Features

From Ekiga

• Black: Ekiga 2.0
• Green: +Ekiga 3.0

Softphone

GUI

• HIG Compliant GUI: Ekiga looks right, behaves properly, and fits into the GNOME user interface as a whole.
• Message Waiting Indications Support: Ekiga can tell you how much Voice Mails are waiting.
• Contact centric interface: preferred contacts can be listed in the main user interface.
• Contact's presence display: Offline, Away, Do Not disturb, Online status (SIP/SIMPLE)
• Automatic addition of network neighbours contacts in the main user interface (using the Bonjour/ZeroConf protocol)
• Optional call panel
• Connection quality meter in the statusbar
• Easy to use shortcuts
• Tray icon with call-in notification
• Easy account selection when dialing for a contact: autocompletion

Call

• Call Hold (SIP and H.450.1): This effectively pauses Video & Audio transmission.
• Call Transfer (SIP and H.450.2): You can transfer the remote user to another H.323 or SIP user.
• Call Forwarding on No Answer, on Busy, Always (SIP and H.450.3): This allows you to configure Ekiga to forward incoming calls to a specified SIP or H.323 user.
• Do Not Disturb Modes
• Dialpad: This allow you to dial numbers.
• DTMFs Support: This feature is necessary when using services asking you to dial numbers.
• Calls History: This is a convenient way about all outgoing and incoming calls.
• Call Monitoring: Statistics about the network traffic caused by Ekiga are displayed in the status bar.
• Enum Support: Enum is a method to provide a unified numbering system between the public switched telephone network (PSTN) and various VoIP providers.

Video

• Configurable Full-Screen Video Conferencing
• Quality Versus speed slider
• Support for XVideo (hardware rendering)
• High Framerate (up to 30 fps)
• Configurable Resolution (from 176x144 to 704x576)
• SIP Capabilties exchange

Text chat

• Instant Messaging with built-in smiley support (SIP)
• H.245 Text Chat during calls (H323)
• Graphical selection of smiley for easy inclusion in text message
• Presence display: display your peer chat status

Contacts

• Advanced Addressbook: The Address Book is a feature which allows you to find users to call and/or to save locally your list of persons that you call on a regular basis.
• LDAP Support: Ekiga can load the list of users from a remote LDAP directory
• Status with custom message (SIP): The status of your contacts are displayed in the main User Interface with a custom message.

Configuration

• New Configuration Assistant: The Configuration Assistant is a 8 step-by-step questionnaire that will guide you through all the steps involved in creating the basic configuration you will need to operate Ekiga.
• In call Instant-Apply Support for Settings
• GConf and External Configuration: Ekiga can store its settings in Gnome's GConf application or in a standalone file.
• Advanced Personal Settings Management:
• Configurable Sound Events: You can customize sounds and select a special sound device for them to play; you're able to have the ring in your Hi-Fi hardware and the call in the headset.
• Configurable Port Ranges (SIP and H323): Ekiga uses standards ports; in rare you might change the ports. (Advanced setting)
• Better NAT support; automatic selection of STUN

Devices

• OSS and ALSA Compatible Soundcards Support
• Video4Linux, Video4Linux 2 and Firewire Cameras Support
• Devices Auto-Detection
• Automatic detection of hotplugging of alsa audio devices and video4linux video devices on Linux

Misc.

• SIP re-INVITE support
• Translated into Many Languages
• Plug-in support for audio and video codecs

Codecs Features

• Dynamic Jitter Buffer

Audio

• iLBC, GSM-06.10, MS-GSM, G.711-Alaw, G.711-uLaw, G.726, G.721 and Speex Audio Codecs
• Dynamic Threshold Algorithm for Silence Detection
• Echo Cancellation
• Wideband Codec Support

Video

• H.261 Video Codec
• H.264 Video Codec
• H.263+ Video Codec
• MPEG4 Video Codec
• THEORA Video Codec
• Video Bandwidth Limitation

VoIP services

• Possibility to Simultaneously Register to Several Accounts: You can register as many SIP or H.323 provider accounts as you want, and you're able to use them simultaneously.
• SIP Compliant: You can use any SIP compliant VoIP provider. They may provide you address for VoIP similar to e-mail address, PC-to-Phone calls, Phone-to PC calls, Voice mails, ...
• Registrar Support: You can register to SIP compliant VoIP providers.
• H.323v4 Compliant: You can use any H323v4 compliant VoIP provider.
• Gatekeeper (RAS) Support: You can register a VoIP service using H.323.
• Outbound Proxy Support: Some providers use a relay for your communications and require this setting.
• H.235 Annex D. Support: Security of calls.
• SIP: SIMPLE presence support
• Better SIP Outbound Proxy support : As recommended in the RFC
• Better handling of SIP registrations : More robust code
• SIP Presence subscriptions : SIP SUBSCRIBE/NOTIFY
• SIP Presence publishing : SIP PUBLISH
• SIP Presence document : SIP PIDF

Integration

• Part of Gnome
• Integration with Novell Evolution 2.00: You can share your contacts with the groupware client for Linux, "Novell® Evolution™".
• KDE and GNOME Compatibility
• Remote LDAP server integration for network address-book integration
• Interoperability with PBX like Asterisk(tm)
• Local network integration using the Bonjour/ZeroConf protocol

Windows Features

• Support for DirectShow Video Capture
• Support for DirectDraw Video Output
• Installer

Network

• Transparent NAT Support, Assisted NAT Support (STUN, IP Translation): Ekiga has extensive and improved NAT support thanks to STUN. In 99% of the cases, you do not have any configuration to do, and you can even be reachable from the outside without any port forwarding.
• Rendez-Vous Support: This system facilitates service discovery on a local network. Ekiga users in the local network will show up automatically.
• Gateway/Proxy Support
• H.245 Tunneling and Fast Start
• Unique port : Use only one port for all outgoing SIP requests going to the same destination
• Detection of dynamic IP address changes and coming up and going down of network interfaces

Administrators

• Possibility for Administrators to Block Some Settings

For developers

• GUI and Engine separation to allow GUI customisation/port to other toolkits and integration in other projects.
• Use of sigc++ in a signal-based organization.