The Call 8 - 6/14/2004
From Michael Robertson, CEO and founder,
SIPphone.com
The First SIP Call from an Airplane and UK Virtual Numbers Released
Last month history was made. On May 17, Lufthansa and Boeing successfully launched the first commercial flight with WiFi broadband service, Connexion.
There were many "firsts" on that flight, but perhaps the most influential one was the first SIP phone call from 21,000 feet over Bahrain. That call was made by 3Com's Global Strategic Webmaster, Klaus Schultz, to a colleague around the globe in San Jose using his laptop, XTen's softphone and his SIPphone.com account.
Today, Lufthansa offers Connexion broadband WiFi service on only one of their flights, but in the coming months and years, it will be come routine to access the Internet from 35,000 feet. So soon we will all be making free calls to our friends, family and colleagues. Let me tell you, I could have really used this on my recent 18 hour flight from Los Angeles to Singapore, the longest commercial flight in the world.
I also want to let you know that we have added United Kingdom Virtual Numbers. Like all our Virtual Numbers, UK numbers are immediately available to all of our customers around the world. So whether you live in Cairo, Hong Kong or Mexico City, now you can have a "local" phone number for your SIPphone in the US and the United Kingdom. Virtual numbers are a great feature that every SIPphone users should have. They let you receive calls from any phone in the world, not just other SIP phones. And you can have as many virtual numbers as you want. So if you want a virtual number in Washington state, Michigan, Ohio and England, you can.
Beyond demonstrating the power and flexibility of SIP when compared to your traditional old landline phone, virtual numbers shrink the world further. Imagine an American living in Japan with family in the US and UK. With SIPphone and a virtual number, her family can call her from the US or UK as a local call. So whether you are in Africa, Asia, Europe, North or South America, you can have a local number in the US and now the UK with a virtual number. Virtual Numbers cost just $2.99 a month.
Of course, I was ecstatic to hear the first SIP call made from an airplane was a SIPphone call. Anyone that has ever made one of those satellite phone calls on a plane can appreciate how different a clear, free SIP call is from the awful, $15/min satellite phone calls they have on most planes today. We were equally impressed to receive our first "local" UK call from our offices in San Diego. But as cool as these first calls are, someday they will just be a funny anecdotes of the approaching avalanche...SIP.
And in this way, all SIPphone customers are trailblazers. You have discovered the next wave in telecommunications first. What seems to each of us so amazing, will too soon be routine. Someday soon, we will exchange stories about the old weird phone system before the days of SIP. We will talk about all the absurd concepts of "local" phone numbers or super-expensive international calling. We will talk about all our "firsts", including our first free call from 30,000 feet and our first local call from across the globe. We will wonder how we got along before there was SIP. We will find it amazing that everyone didn't see SIP coming as soon as we did. And, of course, our kids and grandkids will not understand what we are talking about at all.
Discuss this edition of the call in the SIPphone Forum!
Michael Robertson
CEO and Founder
SIPphone.com
