AOL Voices

Blog Moved

Thu, 09 Oct 2008 02:15:56 GMT

With the impending shutdown of AOL Journals at the end of the month, I've moved the blog over to blogspot. The new URL is http://aolvoices.blogspot.com.

Product Spotlight: AOL Voicemail

Wed, 08 Oct 2008 12:40:41 GMT

One of the products we've had in production for many years now is AOL Voicemail. Many people probably think that it's only of use to traditional AOL dial-up users. Nothing could be further from the truth. AOL Voicemail is a voicemail product just like a voicemail service from your own telco. But unlike your typical telco voicemail product, AOL Voicemail offers features that others don't.

Ask yourself if your current voicemail offers the following capabilities:
* The ability to get a notification that someone is calling, either while you are on the phone (the line is busy), or after it has rolled over the voicemail, and then allows you to take action on that call (play a message, answer/transfer the call, ignore the caller).
* Listen to the voicemail through your computer as it is being recorded, allowing you to barge in and answer the call after all.
* Get your voicemail as email attachments to any email address you choose.

While the ability to get notifications of calls and to listen to voicemail as it is being recorded to require you to be logged in to AIM, the product is not limited to "dial-up" users. For example, a lot of people in our office monitor their home phone from work, transferring calls to work that they want to answer.

So the next time you interact with your voicemail system, ask yourself if you can do better.

Tags: voicemail, AOL Voicemail, AOL, AIM

AIM Phoneline SIP Device Support Back

Fri, 08 Aug 2008 16:02:46 GMT

We have completed some system updates that have allowed us to restore the AIM Phoneline SIP device support. If anyone has any problems, let me know.

AIM Call Out Now Supports PayPal

Fri, 01 Aug 2008 16:52:03 GMT

I am pleased to announce that in addition to credit cards and Moneybookers, we now support PayPal as an option for paying for AIM Call Out credits. Either use your existing PayPal account or create a new one.

call-out.aim.com
paypal.com

Tags: AIM Call Out, PayPal, Moneybookers

AIM Phoneline Free Now Supports SIP Devices

Wed, 04 Jun 2008 16:53:11 GMT

I am happy to announce that AIM Phoneline Free now supports SIP devices so that you can receive calls to your AIM Phoneline number without having to run the AIM client. All you have to do to get a SIP device to work is set it up just like you would to make calls for an AIM Call Out account, but you'll also want to turn on SIP registrations for your device. You can set your SIP device password through the AIM Call Out dashboard, which you can do even if you don't have any credit in your AIM Call Out account (but hey, while you're at it, go ahead and add some credit and make calls to over 200 countries in the world!).

If you have both AIM Phoneline Free and AIM Call Out, you'll be able to receive and make calls from your SIP device. Note that your AIM Phoneline Free phone number will not show up as the caller ID for calls that you make with AIM Call Out.

Stay tuned for further updates.

UPDATE June 12, 2008: We had to turn off SIP support for APLF for now while we work through some technical issues we encountered with another system within AOL that we rely on to provide this service. We will re-enable it as soon as we can.

We've Lowered Our Rates

Fri, 30 May 2008 13:48:11 GMT

Good news AIM Call Out Users, we've lowered a lot of our rates! Here are some examples (cost per minute):
* Call Argentina for $0.02, $0.01 for Buenos Aries, mobiles for $0.14 (was $0.03, $0.02 Buenos Aries, and $0.22 for mobile calls)
* Call Bangladesh for between $0.03 and $0.05 (was anywhere from $0.04 to $0.14)
* Call Canada for $0.01 (was $0.02, $0.08 for Yukon, NWT, Nunavut)
* Call Diego Garcia for $0.80 (was $0.97)
* Call Hong Kong for $0.02, $0.01 for +8526 numbers (was $0.03)
* Call India for between $0.06 and $0.12 (was $0.10 to $0.15)
* Call Kuwait for between $0.08 and $0.09 (was $0.11)
* Call Libya land lines for $0.28 (was $0.32)
* Call most cities in Mexico (land lines) for $0.03 (was $0.08)
* Call Nepal (Katmandu land lines) for $0.10 (was $0.19)
* Call Palestine for $0.28 (was $0.32)
* Call Taiwan (Taipei) for $0.02 (was $0.10)
* Call Thailand for $0.02, mobile $0.04 (was $0.04, mobile $0.05)
* Call UAE for $0.23 (was $0.28)
* Call +882 satellite phones for $4.50 (was $7.50)

You can get a full listing of the new rates at our rate page.

Tags: AIM Call Out, Long Distance Rates

Free Calls For Mother's Day!

Wed, 07 May 2008 12:41:50 GMT

That's right! For the Mother's Day weekend we're offering free calls to AIM Call Out subscribers (with the exception of satellite phones and a few countries). You just need to have a funded AIM Call Out account. See http://call-out.aim.com/mothers-day/ for details.

Tags: AIM Call Out, AIM, Mother's Day

AIM Phoneline & SIP Devices

Fri, 02 May 2008 17:35:14 GMT

For those AIM Phoneline users out there who saw the Open Voice announcement on Tuesday and were disappointed that it didn't include support for AIM Phoneline (i.e. the ability to receive your AIM Phoneline calls on a SIP device), I want to pass on that we are working on adding it, and it will hopefully be available shortly (by the end of the month, if not sooner).

Update: I should also point out that while you can no longer register for AIM Phoneline, we are working on a replacement inbound product. Allowing SIP devices for AIM Phoneline will give us a head start on ensuring that there are no issues with supporting SIP devices for the replacement product.

Tags: AIM, AIM Call Out, Open Voice, AIM Phoneline, SIP

AIM Call Out Update

Tue, 29 Apr 2008 10:55:12 GMT

Some great news! We've just released our latest version of AIM Call Out. This release marks the start of some important developments for our products that will hopefully make AIM Call Out more useful and easier to use. Here are the major highlights of this release:
* SIP devices: Yes, you can now use a SIP device to make calls with your AIM Call Out account.
* Registration: We have eliminated the registration path. All AIM subscribers who agree to the Terms Of Service just get AIM Call Out. You just have to add credit to make calls, but you can check out the Dashboard for free.
* Moneybookers: You can now add AIM Call Out credit(s) using Moneybookers. Moneybookers supports a wide variety of banks and credit companies throughout the world (available shortly).
* WebConnect: We've improved the interface making it easier to use. We hope to raise its profile to customers who want to use AIM Call Out and talk on their own phone.

We hope that you all enjoy these updates. Look forward to additional updates in the not-too-distant future that will make the AIM Call Out service even better!

http://call-out.aim.com

Tags: AIM, AIM Call Out, SIP, Moneybookers

Don't Forget About AIM Peer-To-Peer

Thu, 21 Feb 2008 13:32:24 GMT

It's not hard to miss all of the talk about Skype and the fact that a lot of people are using it to call friends and family while avoiding long distance phone charges. But every time I hear about Skype, I am constantly reminded of the fact that AIM (and the full AOL client) have had peer-to-peer (P2P) voice calls for a long time now. And let's not forget about video as well, which has also been in the AIM client for some time. When making P2P calls with AIM, the audio quality can be very good, since the codecs available range from iLBC (a low bitrate, narrowband codec) up to iSAC (a higher bitrate, wideband codec). Also available are G.711 (high bitrate, narrowband), EG.711 (also high bitrate, narrowband, but has methods for concealing packet loss), GSM (low bitrate, narrowband widely used in wireless networks), and G.723 (high bitrate, wideband). The two clients will automatically negotiate a codec to use, and the latest versions of AIM should be able to negotiate around most network topologies (such as where Symmetric NAT is used - the enemy of VoIP).

So the next time you think about picking up the phone to call one of your buddies, or if you're thinking about jumping on the Skype bandwagon, consider using AIM's built-in P2P calling instead. All you have to do is right click on your buddy and select Talk, or hit CTRL-T in the buddy IM window. You should be pleasantly surprised.

Tags: AIM, VoIP, Skype