Software: Mobile Wifi

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      CommentAuthorcrazy pete
    • CommentTimeJun 18th 2008
     

    My Dad sent me a link to some software which can be installed on a smart 'phone in order to use it as a Wifi hotspot. I haven't had a chance to try it yet but it's such an interesting development I thought I'd post now.
    I find free public Wifi 'spots are few and far between so I'm sure I'm soon going to be wondering what I ever did without it. It'll give me one less reason I can't spend every day off at the beach!

    www.joikuspot.com

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      CommentAuthorSpode
    • CommentTimeJun 18th 2008
     

    Interesting. Does it create an access point, or is it ad-hoc?

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      CommentAuthorcrazy pete
    • CommentTimeJun 18th 2008 edited
     

    From a quick skim of the website earlier, I think it's ad-hoc, but as I say I haven't really had a good chance to look at it yet.

    Edit: From the 'site -

    Currently Symbian OS used in Nokia phones does not support WLAN infrastructure mode.

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      CommentAuthorClubBarf
    • CommentTimeJun 18th 2008
     

    Ok, that's very interesting...

    Now all we need is an unlimited data 3G sim for £notsilly...

    I'd actually be interested in this for a VoIP phone. Imagine taking your landline with you everywhere you went... Landline quality, landline cost. You would need to cart 2 phones around though (your wifi voip phone, and your 3G hotspot phone). And you'd need to hook your landline up to a VoIP server of some kind (Asterisk! Yay for Asterisk!) or you'd have to get a VoIP account from an ITSP like vonage...

    Still, if everyone you knew did it, free (VoIP to VoIP) calls all round! Yay and stuff!

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      CommentAuthorClubBarf
    • CommentTimeJun 18th 2008
     

    http://www.fring.com/

    Hmmm, one handset running this fring software and the joikuspot software could be an all-in-one hotspot and VoIP solution. You wouldn't need a mobile number anymore - you'd call to and from a landline number using VoIP.

    Combine this with free calls on my BT landline, and technically, my mobile bill could shrink to just whatever the data plan costs me...

    If you called someone and talked to them nonstop all month, you'd use 5.6GB of data. A 1GB data plan would yeild nearly 7,700 minutes a month on a symbian based phone. And if that is to your own VoIP server, with lowest call routing set up (yay asterisk!) you can probably make all but premium rate calls for free, and call mobiles a lot more cheaply than *any* mobile plan.

    No free minutes to mobiles though. Still, how many minutes at 3p/min or whatever 18866/1899 is charging could you get for the difference in price between this and your current plan?

    I gotta look into this...

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      CommentAuthorcrazy pete
    • CommentTimeJun 19th 2008
     

    I've tried Fring to talk to my Dad in Wales via my home wifi and the 3G on his mobile. The delays in audio and the noise suppression make it quite difficult to tell when the other person has finished talking. We resorted to use of the word 'over' at the end of each sentence.

    I've also had a chance to try Joikuspot and have found it very quick to install and setup, it works exactly as claimed. I've also discovered that my Archos doesn't support Ad-hoc networking which has scuppered my plans. Still I'll keep it on there just in case.

    I uderstand Vodaphone contract customers are charged a maximum of £1 per day for data but as I don't have itemised billing I can't check this.

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      CommentAuthorClubBarf
    • CommentTimeJun 20th 2008 edited
     

    £30/£31 pcm would be worth it for me, if I ever take up professional photography (thinking of taking courses)...

    I'd probably be uploading upwards of a gig a day. As for fring - which codecs were you using? Were you using an ITSP?

    Transcoding causes most of the delays in VoIP calls. That and distance. Ideally you'd use G711 (which is ISDN, encapsulated into IP, and therefore doesn't need transcoding) or GSM (which transcodes *very* quickly - and yes, is the same GSM that mobile phones use). Or if you can't use GSM, G729, which is very low bandwith, but still pretty good quality and transcodes pretty quickly. Speex (the codec skype uses, if memory serves) is high quality, but I don't know about transcoding times.

    *edit* it might have been iBLC that skype uses... Which is also a fairly good codec...

    My advice would be to test with G711 if you can, and switch off noise cancellation (as a test) and silence suppression (which always seems to cause more trouble than it's worth).

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      CommentAuthorcrazy pete
    • CommentTimeJun 21st 2008
     

    I was using Skype with the Fring software. My Dad's on 3 and his phone came with Skype installed. I can't find any settings in Fring for noise supression or Codecs. How do I go about changing these options?

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      CommentAuthorClubBarf
    • CommentTimeJun 21st 2008
     

    In skype, you erm... Don't... You'd have to get a pair of ITSP accounts (some of them give you free landline numbers, although I can't remember which - try avoiding 0845 numbers if you can, though - they cost more to call) before you can change your codecs. Or get your own VoIP server (pointless if you can get free ITSP accounts).

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Copyright Andrew Miller (Spode), 2008