Phone Commander - free portable softphone

Phone Commander is a free portable softphone that you can use to make and receive VoIP phone calls from your PC, iPhone or Android based smartphone.

Phone Commander like a telephone to let you make calls through your computer. Call anyone via the internet who also has a softphone installed and if you sign up with a VoIP gateway service company you call regular telephone numbers as well.

The advantage of using Phone Commander is that you can leverage low cost or free VoIP calls and you can connect to the company SIP PBX and work remotely.

Easy to use and powerful Windows program was designed for people who want to improve dynamic interactions with contacts and to manage contact information. It supports multiple SIP accounts and save calls history.

See all contact information for incoming calls. For example, you can see Firstname, Lastname, Birhdate, Company name and other information before call answering. Keep detailed records and notes in your call log about each call and contact.

You can use Phone Commander as a customer database, or personal contact address/phone book, working with groups for managing contact info of individuals and organizations with relationships. Phone numbers, emails, web pages, faxes, pagers, addresses, customer notes - you can save all this data in an organized format.

You can dial phone numbers in one click via Internet. Program has a simple intuitive interface and quick and easy contact lookup. Import and export features are also available.

Attractive and easy-to-use organizer & PIM will keep track of your contacts, addresses, distribution lists, manage your schedule, remind about appointments, and keep your daily notes in order, store your contacts and call by one click. The slick user interface makes it a snap to find addresses and phone numbers, enter reminders.

With its intuitive & familiar interface, users can seamlessly transition from a traditional hard phone environment into the world of Voice over IP. Also by making the navigation simple and user friendly, Phone Commander provides users with easy access to address book management.

The program detects DTMF user input, sends DTMF (Inbound, SIP INFO, RFC2833), supports G.721 A-law/Mu-law, GSM.610, Speex. You can select audio In/Out Devices.

SIP and Mobile WAP and SIP
SIP and Mobile WAP and SIP
> ABOUT SIP > SIP AND MOBILE > WAP AND SIPWAP and SIP

WAP and SIP

This document provides a summary of the ongoing investigation into the potential interworkings of the Session Initiation Protocol (SIP) and the Wireless Application Protocol (WAP). At present, there are no definite conclusions to the investigation; there are still technical questions, mainly in the WAP arena, that need to be answered.

SIP Session Initiation Protocol (SIP) is used to establish sessions between multiple parties in a location-independent manner. The sessions are typically voice sessions, however they could be chat sessions (text based), instant messaging sessions, an online gaming session, etc.

Figure 1

Wireless Application Protocol (WAP) is designed to tackle the limitations of the mobile (cellular) network, in order to allow mobile devices to access internet-based services. Typical services might be email, simple web access, stock alerts, etc.

Figure 2

The WAP protocol is outside of the scope of call signalling and audio transport. Therefore there is no direct mapping between the WAP protocol and SIP. WAP does not contain an equivalent of the SIP INVITE message. For SIP to interact with a WAP enabled mobile phone in call setup and manipulation there has to be a mapping between SIP and the cellular signalling protocols, and that occurs in the gateway in Figure 1.

WAP is predominantly about content delivery to the WAP mobile over the wireless network.

Delivering CLI From SIP Client to a WAP Client

If WAP is about content delivery to mobile clients then perhaps WAP can be used to deliver caller information to a WAP device.

The WAP model allows content to be "pushed" to a mobile client.

Figure 3

In the example shown opposite:

The SIP Client inititates the call targeted at the WAP mobile by sending an INVITE to sip: +1-212-691-8215@wapit.com.
The INVITE arrives at the SIP Proxy Server in the WAPit.com domain. The Proxy Server consults with the Application Server Broker and determines that the mobile client associated with the sip URL has registered for the CLI delivery service.
The CLI Delivery Service is then able to push WAP content to the WAP Push Proxy Gateway asscoiated with the callee. The Push Proxy Gateway then delivers the WAP content over the Wireless Network.
In parallel to this activity, the Proxy Server, converts the sip URL into a tel URL of the format tel: +1-212-691-8215. The Application Service Broker is consulted again in order to identify a SIP/PSTN gateway that can act as an intermediary between the IP and PSTN networks.
A Location Server is used to identify a suitable gateway using the TRIP (Telephone Routing over IP) protocol. The WAP client will receive the pushed content containing the callee CLI, and a corresponding incoming call.
The WAP user is then free to accept or decline the call using the standard phone interface or via WAP content, stored on the mobile client, which is associated with mobile network events, e.g. incoming call.

SIP / CLI Alternatives

Could the caller details (SIP URL) be passed using the CLIP details in the cellular network protocol? If so, this does away with the WAP element for this operation.

Could a SIP client be embedded into the mobile phone, giving the ability to just talk SIP from endpoint to endpoint?

This relies on an IP-based mobile network with high bandwidth. Maybe GPRS will help us with that, but it's more likely that UTMS will be needed. Again this does away with the need for WAP for this application.

SIP > WAP

This scenario shows a SIP client sending an Instant Message to a WAP mobile phone:

The WAP mobile client subscribes to an Instant Messaging Service provided by WAPit.com. This SIP client sends the MESSAGE to the SIP proxy server with the URL sip: +1-212-691-8215@wapit.com.
The MESSAGE is sent to the Application Service Broker which is configured to instruct the Proxy Server to forward the MESSAGE onto the Messaging Server/Gateway.
The Messaging Server/Gateway converts the text associated with the Instant Message into WAP content format and sends it to the WAP Push Proxy Gateway.
The Push Proxy Gateway then delivers the Instant Message over the wireless network to the WAP client. The messaging gateway is able to interrogate the Push Proxy Gateway to ascertain if the instant message was delivered succesfully.
Using the result of the interrogation, a SIP response is formulated and returned to the SIP Client via the SIP proxy server.

Figure 4

SIP > WAP Alternatives

Use SMS instead of WAP to push message to mobile client - SMS content is not as rich as WML. For example, a WAP instant message could contain a hyperlink, that could be activated from the WAP client. WAP content could also contain an image.

WAP > SIP

This scenario shows a WAP mobile client sending an Instant Message to a SIP client:

The WAP client accesses an Instant Message WAP service (WML) via the WAP Gateway.
The Instant message service is WAP content, which allows a WAP client to enter a message, and specify a destination.
The WAP client then submits the WML page to the Messaging Server, which extracts the salient information.
The Messaging server then goes on to form a SIP Instant Message request which is sent via proxy (and ASB) the client acknowledges receipt of message.

Figure 5

SIP / CLI Questions

Can a WAP mobile phone have a WAP session and a telephone call active at the same time?

It seems that the answer is NO. This is a function of the wireless bearer and the number of transmitters / receivers in the mobile handset. GPRS may alleviate this problem, however I haven't got a definitive answer yet.

Has WAP Push model been implemented in any Push Proxy Gateways?

+1-212-691-8215@wapit.com.
The INVITE arrives at the SIP Proxy Server in the WAPit.com domain. The Proxy Server consults with the Application Server Broker and determines that the mobile client associated with the sip URL has registered for the CLI delivery service.
The CLI Delivery Service is then able to push WAP content to the WAP Push Proxy Gateway asscoiated with the callee. The Push Proxy Gateway then delivers the WAP content over the Wireless Network.
In parallel to this activity, the Proxy Server, converts the sip URL into a tel URL of the format tel: +1-212-691-8215. The Application Service Broker is consulted again in order to identify a SIP/PSTN gateway that can act as an intermediary between the IP and PSTN networks.
A Location Server is used to identify a suitable gateway using the TRIP (Telephone Routing over IP) protocol. The WAP client will receive the pushed content containing the callee CLI, and a corresponding incoming call.
The WAP user is then free to accept or decline the call using the standard phone interface or via WAP content, stored on the mobile client, which is associated with mobile network events, e.g. incoming call.