Member Avatar for happygeek
happygeek 2,411 Most Valuable Poster

AOL has announced its that will allow voice application developers and device manufacturers to create new tools to extend the functionality of the still relatively new AIM Phoneline service. Examples of the new APIs for call personalization (or ringtones as mere non-marketing mortals might say), untethered devices (that will be cordless handsets then) and incoming call management (caller ID and the like) will be on show at booth 449 at the Fall 2006 VON conference, running from September 11th - 14th at the Boston Convention and Exhibition Center.

A move that makes good sense if AOL wants to seriously challenge Skype in the emerging voice markets, not least because they are already playing catch up and then some. Sure, AOL has those 43 million AIM users, but that is less than half the number of Skype users. What is more, Skype have massive market penetration of the kind AOL could only once dream about. Analysts have suggested that Skype accounts for anywhere between 40 and 55 percent of all VoIP calls placed in North America, for example.

However, if the Open AIM Phoneline initiative can successfully build on that of the program that has over 50,000 developers registered, then AOL could make some progress I guess. In order to try and kick-start this registration process, AOL has also announced the Open AIM Phoneline Developers’ Challenge. This simply asks developers to create the most innovative and useful applications to enhance the AIM Phoneline experience, by leveraging the Open AIM SDK.

Given the importance to AOL of the whole Phoneline developer thing succeeding, and the opportunity for such a competition to attract some real talent in this area, I am somewhat surprised to see that the first prize is just $3500 with the runner up bagging a measly $1000. Still, if you take these things more seriously than AOL apparently does, the competition runs from September 11th through November 30th, with the winner to be announced before January 31st 2007.

Me, if I were developing for this market, I’d probably concentrate on Skype…

  • 1 Contributor
  • 0 Replies
  • 201 Views

Dani AI

Generated

As noted, platform-level VoIP pushes open doors for developers — the practical question is not which brand to pick, but how to build apps that work reliably across real networks and devices. The most successful voice add-ons focus on interoperability, predictable call quality, and a low-friction UX rather than niche bells and whistles.

Design priorities

  • Treat signaling, media and presence as separate concerns: use a robust signaling/session layer, negotiate codecs and encryption early, and keep presence/buddy data in sync with call state.
  • Plan NAT and firewall traversal from day one: STUN + TURN + ICE (or the platform’s equivalent) is essential. Expect symmetric NAT and provide a TURN fallback.
  • Choose codecs with both quality and compatibility in mind (wideband where possible, narrowband fallback). Avoid encumbered codecs unless licensing is solved.

Testing, metrics and resilience

  • Instrument for one-way delay, jitter, packet loss and MOS/R-factor and alert on regressions. Aim for <150ms one-way latency, jitter kept low with an adaptive jitter buffer, and automatic bitrate adaptation on loss.
  • Reproduce conditions locally with network emulation (Linux tc/netem or a WAN emulator) to validate jitter/congestion behavior:
tc qdisc add dev eth0 root netem delay 100ms 10ms loss 3%
  • Implement graceful fallbacks: voicemail, retry with lower-bitrate codec, and clear UI state when call setup fails.

Shipping and contest strategy

  • For contests or early adopters, focus the demo on a single, polished workflow that shows measurable improvement (quality, connection success rate, time-to-answer). Provide clear instructions, automated tests and a short video. Address privacy/security and any codec licensing in the submission notes.

These practices make an app valuable whether it targets a new platform or an incumbent; reach matters, but dependable call experience and easy integration win users.

Be a part of the DaniWeb community

We're a friendly, industry-focused community of developers, IT pros, digital marketers, and technology enthusiasts meeting, networking, learning, and sharing knowledge.