This article was posted online overnight, and while it doesnt contain anything other than what was in the announcement, at least it shows that the word is spreading
ZipTel’s ZipT a nifty VoIP zippity doo-dah
13 May 2015 By Alex Zaharov-Reutt Published in Telecoms & NBN
ZipTel’s ZipT a nifty VoIP zippity doo-dah
Can a VoIP phone with extremely efficient and low-bandwidth usage voice comms, free calls between ZipT users, free video calls and more really win against Skype?
Australian company ZipTel is hoping to have a wonderful day with the latest version of its zippity doo-dah, the ZipT free mobile communication app for Android from 22 June 2015, and iOS in Q3 2015.
The ZipT app ‘allows consumers to send messages and make international calls for free to other ZipT users, or at low cost to any landline or mobile globally.’
Arriving first on Android’s Google Play store, ZipTel talks up the platforms visitation ‘by more than a billion unique users per month across 150 countries.’
As noted, ZipT for Apple iOS users will ‘follow shortly and will be available globally in Q3 2015.’
Now, over the past three months, ZipTel has been busy, stating that it has ‘continued to focus on developing and enhancing the ZipT app, with advancements across its technology and telephony infrastructure as well as implementing an improved algorithm, which reduces the data compression of the ZipT technology platform even further.’
ZipTel says its ZipT ‘testing results of the second version of the ZipT app demonstrate exceptional performance and quality on longer calls, with data usage on average reducing from 9kbps to 5kbps, delivering a 55% saving in data consumption compared with the previous beta version of ZipT.’
Here’s two charts to visually explain what ZipTel is doing with ZipT:
ZipTel says its ‘new technology has proven to provide excellent call quality for connection speeds as slow as 2.5kbps,’ and that ‘extensive testing and analysis found the ZipT data usage was stable at bandwidths of 2.5kbps, which was 276% lower than previously announced at 6kbps (8th Jan 2015).
Thus, a one minute call will consume as little as 144KB of data. ZipTel says this means ‘a standard mobile data package of 1GB would equate to approximately 80 hours of talk time – or more than 50 3-minute calls a day.’
The company also boasts it has ‘also completed further developments and added eight new features to the latest ZipT version ahead of the commercial global launch.’
Although the current version is still beta, the final version is yet to come.
Here are those 8 features to expect:
New additional features added to ZipT for global rollout
Incorporation of new bandwidth reduction technology
Free app-to-app video calling
Facebook Integration (enables users to register and share via Facebook)
Group chat
Auto top up
Picture/video and file sharing
Bundle plans – region based incentive packages to increase monetisation
Features included in previous version of ZipT (beta version)
Free voice calls app-to-app
Low cost calls to landline and non ZipT mobile users
Free instant messaging app-to-app
Low cost SMS to non app users
Account top up
Secure calls
Masked caller ID
Keaton Wallace, ZipTel’s Co-founder and Executive Director said: “Following the successful pilot launch of the application in December 2014 we are excited by this opportunity to commercialise and globally roll out the ZipT app.
“We have set a global launch date for Android, with IOS to follow shortly and we are confident that the additional developments throughout the beta testing to the app’s features and operations will lead to substantial downloads in all countries and a superior user experience
ZIP Price at posting:
67.5¢ Sentiment: None Disclosure: Held
(20min delay)