With New SDK, VoIP Over 3G Apps Now Working On iPhone 171
silverpig writes "Yesterday marked the announcement of the Apple iPad device, and with it came a new version of the SDK. In this new version, Apple has lifted the VoIP over 3G restrictions that limited VoIP traffic to wifi only. This morning, Fring announced that its iPhone app is 3G-capable starting immediately. No update is needed as apparently the app had 3G capability all along, but a server-side block prevented its use. Furthermore, apparently a 3G-capable version of Skype has been ready for some time now, and has been waiting for this restriction to be lifted."
AT&T has allowed VoIP on 3G network since Oct (Score:5, Informative)
AT&T now allowing iPhone VoIP calls over 3G [engadget.com]
AT&T Greenlights VoIP For the iPhone [techcrunch.com]
Re:I'm not special anymore (Score:5, Informative)
You mean the viruses for those people who were stupid enough to leave OpenSSH running on their iphone, with the default login/pw?
Re:Fring No worky (Score:2, Informative)
Re:About time (Score:3, Informative)
it's in cydia.
Re:About time (Score:4, Informative)
You can tether with AT&T now the trick is they charge you an extra $20 a month. So if you are a poor AT&T customer your still SOL.
Indeed with the random variabilty of AT&T network speeds and latency why any would want voip over 3G is beyond me. As for verizon well their network is 3G in technology only. It has massive sections that can barely handle voice let alone data.
Re:Maybe someone can fill me in here (Score:5, Informative)
$0.02/min to China, as opposed to $3/min.
Re:Mighty big assumption (Score:3, Informative)
Re:My understanding.... (Score:2, Informative)
Well I'm not sure, but I would guess that their digital voice is using something more efficient than TCPIP, and in addition they're compressing the hell out of the audio whereas a VoIP program might opt to use lesser compression. Beyond that, I don't know if there's something like different "channels" where they've set aside a certain portion of their bandwidth for voice and other portions for data, which means that using that not-using their voice service doesn't necessarily open up more bandwidth for data.
Voice is circuit switched in UMTS so of course there are different "channels", or tubes if you like. Voice is mostly likely AMR coded over the air interface which is then sent over a ds0 over a T1, either physical or inverse multiplexed over a STM-1 further into the circuit switched core network.
So, yes it will be much for efficent than your run of the mill VoIP which will travel over as UDP over a GTP-U tunnel terminated in the GGSN.
Re:What about multitasking? (Score:3, Informative)
As of last July for Fring [fring.com]
and September for Skype. [skype.com]
Re:Google Voice? (Score:4, Informative)
Re:What about multitasking? (Score:1, Informative)
Re:I'm not special anymore (Score:4, Informative)
According to security expert Charlie Miller, jailbroken iPhones are more vulnerable than non-jailbroken And Charlie Miller should know what he is talking about. After all, he is credited for uncovering the security issue that spawned the first Google Android update, and he did manage to break the Apple developed Safari browser in about 10 seconds and this year’s PWN2OWN competition. While jailbreaking the device is a great way to use the iPhone’s full potential, it also means that you remove all the security protections that Apple built into the device’s software. You will be able to install 3rd party app and other software applications that are not distributed via the iTunes Store, but you will also leave your device wide open to all sorts of attacks.
Re:About time (Score:3, Informative)
The steps are:
1) Jailbreak your phone: http://www.redmondpie.com/jailbreak-iphone-3.1.2-firmware-with-blackra1n-zni327/
2) Enable native tethering: http://www.redmondpie.com/enable-tethering-on-iphone-3g-3gs-3.1.2-firmware-eqw846/
3) Make sure you have the correct mobileconfig (not the benm.at one): http://www.redmondpie.com/fix-iphone-3.1.2-tethering-and-visual-voicemail-vvm-ows754/
Re:My understanding.... (Score:2, Informative)
I thought this was a geek heavy site and that networking would be somewhat understood.
In "lay man"'s terms, cellular standards before LTE (I am talking mostly of 3GPP standards but I assume this applies to WiMAX as well) are really really messy.
A normal UMTS radio access network which has evolved from GSM to UMTS might be amix of TDM, ATM och IP based networks with legacy protocols such as SS7. Through that together with general telecom wierdness where much intelligence is deep inside the network.
These networks are optimizing for running voice traffic, so when you are running VoIP you are pushing what the networks are capably of. Also, since there are usually 3-4 nodes between your phone and the gateway to the packet core you will have latency issues since the network is not putting your VoIP-session in a high QoS class.
I am not really sure if you are interested in knowing the gory details, but that was a quick overview. There should be RF- and core-network engineers here on /. who can explain these things more in detail, I only have experience from R&D of these systems in a lab environment.