Ekiga
Encyclopedia
Ekiga /i k ai g a/ is a VoIP and video conferencing application for GNOME
and Windows
. It is distributed as free software
under the terms of the GNU General Public License
. It was the default VoIP client in Ubuntu
until October 2009, when it was replaced by Empathy
. Ekiga supports both the SIP
and H.323
(based on OPAL
) protocols and is fully interoperable with any other SIP compliant application and with Microsoft
NetMeeting. It supports many high-quality audio and video codec
s.
Ekiga was initially written by Damien Sandras
in order to graduate from the Université catholique de Louvain
. It is currently developed by a community-based team led by Sandras. The logo was designed based on his concept by Andreas Kwiatkowski.
Ekiga.net also serves as a free and private SIP registrar, which enables its members to originate and terminate (receive) calls from and to each other without involvement of any other networks (such as the PSTN
) except the Internet.
GNOME
GNOME is a desktop environment and graphical user interface that runs on top of a computer operating system. It is composed entirely of free and open source software...
and Windows
Microsoft Windows
Microsoft Windows is a series of operating systems produced by Microsoft.Microsoft introduced an operating environment named Windows on November 20, 1985 as an add-on to MS-DOS in response to the growing interest in graphical user interfaces . Microsoft Windows came to dominate the world's personal...
. It is distributed as free software
Free software
Free software, software libre or libre software is software that can be used, studied, and modified without restriction, and which can be copied and redistributed in modified or unmodified form either without restriction, or with restrictions that only ensure that further recipients can also do...
under the terms of the GNU General Public License
GNU General Public License
The GNU General Public License is the most widely used free software license, originally written by Richard Stallman for the GNU Project....
. It was the default VoIP client in Ubuntu
Ubuntu (operating system)
Ubuntu is a computer operating system based on the Debian Linux distribution and distributed as free and open source software. It is named after the Southern African philosophy of Ubuntu...
until October 2009, when it was replaced by Empathy
Empathy (software)
Empathy is an instant messaging client which supports text, voice, video, file transfers, and inter-application communication over various IM protocols....
. Ekiga supports both the SIP
Session Initiation Protocol
The Session Initiation Protocol is an IETF-defined signaling protocol widely used for controlling communication sessions such as voice and video calls over Internet Protocol . The protocol can be used for creating, modifying and terminating two-party or multiparty sessions...
and H.323
H.323
H.323 is a recommendation from the ITU Telecommunication Standardization Sector that defines the protocols to provide audio-visual communication sessions on any packet network...
(based on OPAL
Open Phone Abstraction Library
The Open Phone Abstraction Library is a continuation of the open source openh323 project to support a wide range of commonly used protocols used to send voice, video and fax data over IP networks rather than being tied to the H.323 protocol...
) protocols and is fully interoperable with any other SIP compliant application and with Microsoft
Microsoft
Microsoft Corporation is an American public multinational corporation headquartered in Redmond, Washington, USA that develops, manufactures, licenses, and supports a wide range of products and services predominantly related to computing through its various product divisions...
NetMeeting. It supports many high-quality audio and video codec
Codec
A codec is a device or computer program capable of encoding or decoding a digital data stream or signal. The word codec is a portmanteau of "compressor-decompressor" or, more commonly, "coder-decoder"...
s.
Ekiga was initially written by Damien Sandras
Damien Sandras
Damien Sandras is well known in the free software community due to his work on GNOME, more specifically on Ekiga, the leading Open Source softphone for the GNU/Linux desktop....
in order to graduate from the Université catholique de Louvain
Université catholique de Louvain
The Université catholique de Louvain, sometimes known, especially in Belgium, as UCL, is Belgium's largest French-speaking university. It is located in Louvain-la-Neuve and in Brussels...
. It is currently developed by a community-based team led by Sandras. The logo was designed based on his concept by Andreas Kwiatkowski.
Ekiga.net also serves as a free and private SIP registrar, which enables its members to originate and terminate (receive) calls from and to each other without involvement of any other networks (such as the PSTN
Public switched telephone network
The public switched telephone network is the network of the world's public circuit-switched telephone networks. It consists of telephone lines, fiber optic cables, microwave transmission links, cellular networks, communications satellites, and undersea telephone cables, all inter-connected by...
) except the Internet.
Integration
- LDAPLightweight Directory Access ProtocolThe Lightweight Directory Access Protocol is an application protocol for accessing and maintaining distributed directory information services over an Internet Protocol network...
directories registration and browsing - Integration with Novell EvolutionNovell EvolutionEvolution or Novell Evolution is the official personal information manager and workgroup information management tool for GNOME. It combines e-mail, calendar, address book, and task list management functions. It has been an official part of GNOME since version 2.8 in September 2004...
so that contacts are shared between both programs - ZeroConfZeroconfZero configuration networking , is a set of techniques that automatically creates a usable Internet Protocol network without manual operator intervention or special configuration servers....
(Apple BonjourBonjour (software)In computing, Bonjour is Apple Inc.'s trade name for its implementation of Zeroconf, a group of technologies that includes service discovery, address assignment, and name resolution...
) support - External configuration with GConfGConfGConf is a system used by the GNOME desktop environment for storing configuration settings for the desktop and applications.Changes to this system are controlled by GConfd, a daemon. GConfd watches out for changes to the database, and when they are changed, it applies the new settings to...
, including ability for administrators to block certain settings - Device auto-detection, including:
- USB hotplug support.
- ALSAALSA (Linux)Advanced Linux Sound Architecture is a software framework providing an API for device drivers for sound cards. As such, it is a Linux kernel component. Some of the goals of the ALSA project at its inception were automatic configuration of sound-card hardware, and graceful handling of multiple...
and legacy OSSOpen Sound SystemThe Open Sound System is an interface for making and capturing sound in Unix or Unix-like operating systems. It is based on standard Unix devices...
soundcard support, through plugins - Video4linuxVideo4LinuxVideo4Linux or V4L is a video capture application programming interface for Linux. Many USB webcams, TV tuners, and other devices are supported. Video4Linux is closely integrated with the Linux kernel. Video4Linux was named after Video for Windows , but is not technically related to it.- V4L2 :V4L2...
and FireWire cameraFireWire cameraFireWire cameras use the IEEE 1394 bus standard for the transmission of audio, video and control data. FireWire is Apple Computer's trademark for the IEEE 1394 standard....
support, through plugins
User interface
- Contact listContact listA contact list is a collection of screen names in an instant messaging or e-mail program or online game or mobile phone. It has various trademarked and proprietary names in different contexts....
based interface - PresenceSIMPLESIMPLE, the Session Initiation Protocol for Instant Messaging and Presence Leveraging Extensions, is an instant messaging and presence protocol suite based on Session Initiation Protocol managed by the IETF...
support with custom message - Monitoring of contacts (in call, online, offline, …)
- Call history
- Dialpad
- Addressbook
- Chat window
- SIPSession Initiation ProtocolThe Session Initiation Protocol is an IETF-defined signaling protocol widely used for controlling communication sessions such as voice and video calls over Internet Protocol . The protocol can be used for creating, modifying and terminating two-party or multiparty sessions...
URLUniform Resource LocatorIn computing, a uniform resource locator or universal resource locator is a specific character string that constitutes a reference to an Internet resource....
s and H.323H.323H.323 is a recommendation from the ITU Telecommunication Standardization Sector that defines the protocols to provide audio-visual communication sessions on any packet network...
/callto - Full-screen videoconferencing (accelerated using the graphic card)
- In call Instant-Apply support for settings
Technical features
- Call forwardingCall forwardingCall forwarding , in telephony, is a feature on some telephone networks allowing an incoming call to a called party to be redirected to a third party. For example, the third party may be a mobile telephone, voicemail box or other telephone number where the desired called party is situated. It was...
on busy, no answer, always (SIP and H.323) - Call transferCall transferA call transfer is a telecommunications mechanism that enables a user to relocate an existing call to another phone or attendant console by using the transfer button and dialing the required location. The transferred call is either announced or unannounced....
(SIP and H.323) - Call hold (SIP and H.323)
- DTMFDual-tone multi-frequencyDual-tone multi-frequency signaling is used for telecommunication signaling over analog telephone lines in the voice-frequency band between telephone handsets and other communications devices and the switching center. The version of DTMF that is used in push-button telephones for tone dialing is...
support (SIP and H.323) - Basic instant messaging (SIP)
- Text chat (SIP and H.323)
- Register with several registrars (SIP) and gatekeepers (H.323) simultaneously
- Ability to use an outbound proxy (SIP) or a gateway (H.323)
- Message waiting indicationsMessage Waiting IndicatorA message-waiting indicator in telephony, is a Telcordia Technologies term for an FSK-based telephone calling feature that illuminates an LED on select telephones to notify a telephone user of waiting voicemail messages on most North American public telephone networks and PBXs.As described in...
(SIP) - Audio and video (SIP and H.323)
- STUNSTUNSTUN is a standardized set of methods, including a network protocol, used in NAT traversal for applications of real-time voice, video, messaging, and other interactive IP communications....
support (SIP and H.323) - LDAPLightweight Directory Access ProtocolThe Lightweight Directory Access Protocol is an application protocol for accessing and maintaining distributed directory information services over an Internet Protocol network...
support - Audio codec algorithms: iLBCILBCInternet Low Bitrate Codec is an open source royalty-free narrowband speech codec, developed by Global IP Solutions formerly Global IP Sound . It was formerly licensed as a freeware with limited commercial use, but since 2011 it is available under an open source license as a part of the open...
, GSM 06.10, MS-GSM, G.711G.711G.711 is an ITU-T standard for audio companding. It is primarily used in telephony. The standard was released for usage in 1972. Its formal name is Pulse code modulation of voice frequencies. It is required standard in many technologies, for example in H.320 and H.323 specifications. It can also...
A-law, G.711 µ-law, G.726G.726G.726 is an ITU-T ADPCM speech codec standard covering the transmission of voice at rates of 16, 24, 32, and 40 kbit/s. It was introduced to supersede both G.721, which covered ADPCM at 32 kbit/s, and G.723, which described ADPCM for 24 and 40 kbit/s. G.726 also introduced a new...
, G.721, SpeexSpeexSpeex is a patent-free audio compression format designed for speech and also a free software speech codec that may be used on VoIP applications and podcasts. It is based on the CELP speech coding algorithm. Speex claims to be free of any patent restrictions and is licensed under the revised BSD...
, G.722G.722G.722 is a ITU-T standard 7 kHz wideband speech codec operating at 48, 56 and 64 kbit/s. It was approved by ITU-T in November 1988. Technology of the codec is based on sub-band ADPCM ....
, CELTCELTConstrained Energy Lapped Transform is an open, royalty-free audio compression format and a free software codec with especially low algorithmic delay for use in low-latency audio communication. It is a lossy codec, meaning quality is permanently degraded to reduce file size.The algorithms are...
(also G.723.1G.723.1G.723.1 is an audio codec for voice that compresses voice audio in 30 ms frames. An algorithmic look-ahead of 7.5 ms duration means that total algorithmic delay is 37.5 ms...
, G.728G.728G.728 is an ITU-T standard for speech coding operating at 16 kbit/s. It is officially described as Coding of speech at 16 kbit/s using low-delay code excited linear prediction....
, G.729G.729G.729 is an audio data compression algorithm for voice that compresses digital voice in packets of 10 milliseconds duration. It is officially described as Coding of speech at 8 kbit/s using conjugate-structure algebraic code-excited linear prediction .Because of its low bandwidth requirements,...
, GSM 06.10, GSM-AMR, G.722.2 [GSM‑AMR-WBAMR-WBAdaptive Multi-Rate Wideband is a patented speech coding standard developed based on Adaptive Multi-Rate encoding, using similar methodology as Algebraic Code Excited Linear Prediction...
] using Intel IPPIntegrated Performance PrimitivesIntel Integrated Performance Primitives is a multi-threaded software library of functions for multimedia and data processing applications, produced by Intel....
) - Video codec algorithms: H.261H.261H.261 is a ITU-T video coding standard, ratified in November 1988. It is the first member of the H.26x family of video coding standards in the domain of the ITU-T Video Coding Experts Group , and was the first video codec that was useful in practical terms.H.261 was originally designed for...
, H.263H.263H.263 is a video compression standard originally designed as a low-bitrate compressed format for videoconferencing. It was developed by the ITU-T Video Coding Experts Group in a project ending in 1995/1996 as one member of the H.26x family of video coding standards in the domain of the ITU-T.H.263...
+, H.264, TheoraTheoraTheora is a free lossy video compression format. It is developed by the Xiph.Org Foundation and distributed without licensing fees alongside their other free and open media projects, including the Vorbis audio format and the Ogg container....
, MPEG-4MPEG-4MPEG-4 is a method of defining compression of audio and visual digital data. It was introduced in late 1998 and designated a standard for a group of audio and video coding formats and related technology agreed upon by the ISO/IEC Moving Picture Experts Group under the formal standard ISO/IEC...
History
- March 2004 – Version 1.0 under the name GnomeMeeting
- March 2006 – Version 2.0 was released under name Ekiga, it was bundled with GNOMEGNOMEGNOME is a desktop environment and graphical user interface that runs on top of a computer operating system. It is composed entirely of free and open source software...
2.14 - April 2007 – Version 2.0.9 was the first version to include support for Microsoft WindowsMicrosoft WindowsMicrosoft Windows is a series of operating systems produced by Microsoft.Microsoft introduced an operating environment named Windows on November 20, 1985 as an add-on to MS-DOS in response to the growing interest in graphical user interfaces . Microsoft Windows came to dominate the world's personal...
- September 2008 – Version 3.0.0
See also
- Comparison of VoIP softwareComparison of VoIP softwareVoIP software is used to conduct telephone-like voice conversations across Internet Protocol based networks. VoIP stands for "Voice over IP". For residential markets, VoIP phone service is often cheaper than traditional public switched telephone network service and can remove geographic...
- BlinkBlink (software)Blink is a SIP client. Blink is distributed as free software under version 3 of the GPL license.The application is written in Python and Cocoa, a Qt port for Windows and Linux is also available...
- QuteCom
- Jitsi
- Twinkle (software)Twinkle (software)Twinkle is a free and open source software application for Voice over Internet Protocol voice communications in IP networks, such as the Internet. It is designed for GNU/Linux operating systems and uses the Qt toolkit for its graphical user interface. For call signaling it employs the Session...
- SFLphoneSFLphoneSFLphone is SIP/IAX2 compatible softphone for Linux. SFLphone is free software released under the GNU General Public License. Packages are available for all major distributions including Debian, openSUSE, Fedora, Mandriva and the latest Ubuntu releases....