Tongue twisting aside, Olivoice is the latest VoIP/VoBB service to hit the market with its offerings; while Batelco & JTC (whose service has been terminated/withdrawn this year) launched their own VoIP services last year, Olivoice sets a new standard for Middle Eastern VoIP companies and promises international call rates below 3 cents.

Like Vonage, Olivoice is a VoBB (Voice Over Broadband) service that allows you to make and receive phone calls over your existing broadband connection using a regular phone. Their edge is low call rates to the Middle East. For instance Vonage charges $0.23 cents to Saudi Arabia while Olivoice’s rates start at $0.05 to the same destination. Prices should drop further with time as they negotiate better deals with local telcoms.

But it really doesn’t stop at price wars. Their set of features is what interests me most. Olivoice comes with 12 features straight out of the box, including VoIP2Go, a service that allows you to utilize your VoIP account straight from your cellphone or any domestic phone to make calls using your olivoice account. Sweet!

On the techical side, Olivoice uses 4 different voice codecs and is setup to use G711Ulaw by default. A user can change the codec based on their bandwidth, if you’re using a slow ISDN connection for instane you might want to opt for G729a or ILBC (Internet Low Bit Rate Codec) codecs.

At the present time, you can only use Olivoice service using the bundled Sipura 2100 series ATA; future advancements could include the ability to make calls via a softphone using your computer or PDA on any WiFi network.

According to their prelaunch website the service will be launched in the United States, Canada, the United Kingdom and the Arab World. You can register to receive a discount code to use when they launch their service.

The first 100 registered users will receive a 25% discount. If you were a bit late and not from the first 100 registered users you still get a 10% discount, guaranteed!

Check out their website
English Version | Arabic Version

This entry was posted on Wednesday, March 8th, 2006 at 1:42 pm and is filed under VOIP. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.