[Freeswitch-users] Announcement: Howler-optimised G.729A Solution for FreeSWITCH

[Jay Fenton]

Hey David,

>> There doesn't seem to be any direct link between FreeSWITCH and  
>> Howler.
>> How does this benefit the project? Can we assume that Howler is  
>> "giving
>> something back"?
>
> Well, they're providing additional functionality which a lot of folk
> want, which requires substantial investment in money (visit sipro.com
> and have a look at the up-front license fees if you wish) and time (to
> get the thing working across the various platforms with the required
> licensing) and they've presumably taken a commercial risk so to do.
>
> Hats off to them: they've taken a risk, and the project benefits
> immensely from it.  Expecting them to "give something back" in  
> addition
> would be entirely unreasonable.

You're spot on on the somewhat extortionate up-front (and continuing
royalty) fees, and there is substantial risk in us doing this which we
hope will be mitigated by the rising interest in FreeSWITCH as a whole
(a project which we've been huge evangelists of since the beginning).

We hope that adding patent encumbered codecs like G.729 to FreeSWITCH
will ultimately benefit the project and cause more people to be able
to transition towards it from other platforms, building on the fantastic
platform that Anthony and the rest of the gang have somehow managed
to develop for free!

Our initial feedback has been very promising, with a number of customers
at least in the UK (including one major VoIP provider) that we've spoken
to directly now seriously considering a migration to FreeSWITCH.

We hope that the small per channel charge is not too onerous - we've  
tried
to make it as cheap as possible by introducing the floating licenses  
(and
including all support and maintenance upgrades free of charge), but  
there
are very real costs here in royalties and development - how you guys  
do it
mostly for free is beyond me!

We have, of course, spoken to the FreeSWITCH team and offered to  
collaborate
on this project (as they've also been working on this for a while) and  
we
hope that we can join forces on it soon so that everyone benefits :)

--
Regards,

Jay Fenton, CTO <jay.fenton at howlertech.com>
Howler Technologies Ltd, 11 Charlotte Mews, London, W1T 4EQ
tel: +44 207 099 7095 fax: +44 207 099 7098
http://www.howlertech.com/
http://www.linkedin.com/in/jfenton

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