User:LN2/Sandbox/WengoPhone

WengoPhone is a free software VoIP service developed by the OpenWengo community under the GNU GPL license. It allows users to speak at no cost from one's computer to other users of SIP compliant VoIP software. It also allows users to call landlines, cellphones, send SMS and to do video calls. None of these functionalities are tied to a particular SIP provider and can be used with any provider available on the market, unlike proprietary solutions such as Skype and others.

History
WengoPhone's development started on September 2004. The first published version was released as 0.949. Classic has gone through a number of different releases, up to 0.99 RC8.

WengoPhone NG's development started at the end of the year 2005. Its first release is planned for the end of March 2006.

In between, a WengoPhone Firefox extension has been published, which is available on GNU/Linux, Mac OS X and Microsoft Windows.

Calls
PC to PC calls are HiFi quality and use several codecs such as ILBC, AMR-WB, PCMA, PCMU, AMR and GSM. It is possible to start a conversation with other users of the same software or any other software that is SIP compliant such as Gizmo5. WengoPhone also allows users to do video calls using ffmpeg.

Concerning calls to landlines, the default server configuration is the one from Wengo which is the primary sponsor of the OpenWengo project. It is however possible to use other servers such as the one from VoIPBuster. This provides users an economic advantage as they can chose the SIP provider according to how much they charge per minute and not according to the software they use.

WengoPhone 2.0 cannot be used with any SIP provider. However, it is the item with the highest priority on todo list, apart from having a 2.0 release. This feature will be implemented right after the first NG release. 

Protocol
The protocol being used is standard SIP.

The user interface
The GUI is very similar to the one of other VoIP softphones such as Gizmo5 or Skype. From the main GUI, one can access through tabs the contact list, the list of calls but also the user SIP account. Technically it is based on Qt/C++.

Particularities
Particularities of the WengoPhone are:
 * SIP compliance
 * provider agnostic
 * allows users to send SMS to France
 * NAT traversal
 * Crossplatform
 * Audio smileys
 * Qt-based GUI

Limitations
The main criticisms of the WengoPhone are:
 * it uses SIP SIMPLE as its protocol for text messaging; this is not very much used on the market by other softphones, which prefer the XMPP.
 * Lack of true privacy features like encryption
 * Needs a broadband connection, unusable on dial-up connections (unlike Skype)
 * Does not support older versions of Windows like Windows 98 and Millennium

Future
The new version of WengoPhone labeled NG is to fix many of these limitations. The NG version will be GUI agnostic and support other protocols for text messaging. It will also offers an API for developers to build application on top of it. It should be available by mid 2006. The first version of it is already available through a firefox extension, though the NG version will be available with a Qt interface.

Resources
The OpenWengo community uses the #openwengo IRC channel on the freenode network to communicate, as well as several mailing lists.

WengoPhone WengoPhone Classic WengoPhone WengoPhone WengoPhone WengoPhone