important, any custom piece of software. This essentially allows you to build your own softphone or to integrate some sort of phone functionality into your line-of-business application. I would encourage everyone to visit my past  blog article where I explain about our voice platform and the RFC's we support currently for this program.

Just a breif overview of SIP Trunking,
A SIP trunk is a service offered by an ITSP (Internet Telephony Service Provider), like AOL, that permits businesses that have a PBX installed to use Voice-over-IP (VoIP) also outside the enterprise network by using the same connection as the Internet connection. SIP Trunking is the next-generation communication platform that gives businesses the ability to SCALE their voice solution gradually to meet their individual business needs, SIMPLIFY the administration of their network by reducing providers, and SAVE money by right-sizing their bloated telecom budget.

             For enterprises wanting to make full use of their installed IP-PBXs and not only communicate over IP within the enterprise, but also outside the enterprise a SIP trunk provided by an ITSP like AOL to connect to the traditional PSTN network is the solution.Unlike traditional telephony, where bundles of physical wires were once delivered from the service provider to a business, a SIP trunk allows any company to replace these traditional fixed PSTN lines with IP connectivity to AOL Voice platform for PSTN termination. SIP trunks can offer significant cost-savings for enterprises, eliminating the need for local PSTN gateways, costly ISDN BRIs or PRIs .

Now for the good news, one of our engineers, Mark Blomsma from our developer network team has written an excellent article on how to write a .NET VoIP application that integrates with AIM Call Out. He used the sip.net framework and the Sipek sip phone, and has written a simple voip application that is interoperable with the AOL Voice network.The Sipek phone is a VoIP engine powered by pjsip.org open SIP stack.Mark had to use Sipek SDK's since sip.net currently does not support any RTP stacks.In a nutshell the SipekSDK wraps a C DLL and offers a managed API that C# developers are able to use.Currently, the Sipek softphone supports a C# wrapper to connect to the pjsip stack.Another nice feature is that this Sipek wrapper can be used in other .NET projects, including Windows Mobile.

                       The code for setting up a connection to AIM Call Out using this sip.net programming stack can be found in Mark's blog 

  
Finally I would encourage all developers using open sip stacks like NIST SIP, minisip, mjsip, opensipstack, osip2/exosip2, PhAPI, PJSIP, resiprocate, Sofia SIP, etc. writing their own application ,to use our open voice platform and provide us your feedback.

                      Interested developers can send me an email at opensip@aol.com if you would like to know more information on our voice platform . I can provide some AIM Call test accounts for people interested in testing your software or hardwarewith our open sip gateway.

                       For more details oh howto get started with AIM Call Out visit http://call-out.aim.com or our developer portal at  http://dev.aol.com/api/aimcall

AIM Call Out supports phone calls using the Asterisk platform

Tuesday, May 6, 2008

I am are pleased to inform everyone that we are announcing support for the Asterisk open source telephony platform with our open sip gateway .I just finished testing a few Softphones and IP Phones behind my Asterisk server in our lab and so wanted to pass on the configuration information to everyone.To all the users , I do want to mention that there is a limitation of maximum number of simultaneous calls as per our fair usage policy.Note: This configuation was tested with the complete source code for the most current Asterisk release 1.4.19.1

Asterisk Setup documentation for AIM Call Out can be found in our voice portal:  http://voice.aol.com/devices/asterisk-14

There are several videos on you-tube to help users get started on this open source telephony platform that can be used at home or small business.Visit my youtube channel for 

related Asterisk videos : http://www.youtube.com/VoIPalicious

If you are using Free PBX for your business , visit this link  from their article this week:  http://nerdvittles.com/index.php?p=215

For more details on howto get started with AIM CallOut visit  http://call-out.aim.com 

We are currently working to provide support for an inbound calling service to compliment  AIM Call Out , so stay tuned for that announcement.Let me know if anyone has any issues in setting up Asterisk server in your infrastructure.Drop me a line at opensip@aol.com if you have any questions or comments.