__NOTOC__ Linphone (contraction of ''

Linux Linux ( or ) is a family of open-source Unix-like operating systems based on the Linux kernel, an operating system kernel first released on September 17, 1991, by Linus Torvalds. Linux is typically packaged as a Linux distribution, which i ...

phone'') is a free

voice over IP Voice over Internet Protocol (VoIP), also called IP telephony, is a method and group of technologies for the delivery of voice communications and multimedia sessions over Internet Protocol (IP) networks, such as the Internet. The terms Interne ...

softphone, SIP client and service. It may be used for audio and video direct

call Call or Calls may refer to: Arts, entertainment, and media Games * Call, a type of betting in poker * Call, in the game of contract bridge, a bid, pass, double, or redouble in the bidding stage Music and dance * Call (band), from Lahore, Pak ...

s and calls through any VoIP softswitch or IP-PBX. Linphone also provides the possibility to exchange instant messages. It has a simple multilanguage interface based on Qt for GUI and can also be run as a console-mode application on Linux. The softphone is currently developed by Belledonne Communications in France. Linphone was initially developed for

but now supports many additional platforms including Microsoft Windows,

macOS macOS (; previously OS X and originally Mac OS X) is a Unix operating system developed and marketed by Apple Inc. since 2001. It is the primary operating system for Apple's Mac (computer), Mac computers. Within the market of ...

, and mobile phones running

Windows Phone Windows Phone (WP) is a discontinued family of mobile operating systems developed by Microsoft for smartphones as the replacement successor to Windows Mobile and Zune. Windows Phone featured a new user interface derived from the Metro design lan ...

, iOS or

Android Android may refer to: Science and technology * Android (robot), a humanoid robot or synthetic organism designed to imitate a human * Android (operating system), Google's mobile operating system ** Bugdroid, a Google mascot sometimes referred to ...

. It supports ZRTP for

end-to-end encrypted End-to-end encryption (E2EE) is a system of communication where only the communicating users can read the messages. In principle, it prevents potential eavesdroppers – including telecom providers, Internet providers, malicious actors, and eve ...

voice and video communication. Linphone is licensed under the GNU GPL-3.0-or-later and supports

IPv6 Internet Protocol version 6 (IPv6) is the most recent version of the Internet Protocol (IP), the communications protocol that provides an identification and location system for computers on networks and routes traffic across the Internet. I ...

. Linphone can also be used behind network address translator (NAT), meaning it can run behind home routers. It is compatible with telephony by using an

Internet telephony service provider An Internet telephony service provider (ITSP) offers digital telecommunications services based on Voice over Internet Protocol (VoIP) that are provisioned via the Internet. ITSPs provide services to end-users directly or as whole-sale suppliers t ...

(ITSP).

Features

Linphone hosts a free SIP service on its website. The Linphone client provides access to following functionalities: * Multi-account work * Registration on any SIP-service and line status management * Contact list with status of other users * Conference call initiation * Combination of message history and call details * DTMF signals sending (SIP INFO / RFC 2833) * File sharing * Additional plugins

Open standards support

Protocols

* SIP according to RFC 3261 ( UDP,

TCP TCP may refer to: Science and technology * Transformer coupled plasma * Tool Center Point, see Robot end effector Computing * Transmission Control Protocol, a fundamental Internet standard * Telephony control protocol, a Bluetooth communication s ...

and

TLS TLS may refer to: Computing * Transport Layer Security, a cryptographic protocol for secure computer network communication * Thread level speculation, an optimisation on multiprocessor CPUs * Thread-local storage, a mechanism for allocating vari ...

) * SIP SIMPLE *

NAT traversal Network address translation traversal is a computer networking technique of establishing and maintaining Internet protocol connections across gateways that implement network address translation (NAT). NAT traversal techniques are required for m ...

TURN Turn may refer to: Arts and entertainment Dance and sports * Turn (dance and gymnastics), rotation of the body * Turn (swimming), reversing direction at the end of a pool * Turn (professional wrestling), a transition between face and heel * Turn, ...

and ICE * RTP/ RTCP * Media-security: SRTP and ZRTP

Audio codecs

Audio codec support:

Speex Speex is an audio compression codec specifically tuned for the reproduction of human speech and also a free software speech codec that may be used on VoIP applications and podcasts. It is based on the CELP speech coding algorithm.Xiph.OrIntro ...

(narrow band and wideband), G.711 ( μ-law,

A-law An A-law algorithm is a standard companding algorithm, used in European 8-bit PCM digital communications systems to optimize, i.e. modify, the dynamic range of an analog signal for digitizing. It is one of two versions of the G.711 standard ...

), GSM, Opus, and

iLBC Internet Low Bitrate Codec (iLBC) is a royalty-free narrowband speech audio coding format and an open-source reference implementation (codec), developed by Global IP Solutions (GIPS) formerly Global IP Sound (acquired by Google Inc in 2011). It ...

(through an optional plugin)

Video codecs

Video codec support:

MPEG-4 MPEG-4 is a group of international standards for the compression of digital audio and visual data, multimedia systems, and file storage formats. It was originally introduced in late 1998 as a group of audio and video coding formats and related ...

Theora Theora is a free lossy video compression format. It is developed by the Xiph.Org Foundation and distributed without licensing fees alongside their other free and open media projects, including the Vorbis audio format and the Ogg container ...

, VP8 and H.264 (with a plugin based on

x264 x264 is a free and open-source software library and a command-line utility developed by VideoLAN for encoding video streams into the H.264/MPEG-4 AVC video coding format. It is released under the terms of the GNU General Public License. History ...

), with resolutions from QCIF (176×144) to SVGA (800×600) provided that network bandwidth and CPU power are sufficient.Linphone.org » Features

Gallery

Linphone-1-linux-gnome.png, One of initial version's interface of Linphone in

( GNOME) linphone on htc desire.jpg, Linphone running on HTC Desire Linphone-4.1.1-screenshot.png, Linphone 4.1 working on

Windows 8 Windows 8 is a major release of the Windows NT operating system developed by Microsoft. It was released to manufacturing on August 1, 2012; it was subsequently made available for download via MSDN and TechNet on August 15, 2012, and later to ...

(main screen) Linphone-4.1.1-windows-settings.png, Linphone 4.1 settings on

References

External links

* {{Portal bar, Free and open-source software Cross-platform software Android (operating system) software Free and open-source Android software Communication software Free VoIP software Instant messaging clients Instant messaging clients for Linux IOS software MacOS instant messaging clients Videotelephony VoIP software Windows instant messaging clients BlackBerry software