Navoto fights roaming with Skype
Verizon's Skype mobile apps for Android and Blackberry, tied to Verizon's Wi-Fi, won't roam internationally. The new Navoto GSM Gateway for Skype offers a way around this. The gateway connects your hometown wireless carrier to your on-the-road mobile phone.
Omri Navot was one of the first to pioneer hardware that added value for Skype users. Skype Journal introduced his SkyQube from Singapore's Qool Labs in April 2006. Now his own company, UGI Telecom, an original design manufacturer in Rehovot, Israel, is releasing the gateway today.
Getting set up takes about ten minutes. Plug in the cables and install the software. Before your trip, take the SIM card from your mobile and put it into the gateway. When you arrive at your destination, get a local prepaid SIM and put it in your mobile phone. Then "pair" your new SIM by texting the gateway.
Once Navoto knows your new SIM, it starts to work. Calls to your mobile number at home are forwarded to you through a SkypeOut call.
You can make calls through Navoto's ringback feature. Ping the gateway, it calls you using SkypeOut, you hear dialtone and make your call. You can also setup speed dial contacts to make it easy to reach phone numbers or a few of your Skype contacts.
Let's look at the gear, in this case a prototype from a few months' ago.
The front of the box has a slot for your local SIM card. By putting your mobile phone's SIM card in the box, Navoto looks like your mobile phone to your wireless carrier.
You eject your SIM card poking a paper clip into a small hole.
The back of the box has (from left to right) a power jack, two RJ11 phone line jacks so you can keep your home phone connected, a USB port to connect to your home-town PC, and a connector for the GSM antenna.
The GSM antenna lets the box talk with your home-town wireless carrier.
The software running on your PC is a Skype plug-in, talking to your Skype desktop client. None of this works unless Skype for Windows is running.
The Navoto desktop software has many features.
Voice mail, call recording, voice messages, simple configurable IVR (phone menus), voicemails sent to your email account, SMS texting, and scheduled mode changes (home, work, offline, etc.).
Navoto Gateways are entering the distribution channel this week.
In my experience, the prototype gateway works as advertised.
However it is still very early for this product and I haven't worked with final production versions of the software or the gear. Both the hardware and software are improving quickly in response to known bugs and feature requests. I experienced installation bugs with the email feature, for example. My version of the box, one of a handful of production tests, didn't have final CE FCC certification, packaging, finish, labels, or documentation. I look forward to giving the finished product another look.
International calling is the largest (only?) growing telecom sector. Skypers called for more than twelve percent of all international minutes in 2009. Demand for cross-border calling is proven. How much is due to travel? How many billions of dollars does the international roaming market collect? Omri Navot aims to find out.
tags: navoto, hardware, software, gsm, mobile, gateway, skype, skypeout, israel, is, emea
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Photo on wood table: Navoto. Other photos and chart: Phil Wolff.
Labels: emea, israel, mobile, partners, product, review, skype, verizon, voip
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