Libon is a

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

application developed for

iOS iOS (formerly iPhone OS) is a mobile operating system created and developed by Apple Inc. exclusively for its hardware. It is the operating system that powers many of the company's mobile devices, including the iPhone; the term also includes ...

and

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 ...

Orange S.A. Orange S.A. (), formerly France Télécom S.A. (stylized as france telecom) is a French multinational telecommunications corporation. It has 266 million customers worldwide and employs 89,000 people in France, and 59,000 elsewhere. In 2015, ...

’s subsidiary, Orange Vallée. The application is available for free on the App Store and Google Play in 90 countries, including in countries where Orange does not have a presence in the telecommunications industry, such as the United States.

History

Libon was launched in beta for testing in November 2009 before the LeWeb conference. The first version of the app was called "ON Address Book", and was only available on Android. The current name is an abbreviation of the original name "Life is Better ON". All versions of the app have included "ON" or "Libon" in their names. In March 2011, Orange launched "ON Voicefeed" at the DEMO conference, a visual voicemail iOS app enabling its users to personalize their voicemail greetings by recording them or typing them. On 21 November 2012, Orange added a VoIP feature, updated the app's user interface and officially rebranded the app to "Libon". The app could be used by any iPhone user for free, although features like voicemail transcripts and email copies were charged for in a

freemium Freemium, a portmanteau of the words "free" and "premium," is a pricing strategy by which a basic product or service is provided free of charge, but money (a premium) is charged for additional features, services, or virtual (online) or physical (o ...

model. The Android version was released in the first quarter of 2013. The new service was announced by Stéphane Richard at Orange's "Show Hello!" conference. In March 2015, the "Reach Me" feature was added to the app, allowing calls to be received over Wi-Fi, a competitor to the

Wi-Fi calling Voice over Wireless LAN (VoWLAN), also Voice over WiFi (VoWiFi), is the use of a wireless broadband network according to the IEEE 802.11 standards for the purpose of vocal conversation. In essence, it is Voice over IP (VoIP) over a Wi-Fi networ ...

feature utilised by other carriers. On 30 June 2016, Orange removed features that did not focus on the VoIP Out functionality.

Reception

CNET ''CNET'' (short for "Computer Network") is an American media website that publishes reviews, news, articles, blogs, podcasts, and videos on technology and consumer electronics globally. ''CNET'' originally produced content for radio and televi ...

gave the application a positive review, praising its unlimited free calls to other users of the app and call quality, although they derided its subscription service. According to Orange, the app had "tens of thousands" of active users in 2011, who used the app seven times per day on average.

References

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