Graves on SOHO Technology

A short while ago I was informed that Counterpath had issued a new release of their Eyebeam soft phone for Windows. This release, v1.5.19.4 Build 51814 available from their support forum, was supposed to address the interoperability issues I encountered last fall when passing G.722 calls between Eyebeam and a Polycom hard phone.

I downloaded the program and took it with me on a business trip the following week. Upon initial installation I found that the program overwrote the version that I had been issued by ZipDX. I suppose this makes sense as both were in the v1.5 branch. However, the license key that ZipDX had provided would not enable the new release. I contacted Counterpath and they very quickly provided me a license key to enable the new release.

With the new release now installed and working on my laptop I made a few test calls this morning. My first test call to the ZipDX wideband demo (sip:wbdemo@conf.zipdx.com) confirmed that I was making calls in wideband using G.722. This was good since G.722 is by default not enabled in Eyebeam. You need to enable it, which is easy enough.

Eyebeam Codec Selection Setting

Next, I took a chance and called Zeeek via the SIP URI provided by VUC sponsor OnSIP. Zeeek just happened to be near his phone so he answered on his Polycom IP650.

I was registered to my own OnSIP account, and OnSIP does not proxy the media, so the call was reinvited to pass directly from my Eyebeam client to Zeeek’s IP650. With earlier releases of Eyebeam we suffered one-way audio where the Polycom phone would not acknowledge the stream from the Eyebeam software. This time Zeeek heard me loud and clear so we talked for a few minutes. Further, the IP650 indicated “HD” on the active line giving positive confirmation that the call was in G.722.

So it seems that Counterpath has made good on their promise to address the G.722 interoperability problem. If this release is the one that they offer for sale on their web site, and not just through OEM licensing, then we will have an excellent Windows soft phone to recommend to anyone deploying wideband SIP based telephony. Interoperability with the leading SIP hard phones has been a major missing link in that situation.

I look forward to discussing this and other matters when Jason Fischl, CTO of Counterpath, makes a guest appearance on the February 20th edition of the VoIP Users Conference.