O-Tel video calling
O-Tel Telecom has partnered with OJO Africa to offer terrestrial video calling in South Africa
O-Tel Telecom has partnered with OJO Africa to offer terrestrial video calling in South Africa
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O-Tel video calling service launched
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yaseent
Active Member
LOL@Rainbows
Precisely what I thought while reading the article before being linked to the forum page.
Frustrating to read about this but not be informed of the medium/technology. Unfortunately this is the result of always being sold the snake-oil in South Africa - because prior to recent offerings in data, every hero-wannabe has always provided offerings that ended up being too good to be true.
Had a look at their confusing website, and can't seem to find any info on the product. Under "Services" they have a link called "Coming Soon" which makes mention of the Video Calling Conference, but provides absolutely no details whatsoever.
Precisely what I thought while reading the article before being linked to the forum page.
Frustrating to read about this but not be informed of the medium/technology. Unfortunately this is the result of always being sold the snake-oil in South Africa - because prior to recent offerings in data, every hero-wannabe has always provided offerings that ended up being too good to be true.
Had a look at their confusing website, and can't seem to find any info on the product. Under "Services" they have a link called "Coming Soon" which makes mention of the Video Calling Conference, but provides absolutely no details whatsoever.
Sure, Skype and other free services do not have local servers which makes quality and latency poor. The O-Tel Video Calling service is aimed at the corporate/SME market who need the QoS over their national telecommunications.
One can now pickup their office phone and make a clear video call to another O-Tel client nationally, without facing the frustration of lag and call cutting.
This is not a home/consumer service.
yes, this is one to one video conferencing from the comfort of your desk. Not from a boardroom with a Conferencing system where you need to spend hundreds of thousands of rands and need a big bandwidth pipe to successfully use the system. The phones from OJOcost less than R2700, havemore features than it's equivalent, and the cost to video conference has just been slashed, increasing productivity and taking South Africa to a higher level in VoIp Technology.
arcanum7
Well-Known Member
Video Kinect provides an awesome service for personal use (maybe in future editions it could be suitable for business use). Just imagine...
Thanks - that's much more descriptive than the article.
Now, what about giving MyBB a review unit so that they can test it?
I was writing out of a company - we use Skype and Hangouts to talk with colleagues in the US.
It seems that MyBB have abridged the article we have sent to them. The main article can be found here:
http://www.otelafrica.com/otellaunchesvideocalling/
Of course, we work closely with MyBB. We will call them to give them a demonstration/test. Thank you for the suggestion.
Now imagine a carrier grade video call to your colleagues in the US? I myself use Skype daily to speak to our various partners internationally, as well as my family in UK.
The difference between a Skype service and the carrier grade service is like comparing chalk and cheese.
I hope MyBB accepts the invitation to test the Video Calling.
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Cool, looking forward to a review. Hardware looks decent and I'm interested in how your network operates.
Don't take this too seriously - but a company employing a grandmother and two young children? Sheeesh.
(I'm referring to the product pictures on your site)
Don't take this too seriously - but a company employing a grandmother and two young children? Sheeesh.
(I'm referring to the product pictures on your site)
Frankly, any Video Phone will work. Yealink, Grandstream, etc. It's just that we've received much more commitment from OJO, and they are really wanting to gain market share fast. So we've chosen to partner with them as our primary hardware partners. O-Tel Telecom does not supply telephones. We provide infrastructure to channel partners who in turn have their personal choice of hardware.
Yes, the OJO phone is definately a good quality phone. We have had much better test results from them compared to the other H.264 codec enabled video phones.
See this very interesting snippet from Fox News in USA.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FUqB4nHyBaU
Yes, the OJO phone is definately a good quality phone. We have had much better test results from them compared to the other H.264 codec enabled video phones.
See this very interesting snippet from Fox News in USA.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FUqB4nHyBaU
XConnect
Active Member
OTel and OJO are really doing good work, paving the way to roll out desktop video calling. This is a service which is growing overseas but still in early days in South Africa. All the best to the pioneers.
Skype is a commendable service, but basically it runs on contended bandwidth so good for waving at family in front of a christmas tree but not yet quite right for a serious merger-and-acquisition conference.
One great feature of the OJO phones is that they are open standard (unlike Skype etc) so are contributing to a new, open video ecosystem, where callers will be able to phone each other using normal phone numbers and without worrying about technical interconnect challenges. This is different from the class 'boardroom' sets, which are mainly used inter-company and where setting up is quite a mission, so they are not often used 'ad hoc'.
Skype is a commendable service, but basically it runs on contended bandwidth so good for waving at family in front of a christmas tree but not yet quite right for a serious merger-and-acquisition conference.
One great feature of the OJO phones is that they are open standard (unlike Skype etc) so are contributing to a new, open video ecosystem, where callers will be able to phone each other using normal phone numbers and without worrying about technical interconnect challenges. This is different from the class 'boardroom' sets, which are mainly used inter-company and where setting up is quite a mission, so they are not often used 'ad hoc'.
saksakgp
Expert Member
What's wrong with using a normal smartphone with front-face cam over a 3g network?
There is nothing wrong in using as you mentioned. However, would you run a corporate video conference with an office phone with it?
Like how you would avoid using a gmail.com or hotmail.com email address for a corporate/SME business, you would avoid using free video calling services to present to a large client or discuss high end business.
There surely is a massive difference between a free service and a carrier grade service.
Quote from Jonathan Druion, SME and technical consultant at Ojo Vision Africa
"The phone has an automatic bandwidth adaption it uses a configurable bit rate of 80 kbps to 1mbps.
It does automatically adapt, from the phone you select the High/Medium/low setting and through the network it automatically scales the video. Whatever the network is capable of it can achieve. Worldgate communications advises us that they have the phones running at 384kpbs with zero buffer or lag. "
According to tests done by O-Tel Telecom, we set the phone on medium quality and we've achieved G729 calls with video at an average of 80kbps. We have tested over ADSL, Diginet, and Vodacom 3G. All quality was good without lag.
At the launch, testing was witnessed by guests and done on 3G. It was impressive indeed.