QuteCom

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QuteCom

WengoPhone icon
Developer(s)	OpenWengo developers
Initial release	25 June 2005, 0.9.49 [1]
Stable release	2.2.1 (22 June 2011 (2011-06-22)) [±]
Repository	anonscm.debian.org/cgit/pkg-voip/qutecom.git
Written in	C/C++ Qt
Operating system	Cross-platform
Available in	?
Type	VoIP/instant messaging service
License	GNU General Public License
Website	http://qutecom.org/

QuteCom (previously called WengoPhone) is a free software SIP compliant VoIP client developed by the QuteCom (previously OpenWengo) community under the GNU General Public License (GPL). It allows users to speak to other users of SIP compliant VoIP software at no cost. It also allows users to call landlines, cellphones, send SMS and make video calls. None of these functionalities are tied to a particular SIP provider and can be used with any provider available on the market.

History

Development on WengoPhone started in September 2004. The first published version was released as 0.949.

A next-generation version of WengoPhone (WengoPhone NG) started development in 2005. The last release of Wengophone before the change to QuteCom was version 2.1.2.

A WengoPhone Firefox extension has also been published, which is currently available on Mac OS X and Microsoft Windows, with a Linux version under development.

On the 28th of January 2008, Wengo, the original sponsor of WengoPhone, transferred the sponsorship of the project to MBDSYS , and it became known as QuteCom.

On the 15th of May 2008, osAlliance presented kvats as a branded 2.2 version of WengoPhone / QuteCom with the preferred SIP provider A1, a brand of mobilkom austria.

Calls

PC-to-PC calls are Hi-Fi 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 Gizmo. WengoPhone also allows users to make video calls using ffmpeg. Since version 2.1 WengoPhone allows IM chats with MSN, YIM, AIM, ICQ and Jabber users. This has been achieved by using libgaim library.[2]

Concerning calls to landlines, the default server configuration is the one from Wengo which was the primary sponsor of the OpenWengo project . After the release of version 2.1, WengoPhone could be used with any SIP provider. This provides users an economic advantage as they can choose the SIP provider according to how much they charge per minute and not according to the software they use.

Protocol

The protocol being used is standard SIP.

User interface

The GUI is similar to those 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 written in Qt/C++ programing language.

Features

The features of QuteCom are:

• SIP compliance
• Provider agnostic
• Allows users to send SMS to France
• NAT traversal
• Cross-platform
• Audio smileys
• Qt-based GUI
• chatting with MSN, AIM, ICQ, Yahoo and Jabber users

Limitations

The main limitations of the QuteCom such as:

• it uses SIP SIMPLE as its protocol for text messaging; this is not often used by other softphones, which prefer XMPP (although XMPP/Jabber is available for using with separate account).
• Lack of true privacy features such as encryption. A beta AES-128 encryption using SRTP is available since 2.1 version of WengoPhone.
• Needs a broadband connection, unusable on dial-up connections (unlike Skype)
• Does not support older versions of Windows like Windows 98 and Millennium
• Does not support H.261, and sends wrong H.263 packets, preventing communication with other videophones.
• Does not support audio conferences with more than 3 people.

See also

• Comparison of VoIP software
• Ekiga
• List of Firefox extensions
• SIP Communicator
• Wengo SIP Service

External links

• QuteCom