Gizmo5
Gizmo5 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 announced that the service would be discontinued as of April 3, 2011.
The Gizmo5 network used open standards for call management, Session Initiation Protocol and Extensible Messaging and Presence Protocol. However, the Gizmo5 client application was proprietary software and used several proprietary codecs, including GIPS and Internet Speech Audio Codec.
History
Gizmo Project was founded by Michael Robertson and his company SIPphone.On November 12, 2009, Google announced that it had acquired Gizmo5 for a reported $30 million in cash. Prior to this acquisition, Gizmo5 had a working relationship with GrandCentral for years. Upon announcement, Gizmo5 suspended new signups until a Google relaunch. Google was also dogfooding a Google Voice desktop client based on Gizmo5, branded as Gizmo5 by Google.
On April 3, 2011, Google shut down Gizmo5 and recommended users to use Google Talk instead.
Technology
Gizmo5 was based on the Session Initiation Protocol and could interoperate with other SIP-based networks directly, including the public switched telephone network. The latter required the Gizmo5 service features CallOut and CallIn. CallOut was available at a fee, whereas CallIn and calls to other VoIP users were generally free of cost. Gizmo5 also used encryption for network calls and worked well with Phil Zimmermann's Zfone security features.Gizmo5 supported the following Codecs:
- GSM — fixed bit rate, not loss tolerant, narrowband
- PCMA — fixed bit rate
- PCMU — fixed bit rate
- EG711 — fixed bit rate, loss tolerant, narrowband
- iSAC — variable bit rate, loss tolerant, narrow and wideband
- iLBC — variable bit rate, loss tolerant, narrow
- iPCMwb — 16 kHz sampling rate
- iPCM — fixed bit rate, loss tolerant, wideband
As of July 20, 2009, Gizmo5 was the only SIP service that could be used with Google Voice directly.
The text chat function of Gizmo5 utilized the Extensible Messaging and Presence Protocol protocol. Users were addressed by an identification string in the format of username@chat.gizmoproject.com.
An earlier incarnation of the service was , a free software VoIP system based on the Pidgin instant messaging software and the SIP protocol handling of the Linphone VoIP software, but restricted to using the SIPphone service. It is available under the GNU General Public License and sponsored by Linspire.
Service features
Gizmo5 supported outbound caller line identification in the United States.Gizmo5 provided a free voicemail service.
Gizmo5 allowed paying subscribers of LiveJournal to place voiceposts if they are unable to use the voicepost telephone lines provided by the website.
Mobile phone support
The Gizmo5 mobile phone application used the phone's carrier voice network for all calls. The service called the phone numbers of both parties and bridged the call. On mobile phones that support SIP applications, calls may be placed over WiFi or 3G. In the case of WiFi, calls to Gizmo5 users were free, and calls to the public switched telephone network were charged Gizmo5 Call Out credit. On 3G, additional costs would apply depending on the user's data plan.Gmail
On August 26, 2010, Gmail accounts with Google voice were given a function to make and receive calls. Google Voice product manager, Vincent Paquet, confirmed that this function was added through the help of the technology received after the Gizmo5 acquisition.Service Terminated
On Fri, Mar 4, 2011, subscribers received the following message from Gizmo5, indicating that the service would be terminated.There was no indication made if the service would be revived in another form, or if there would be similar functionality added to any of Google's current telephony offerings. On the morning of April 4, service was finally cut.