5 Sharp Questions for Managing Director of Voxalot, Tony Mascarenhas

Voxalot

At Voipbloggen we’re very privileged to have Tony Mascarenhas (Managing Director of Voxalot) answer some questions regarding Voxalot, SIP Broker and the future of VoIP.

A danish translation can be found here.

Could you briefly explain what Voxalot and SIP Broker are, how do they connect to each other, and who’s behind these twin companies?

Voxalot is a global internet telephony service that currently offers a free service where users can create a short SIP URI (internet telephone number) along with inbound calling, voice mail, speed dialling, virtual-toll-free button, ENUM and SIP Broker interconnects, as well as Smart Call (dial plan) rules to enable least cost routing. Voxalot also offers application developers the ability to embed internet telephony functionality within their applications via an application programming interface (API).

In addition to the above, in the near future for a nominal annual subscription fee, Voxalot will launch VoxPremium where customers, on top of the free basic service, will be offered web call back, and smart call connection, and sip registrations allowing customers to set up Dial in Numbers that will ring their Voxalot account number.

The unique value proposition of our service is that we integrate all of these features and functions into a single offering that is configurable via the web. Our voice services are accessible through multiple devices such as an ATA, WiFi enabled mobile, soft phone on your computer or simply a web browser.

SIP Broker provides a numeric short code that is easily able to be dialled from a telephone handset for SIP domains as well as performing ENUM lookups across multiple ENUM roots. Any one can register their SIP domain with SIP Broker and receive a SIP Code (a numeric short code). Currently there are over 2000 SIP Domains registered with SIP Broker. In addition to the SIP Codes and ENUM lookups, SIP Broker also provides over 200 PSTN access numbers around the world providing callers with a bridge between the PSTN network and the VoIP network. Once connected via these access numbers the caller can then dial any SIP domain directly by prefixing the number with a SIP Code.

Voxalot uses SIP Broker to perform ENUM lookups as well as for connections to other SIP domains.

Voxalot and SIP Broker were built and developed by HA Enterprises, a specialty services company based in Sydney, Australia, founded by a number of ex-IBMers who love technology and built Voxalot and SIP Broker as a labour of love.

What does the future hold for Voxalot, you have a new site on the way, with payment features, how does that put “the good old users”? Is this a goodbye to the ENUM ideology as a free service, in essence, what will still be free and what is in store for those with money to spend? Will you be offering national telephone numbers?

Rest assured that Voxalot will continue to offer a free service in the future. We will continue to provide free membership that will allow users to set up an account on Voxalot, make in-bound and out-bound calls as well as use all of all the SIP Broker functions and PSTN access numbers. In addition we will continue to innovate new functions and features to strengthen our offering and keep our members and customers happy.

It seems that the mobile voip devices are becoming more and more regular, given the increasing number of hotspots with wireless broadband, how does Voxalot/SIP Broker make sure that you can remain in this market? Will we see IM & presence or text messaging services from Voxalot in the near future?

Voxalot already supports mobile WiFi connections and we will continue to do so. We will also continue to develop additional services as requested by our community and where possible, partner with other solution providers to work on mutually beneficial solutions that our members and customers will find useful.

What will be the future role of ENUM? There isn’t much going on at e164.arpa, where the data is being maintained by the VoIP-providers, but quite a lot seems to be going on at e164.org, which is maintained by the users. How will this stage look in years to come?

Well, as I do not have a crystal ball, it is hard for me to see the future. However, I do see the take up of ENUM increasing as a result of user maintained roots such as e164.org, and the efforts of Voxalot, SIP Broker and other organisations around the world spreading the message and the benefits of this technology. The future of ENUM has not so much to do with technology, but rather the education and understanding of the technology by the mass market. Until the mass market begins to understand ENUM and the benefits of this technology it will continue to be a niche service that is leveraged by a small community.

As a Dane wanting to use Voxalot, what does it have to offer for me? Do you consider Voxalot an Australian or an international service? And can I safely setup a friend’s ATA with Voxalot (if, say, he wants to use one provider for incoming calls and another for outgoing on an ATA not capable of dealing with multiple providers) without worrying that I’m giving myself a lot of work (e.g. my friend contacting me ever so often because “the $&!# phone doesn’t work”)?

Whether Dane, German, Italian or from any other part of the world, Voxalot offers the same value proposition to everyone and that is the ability to access, use and configure VoIP from just about any where that you have an internet connection and a VoIP enabled phone, computer or a regular conventional telephone.

We are an international service and we plan to continue to improve our international position as we grow. Earlier this year we launched our European server cluster to address the latency issues experienced by our European members who were connecting to our US and/or Australian cluster of servers. To further serve our international community we also plan to translate our services into several other languages after we launch our new site and premium service. We believe the support tickets provided by the Premium service will be a useful feature and should encourage referrals as we will be able to provide the necessary support.

What is your biggest inspiration working in the VoIP industry?

Our biggest inspiration working in the VoIP industry is the community of users we have managed to create with the Voxalot/SIP Broker combination. It is great to see so many people that are willing to assist new members and volunteer to help us develop and test new services.

The same community also seems to find many new an innovative ways to use the services – well beyond anything we imagine when we initially think up the idea.

The exciting thing for us is that the VoIP industry is still evolving and there is still plenty of innovation to come.

Thanks to Karsten Pedersen, Thomas Høyer & Herman Ransborg for helping with the questions.

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