VoIP Calling on the iPod Touch with Junction Networks and TruPhone
On Saturday, a group of kids burst into my house looking for me. They were led by my 12 year old son telling the rest of the group that I could 'hook them up.' So far, the scenario sounds like a bad after-school-special. As it was, Maddie handed over her new iPod Touch that she had just received for Christmas. The active application was TruPhone. She stated that she could make phone calls with it and proceeded to call our home phone. The phone rang, I answered the call, but there was no audio. There is no external speaker or microphone on the iPod Touch like on the iPhone. I thought for a second and then grabbed my iPhone headphones and plugged them in. They have four segments on the connection; ground, right channel, left channel and microphone. Worst case, I thought, was at least I could hear the person talk on the other end.
To our surprise, we had a perfect sounding phone call with the iPod Touch and the iPhone headset. The iPod touch recognized the microphone input, and the TruPhone application utilized it. Now I was excited. I commandeered her phone and, with the group surrounding my laptop, logged into Junction Networks. I set up Maddie's TruPhone address as an 'External SIP' address in the Junction Networks OnSIP interface. Next, I gave her an extension on our PBX. I went to my phone and dialed her extension. Her iPod Touch, running TruPhone, rang.
Next, I purchased a phone number and set the destination for that phone number to her external TruPhone SIP address that I had already put into the system. Then, I had my son call that number from his cell phone. Maddie's iPod touch rang and they talked. It hit me. Without a cellular contract, without a data contract, and without even a 'cell' phone, Maddie was talking. She was very excited.
I'm in the VoIP industry. I know about things like TruPhone and fring. But this came from an external source - a 12 year old neighbor who found TruPhone on her own via the Apple App Store and was excited about it. My son recognized that I may be able to enhance the product using Junction Networks, but on her own, Maddie found the application on a device that's not even a phone, and thought it'd be useful. To me, that sounds like it's going to be a good year for VoIP to go mainstream.