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July 01, 2015

Want VoIP But Don't Have the Bandwidth? Call in a Ringr


By Steve Anderson
Contributing TMCnet Writer

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Voice over Internet Protocol (VoIP) service has gained plenty of ground in the last few years, and some reports suggest the VoIP services market is set for strong growth up to about 2020, when predictive capabilities start to buckle a bit. But as strong a market as this is, it depends on bandwidth, and without the right amount of bandwidth, VoIP is out of the picture, right? Well, maybe not any more, as Kochi-based Quig Infotech has a new system called Ringr, which can offer VoIP even where there isn't much bandwidth around.


Ringr is currently available as an Android (News - Alert) app, and iOS will follow suit soon. But regardless of the platform, the idea is exciting enough; Ringr can allow for VoIP transmissions in low-bandwidth environments thanks to what's known as “Quiqz” technology, a patented system that uses a compression algorithm that sends data as a series of very small packets. By doing so, it can effectively send out a voice transmission using tiny bits of bandwidth at a time, allowing for better transmission quality.

To get users interested in the app, Ringr has offered up a customer loyalty points system; those who use the app will get loyalty points that can be redeemed online turning to a set of Ringr partners including mobile payment service Paytm. The loyalty points essentially refund the data costs involved, meaning that customers have little to lose by trying it out. Just to round it out, there are some other features involved, including a feature that reminds users that a certain contact hasn't been called in some time, and also includes profile pages where users can share a current mood at the time. The application can then detect those moods and encourage meetings among similarly-moody users, thus the sad can get together and commiserate, or the happy can get together and have fun.

Image via Shutterstock

This is actually an exciting idea for several reasons. One, the extra features are entertaining enough to be noteworthy; when's the last time a phone app suggested calling someone who hadn't been called in a while? Two, the fact that there are reward points involved really perks up the process as well. Three—and perhaps the biggest one of all—is that this concept addresses one of the biggest problems for all of online operations: a lack of bandwidth. While some places don't have a problem with this—there are still Internet service providers (ISPs) out there that don't have bandwidth caps—plenty of places have trouble even getting high speed Internet access in the first place. Even those that don't have so much trouble still run afoul of bandwidth issues. Often, we look for ways to get more bandwidth, with small cells or fiber optics or a host of others. We don't often look at file compression and other such things to let us use less bandwidth but get the same service, and that's where Ringr might be on to something.

More bandwidth, or less bandwidth used; it adds up the same in the end, and if the service provided can be sufficiently high-quality, it really doesn't make much difference. Ringr may well be on to something in terms of solving one of the Web's biggest problems, and that's good news for everyone online.




Edited by Dominick Sorrentino
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