Google to kill Gizmo5 VoIP on April 3

Google will shut down the standalone Gizmo5 VoIP service on April 3, 16 months after acquiring Gizmo5 and rolling the startup's engineers into its Google Voice team. On March 4, the company sent an email to Gizmo5 customers, saying that the service would be discontinued and that, on March 11, users will no longer be able to …

[petur]

Thanks Google

Customers outside the US are dropped in the cold. Now you really pissed me off :(

The nice thing about Gizmo5 was that they not only offered VOIP but also a Jabber server that had a decent gateway to other IM networks. It is still not clear to me if they will also kill the Jabber server, but I fear they will.

R.I.P Gizmo5, it was fun while it lasted

[Anonymous Coward]

Can we clear something up once and for all.

"@sip.voice.google.com" to a Google Voice number. Apparently, this provided a SIP URI that could be used with any SIP phone.

SIP is just simply a signaling protocol. Just because it is SIP does not make it compatible. It can be used for broadcasts, IM,Voice over IP, Video Over IP, in fact pretty much anything you care to through at it. It's no different to saying that you can speak to a fax machine because they both use phone lines. Even in VOIP, unless the CODECS match, you ain't going nowhere.

[TonyHoyle]

..and if your not in the US?

You're hosed.

I use gizmo5 for its skype to SIP forwarding. As far as I can tell nobody else does that.. can google voice do that? Thought not..

I never had an email either..

[BristolBachelor]

Skype to SIP

My main phone is SIP VOIP, and recently I joined Skype for a couple of contacts.

I can actually register (using Business manager or some such) to get my Skype account to point to my SIP endpoint & hence receive Skype calls on my phones, but to do that I have to pay a monthly fee; just to get Skype to SIP forwarding! And the monthly fee is more than I pay for a real telephone number to SIP!

So much for free!

[Soruk]

There goes my inum number...

Gizmo5 also had a mapping to give everyone a free +883 inum number, so that's going too.

I also never got the email.

@TonyHoyle: I believe pbxes.org also offers skype connectivity.

[petur]

RE: not getting email

I have more than one Gizmo5 account, and the emails came in with at least 1 day difference, so they may still be sending out mails.

Or you didn't couple a valid email address to the account.

Or somebody thought it was spam....

[poyntek]

Make free phone call with Google Voice using other free VOIP services

I used to use my Gizmo5 account with Google Voice to make free phone calls. Hoever, you can still make free phone call with Google Voice using other free VOIP services, if you know how, check this out..

[David Beck]

I don't get it

Why did Google buy Gizmo5? I used it on my N800 and E52, Google Voice is hardly a replacement, since as far as I can tell GV is a forwarding service and nothing else (except a lot of hype). I've moved the E52 to SIPgate but need advice on a client for the N800.

[tigurr]

alternatives to gizmo5

I got a message about sip2voip.com seems to be okay for sip calling with c sip simple on my android device. from my understanding it's the predecessor service from gtalk2voip.com. they even have local 604 call-in numbers for two bucks a month. which is not all that bad, considering i was paying gizmo5 $28 USD for three months of call-in number service,that is, before google bought it. what's everyone else using?