The new VOIP.MS softapp

General
1

Excited to see a softapp being made available from VOIP.MS to more seamlessly integrate with their system. I’m anxiously awaiting the iOS version since I don’t have an Android phone. But, a few questions that come to mind:

  1. I see that it is available in an open trial for a limited time, giving you the opportunity to try it out firsthand and for free. But, I don’t see any mention of what the cost will be once this trial period is over. Will it be a one time purchase of the app in the Google Play and Apple app store, or will it be a free download but then a fee imposed from within the Voip.ms account in order to enable or use it? If there is to be a fee for using it (whether one time license or subscription based) it would be nice if the download / install from the Google Play and Apple app store is free. The reason for this request is when setting up a a company with a VOIP.MS phone system that is going to also have certain employees use a soft app, often the softphone app is being installed on the employees own personal phone and they may not be set up to purchase apps at which point they need to get set up with a form of payment requiring them to add credit card details, etc. Some of them are very hesitant to do this on their phone. Even if their company says that they will reimburse them for the cost of the app, the whole process can become a big hassle. This is what I currently have to deal with when installing soft phone apps like Groundwire that have about a $10 price tag.

  2. With what is being promised as a more seamless integration with the softphone app and Voip.ms, I am wondering if the same voip.ms subaccount that is used with the hardphone can also be used with the softphone app, or if it is still necessary to creat an additional subaccount specifically for the softphone and then make that new subaccount part of the same ring group as the desktop phone.

  3. I see in the Voip.ms Wiki that this new softphone app only supports one voip.ms account? I currently have workers that not only have their own personal voicemailbox but are also responsible for checking and responding to a general voicemailbox. So, when I configure their softphone app (most of the time using Groundwire’s softphone app), I set it up with a subaccount that is tied to their own voice mailbox and then add an another subaccount that is tied to the general voicemail box. This way, they can notified and retrieve messages left in both voicemail boxes right from the softphone app, and even make outgoing calls from either their own account extension (such as if they have their own DID versus the company’s main phone number DID) so that the Caller ID shows up accordingly.

  4. Any estimate on how soon the Apple version of the softapp will become available?

1 Like
2

Hello -
I downloaded the Android app and when I go to set up in addition to user name & password it asks also for domain. I am at a loss what domain? Thanks! Murray

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In this instance, “domain” refers to the voip.ms server (DID Point of Presence) that you had elected to use in your voip.ms account, e.g. “toronto2.voip.ms”.

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Thanks why couldn’t they just say that!
Murray

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Has anyone gotten this to work? i tried it, it registers, it will send and receive SMS, but all voice calls inbound or outbound just show “error” on the handset (Pixel 7) and show nothing at all on the CDR data. I opened a ticket but so far no response.

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Gesh, support has sure gone downhill – I got an answer asking to verify some settings, after which they marked the ticket solved and closed it and sent me a survey (i suspect they will not appreciate the answer).

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Hello Linwood,

I would greatly appreciate it if you could share the details with me via private message. Based on your description, it appears that it may not have been handled appropriately on our end. Thank you

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Good questions. I have two DIDs.

Also, Groundwire doesn’t work with SMS messages containing images. They say it doesn’t work in the SIP protocol. Will that be the same with this app?

Anyway, I need to keep using Groundwire for now because I have two DIDs.

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I would like to see an iPhone version. Is one planned?

10

Same thing here and nothing Ive tried works.

11

I got mine working, and the issue is that while it is their branded softphone, it is completely unaware of your underlying settings. In my case I had to enable SIP/TLS and outbound encryption to parallel how my actual VoIP system is set up.

Basically there appears to be zero advantage to the branded version in terms of adopting your settings, you need to set them up just like it was linphone or some other app.

What it SHOULD be, since you give it credentials, is smart enough to pull down the provisioning from their service so you really do just put in credentials and magic happens. It’s not.

But… with those settings, mine is now working OK.

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Did you have to change anything in the audio codes?

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No, I did not. This stupid software won’t let me just say no it makes me make a longer post… no no no no… idiotic software…

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This is a great point, especially about employees installing apps on their own phones. That’s something we see too. Some VoIP services are moving toward making their apps free to install with account-level activation to avoid this hassle. As for subaccounts and voicemail handling having support for multiple mailboxes and outbound caller ID profiles is key. Hopefully VoIP.ms builds that in soon.