Good news for travelers heading to Barcelona for the 2010 Mobile World Congress put on by the GSMA.

As part of rolling out Skype Access on Windows the Skype folks are offering free access on Boingo in Barcelona.

Once you get to Barcelona look for SIMs at Phone house locations for your unlocked phones.

If you are away from your loved ones today then take advantage of Truphone's Valentines Day promotion.

Oh and Boingo and Truphone will be a great combination for those with WiFi smartphones like the iPhone, Android and Nokia E or N series phones.

Disclaimer:Boingo and Truphone are clients,

I just learned that Cloudvox is launching this week and it got me thinking.

Cloudvox is one of the companies like client Voxygen, Voxeo, Twilio and also client ifByPhone which has grasped the power of voice APIs and made them available to just about everyone.

What does all this mean?

Well for starters, voice API's become more deployable. In an era where cloud computing and open source technology are taking hold, the need for easy to use libraries of code is evident.

A company that either develops API, uses them to their nth degree or knows how to manage and deploy them, ala pal Thomas Howe, is going to be part of the Voice 3.0 era.

Watch for other companies to take on a similar approach.

Skype was sent a warning by Peter Csathy, on his blog this week, explaining why Skype, which is currently using the ON2 codec should be worried after Google acquired them. Google is also using parts of Videyo and video technology from client GIPS, and sometime back purchased a company with video expertise out of Scandinavia.

Actually, ON2 made the move at the right time to sell, just as Csathy did when he pulled a rabbit out of his hat and successfully exited SightSpeed to Logitech last November. But I have to disagree about Skype needing to worry about ON2 and Google.

In my view Skype with their technical team has the internal know-how and expertise to build their technology based on standards, not proprietary technologies. So while ON2 uses h.264 and optimizes it very well, this is much like the purchase of TellMe by Microsoft. You but it for what and who it has. Google has yet to demonstrate they play the "patent" game, and their video chat is just that, chat while what Skype is likely working on goes after Cisco and other telepresence suites, democratizing them the way their voice platform has leveled the cost of talking.

The road is filled with mobile VoIP and FMC companies. For a few years we heard how EQO was going to change the world and now you can't even download their software, while others like Challenger, Vyke and WiFi Mobile all made claims that they would change the way we talk but pretty much ended up being clones of two companies, Truphone and Gizmo, both of who early on figured out how to work best on Nokia N and E Series 60 devices and then expanded to more.

Former client now acquired by Counterpath, BridgePort Networks made a good run at Fixed Mobile Convergence and was very much way ahead of its time by a few years, as the carriers and mobile operators all said "like it, but don't see it yet."

Well the "yet" is about to be now, and as Om Malik points out in his post of yesterday, the mobile network operators are opening up more and more to VoIP starting with O2 in Germany but also with over the weekend mention by Verizon Wireless as part of their LTE trials.

Clearly this is good news for client Truphone, whom Om highlighted, as well as a few others who understand their role and place in the whole mobile eco-system.

Yes, the tides are turning, and part of the reason is LTE, which is going to be SIP based. All the work done to get there has not been for naught, but it takes staying power and a vision, as well as a roadmap to get there. Not simply an feature in search of a problem.

For those Linux folks out there who have always wanted to know about which softphones work on the Penguin platforms, VoIPGuides has published a rather complete listing of the range of offerings.

Ideally this will appeal to the users of Linux eeePC users who want to have more than Skype on their tote-a-longs. Add a PocketSpot MiFi or Cradlepoint plus a softphone client and you have voice calling and access whereever you may be.

Lately there has been a lot of noise about the AT&T Mobile Data Network. And, it hasn't been pretty, but the accounts have been true. The network that promises 5 bars of coverage, has a full house, and there's not a lot of flexibility.

Yesterday on the tarmac at McCarren Airport in Las Vegas, as I was leaving from four days at CTIA I had no problem logging onto the AT&T Wireless network, but then I couldn't get any further. Web pages wouldn't load. Skype wouldn't connect. It appeared the gateway was down. When I arrived in San Diego at Lindbergh Field everything behaved as it should.

This morning I pulled out the Acer Aspire One which has a built in 3G modem that AT&T and Radio Shack are selling for $99.00 plus a data contract, and ran a series of speed tests, using a variety of services to see what the connectivity is like. The speeds were solid. The connectivity fast. I was topping out over 2 megs on the download and up to a meg on the upload. On the iPhone, from just a few inches away, the speed was 1.4 on the download and in the high 200's for the upload.

Is the experience bad? No. Is it likely to get better. Yes. As more and more devices get put on the network, the capacity will only increase, as will tower and antenna array configurations.

Using Netbooks and other handheld devices to stay connected is only going to put more stress on the networks overall, but were paying top dollar for our network access, and we should not expect anything but what's promised. And delivering on the promise is the challenge that AT&T now has, as they've delivered to their board the promise of more new customers via their iPhone sales success,

This is more of a fast and quick "observation" note about Vidtel, something I've been trying to play around with for a few months, but anything that involves connecting to my new and improved network here at the house I wanted to wait to do until the team from Xceptional Networks got things to a point where everything is simple to manage.

So far, what I'm seeing, is that Scott Wharton and his team in Sunnyvale have NAILED the concept of phone based/SIP Video down cold. It is simple to install, I simply plugged it into my Linksys Ethernet switch that's connected to my Covad Bonded T1 (3 megs) and powered it up. After a few minutes the firmware update was complete and I was connected.

I made a few trial calls but no one was home. Yesterday I used the service with Counterpath's EyeBeam on the Mac and also was able to update my EEE PC from ASUS (the 1000H) with the software thanks to some friends at Counterpath.

The call to one of the Vidtel tech team was perfect. So were calls to Jim Courtney using EyeBeam.

At first blush, I like what I'm SEEING from VIDTEL. The second box is going to my wife's house in Sacramento. I'm tired of not seeing as much of her when the laptop isn't near her. This will change things....My thought is I guess I'll SEE more of her, more often and she'll see more of me.

In reviewing the results of a recently announced Cisco IT services study reveals to me that many of the concepts including unified communications, the use of video in communications and streaming media, three technologies I've been heavily involved with and a consumer of are simply too challenging, even for IT professionals, on a variety of levels.

The challenges are from my perspective are best summed up this way:

1) Network strain and drain-we don't have the capacity
2) Integration-it doesn't work with what's already there easily
3) User Experience-It's not easy to use, requires lots of care and feeding
4) The concept of "No IT Guy Required" is just a dream, not a reality

Another interpretation from the study announcement:

Cisco is trumpeting their video solutions, and using travel reduction as the key. I am suspecting they make a move downward into the SightSpeed, Skype, ooVoo space this year, creating an "on-ramp" to their Telepresence solution using h.264 SIP based video. If you note, they are saying Telepresence less, and video communications more. To me that's what is called an indicator in a subtle shift in positioning and likely a leaning in the direction of something more to come.

Here's a tasty VoIP recipe that works from the folks at Junction Networks.

Take one part Junction Networks SIP Address

Add in one part Junction Networks On SIP service

Add in one 10 digit DID available from Junction Networks

Mix in one part of Truphone's new iPod Touch client available at the Apple App Store

Apply the mixture liberally to one (or more) Apple iPod Touch

And you now have a phone that works in both directions over WiFi without a SIM or a contract. Truphone calls out and Junction Networks number receives the calls that come in and routes it over the Internet as SIP to Truphone...

Sweet

P.S. I've been doing the same thing for a few weeks as well using a DID from CallCentric as well as my OnSip service DID. It really works and works very well. For families with kids this is a way around additional cell phones and high priced termination clauses