QuteCom (previously called WengoPhone) was a

free-software Free software or libre software is computer software distributed under terms that allow users to run the software for any purpose as well as to study, change, and distribute it and any adapted versions. Free software is a matter of liberty, no ...

SIP-compliant

VoIP 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 Internet t ...

client developed by the QuteCom (previously OpenWengo) community under the GPL-2.0-or-later license. It allows users to speak to other users of SIP-compliant VoIP software at no cost. It also allows users to call

landline A landline (land line, land-line, main line, home phone, fixed-line, and wireline) is a telephone connection that uses metal wires or optical fiber telephone line for transmission, as distinguished from a mobile cellular network, which uses ...

s and

cell phones A mobile phone, cellular phone, cell phone, cellphone, handphone, hand phone or pocket phone, sometimes shortened to simply mobile, cell, or just phone, is a portable telephone that can make and receive calls over a radio frequency link whi ...

, send

SMS Short Message/Messaging Service, commonly abbreviated as SMS, is a text messaging service component of most telephone, Internet and mobile device systems. It uses standardized communication protocols that let mobile devices exchange short text ...

and make video calls. None of these functions are tied to a particular provider, allowing users to choose among any SIP provider.

History

Development on WengoPhone began in September 2004. The first published version was released as version 0.949. A next-generation version of WengoPhone (WengoPhone NG) began development in 2005. The last release of WengoPhone before the change to QuteCom was version 2.1.2. A WengoPhone Firefox plug-in has also been published, which is currently available on

Mac OS X 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 computers. Within the market of desktop and la ...

and Microsoft Windows, with a

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, w ...

version under development. On 28 January 2008, Wengo, the original sponsor of WengoPhone, transferred the sponsorship of the project to MBDSYS, and it became known as QuteCom.Wengo entrusts the OpenWengo project to its partner MBDSYS
On 15 May 2008, osAlliance presented kvats as a branded 2.2 version of WengoPhone/QuteCom with the preferred SIP provider A1, a brand of

mobilkom Austria A1 Telekom Austria (A1, ''A eins'') is the leading fixed and mobile network operator in Austria, with 5.4 million mobile and 2.3 million fixed-line customers. A1 Telekom Austria traces its origins to Austria's first GSM mobile phone network whi ...

. As of 29 July 2016 the domain qutecom.com is registered with a domain broker. Whois seems to indicate this happened on 30 March 2016.

Calls

PC-to-PC calls have Hi-Fi quality and use several

codec A codec is a device or computer program that encodes or decodes a data stream or signal. ''Codec'' is a portmanteau of coder/decoder. In electronic communications, an endec is a device that acts as both an encoder and a decoder on a signal or ...

s such as

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). ...

G.711 G.711 is a narrowband audio codec originally designed for use in telephony that provides toll-quality audio at 64 kbit/s. G.711 passes audio signals in the range of 300–3400 Hz and samples them at the rate of 8,000 samples per second ...

( PCMA or PCMU), G.722, AMR (license needed),

AMR-WB Adaptive Multi-Rate Wideband (AMR-WB) is a patented wideband speech audio coding standard developed based on Adaptive Multi-Rate encoding, using a similar methodology to algebraic code-excited linear prediction (ACELP). AMR-WB provides improved ...

(license needed),

G.729 G.729 is a royalty-free narrow-band vocoder-based audio data compression algorithm using a frame length of 10 milliseconds. It is officially described as ''Coding of speech at 8 kbit/s using code-excited linear prediction'' speech coding (CS-ACEL ...

(license needed). It is possible to start a conversation with other users of the same software or any other software that is SIP-compliant such as Gizmo. QuteCom also allows users to make video calls using

FFmpeg FFmpeg is a free and open-source software project consisting of a suite of libraries and programs for handling video, audio, and other multimedia files and streams. At its core is the command-line ffmpeg tool itself, designed for processing of vid ...

. Supported video codec is H.263. Since version 2.1, QuteCom allows IM chats with MSN, YIM, AIM, ICQ and

XMPP Extensible Messaging and Presence Protocol (XMPP, originally named Jabber) is an open communication protocol designed for instant messaging (IM), presence information, and contact list maintenance. Based on XML (Extensible Markup Language), i ...

users. This has been achieved by using the

libpurple Pidgin (formerly named Gaim) is a free and open-source multi-platform instant messaging client, based on a library named libpurple that has support for many instant messaging protocols, allowing the user to simultaneously log in to various se ...

library. Concerning calls to landlines, the default server configuration is the one from Wengo, which was the primary sponsor of the OpenWengo project. After the release of version 2.1, QuteCom could be used with any SIP provider. This gives users an economic advantage, as they can choose the SIP provider according to how much the provider charges per minute and not according to the software they use.

User interface

The

GUI The GUI ( "UI" by itself is still usually pronounced . or ), graphical user interface, is a form of user interface that allows users to interact with electronic devices through graphical icons and audio indicator such as primary notation, inste ...

is similar to those of other VoIP

softphone A softphone is a software program for making telephone calls over the Internet using a general purpose computer rather than dedicated hardware. The softphone can be installed on a piece of equipment such as a desktop, mobile device, or other comp ...

s such as

Gizmo5 Gizmo5 (formerly known as Gizmo Project and SIPphone) was a voice over IP communications network and a proprietary freeware soft phone for that network. On November 12, 2009, Google announced that it had acquired Gizmo5. On March 4, 2011, Google ...

Skype Skype () is a proprietary telecommunications application operated by Skype Technologies, a division of Microsoft, best known for VoIP-based videotelephony, videoconferencing and voice calls. It also has instant messaging, file transfer, deb ...

. From the main GUI, tabs allow access to the contact list, recent calls list, and user account information. Technically, it is written in

Python Python may refer to: Snakes * Pythonidae, a family of nonvenomous snakes found in Africa, Asia, and Australia ** ''Python'' (genus), a genus of Pythonidae found in Africa and Asia * Python (mythology), a mythical serpent Computing * Python (pro ...

and Qt/

C++ C++ (pronounced "C plus plus") is a high-level general-purpose programming language created by Danish computer scientist Bjarne Stroustrup as an extension of the C programming language, or "C with Classes". The language has expanded significan ...

programming languages.

Features

The features of QuteCom are: * SIP compliance * Provider agnostic * Allows users to send SMS to France * NAT traversal *

Cross-platform In computing, cross-platform software (also called multi-platform software, platform-agnostic software, or platform-independent software) is computer software that is designed to work in several computing platforms. Some cross-platform software ...

* Audio

smiley A smiley, sometimes referred to as a smiley face, is a basic ideogram that represents a smiling face. Since the 1950s it has become part of popular culture worldwide, used either as a standalone ideogram, or as a form of communication, such a ...

s * Qt-based GUI * Chatting with MSN, AIM, ICQ, Yahoo and XMPP users * Encryption via SRTP, but key exchange over Everbee key that is not a Standard * Uses standard Session Initiation Protocol

Limitations

The main limitations of the QuteCom are: * Lack of true privacy features such as encryption. A beta

AES-128 The Advanced Encryption Standard (AES), also known by its original name Rijndael (), is a specification for the encryption of electronic data established by the U.S. National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) in 2001. AES is a variant ...

encryption using SRTP is available since 2.1 version of QuteCom * Does not support

H.261 H.261 is an ITU-T video compression standard, first ratified in November 1988. It is the first member of the H.26x family of video coding standards in the domain of the ITU-T Study Group 16 Video Coding Experts Group (VCEG, then Specialists Gro ...

and sends wrong H.263 packets, preventing communication with other videophones * Does not support audio conferences with more than three people * Key Exchange for encryption is not a standard, so it works only between QuteCom clients

References

4
Binary files for Windows and source code
{{DEFAULTSORT:Qutecom Instant messaging clients that use Qt Voice over IP clients that use Qt Videoconferencing software that uses Qt Free instant messaging clients Free VoIP software MacOS instant messaging clients Windows instant messaging clients Discontinued Mozilla plug-ins Videotelephony