May 24th, 2007
Testing EQO's mobile VoIP with a BlackBerry Pearl
Note: Because of the obvious subject overlap, this is a cross-post from my VoIP blog.
Joanna Stern from Laptop Magazine is out with a review of a freek downloadable mobile VoIP-enabling software application from EQO (that’s pronounced “echo.”)
After you sign up on the EQO site, an SMS link is sent to your phone. Once you download and install the app, you’ll note that EQO provides instant messaging capability for AIM, Google Talk, ICQ, MSN Messenger, and Yahoo Messenger.
But that’s old news. We’re here to discuss what’s new.
As Joanna explains:
EQO’s real perk is giving you the ability to call any landline or mobile phone in the world through a local gateway (and thus at local rates). Although calls from one EQO user to another EQO user are free, calling a regular mobile or landline phone requires EQO Out credit. When you use EQO Out credit, your call will be routed through EQO’s local access gateway and trigger your phone’s cellular calling network. To use EQO on your phone you’ll need a data plan and a voice plan that allows you to call local numbers.
Joanna then tried EQO Out and made a couple of calls on a BlackBerry Pearl. The first call- from a BlackBerry to a colleague also based in New York, yielded good quality on Joanna’s end, but some latency on the other. But an EQO-to-EQO call with EQO’s CEO Bill Tam produced excellent results.
“We heard Bill quite clearly on the other end and found the calls to go through very quickly,” Joanna points out. “In both cases the voice quality was much clearer than calls over a Wi-Fi network.”
Russell Shaw is an enterprise computing journalist, analyst and author based in Portland, Oregon. See his full profile and disclosure of his industry affiliations.
