Features

• Green: New in Ekiga 3.0
• Orange: New in Ekiga 3.2

Contents 1 Softphone 1.1 GUI 1.2 Call 1.3 Video 1.4 Text chat 1.5 Contacts 1.6 Configuration 1.7 Devices 1.8 Miscellaneous 2 Codecs Features 2.1 Audio 2.2 Video 3 VoIP services 4 Integration 5 Windows Features 6 Network 7 Administrators 8 For developers 9 Standards implemented 10 Experimental features

Softphone

GUI

• HIG compliant GUI: Ekiga looks right, behaves properly, and fits into the GNOME user interface as a whole.
• Message waiting indication support: Ekiga can tell you how many 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 (using 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 a contact: Addresses are filled in using 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 allows you to dial numbers.
• DTMFs support: This feature is necessary when using services asking you to dial numbers.
• Call history: Conveniently displays information about all outgoing and incoming calls.
• Call monitoring: Ekiga network traffic statistics 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.
• Auto-answering (in version >= 3.3.0): if the header contains Ring Answer in SIP header, the call is auto-answered. Also, there is a check box in Preferences which makes Ekiga auto-answer any incoming call.

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 smileys for easy inclusion in text messages
• Presence display: Display your peer chat status.

Contacts

• Advanced Address Book: The Address Book is a feature which allows you to find users to call and/or save locally to your list of contacts.
• LDAP support: Ekiga can load lists of users from a remote LDAP directory.
• Status with custom message (SIP): The status of your contacts is displayed in the main user interface with a custom message.

Configuration

• New Configuration Assistant: The Configuration Assistant is a step-by-step wizard that will guide you through all the steps involved in creating the basic configuration you will need to use 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; it's possible to have the ringtone in your hi-fi hardware, and the call in your headset.
• Configurable port ranges (SIP and H323): Ekiga uses standard ports. Advanced users are able to configure custom port ranges, if needed.
• Better NAT support: automatic selection of STUN.

Devices

• OSS and ALSA compatible soundcard support
• Video4Linux, Video4Linux 2 and Firewire camera support
• Device auto-detection
• Automatic detection of hotplugging of ALSA audio and video4linux video devices on Linux

Miscellaneous

• 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
• G.722 (wideband) and CELT ultra-low delay (32 kHz or 48 kHz) audio codecs
• Dynamic threshold algorithm for silence detection
• Echo cancellation
• Wideband codec Support

Video

• H.261 Video codec (SIP and H323)
• H.264 video codec (SIP only)
• H.263 video codec (SIP only)
• H.263+ video codec (SIP only)
• MPEG4 video codec (SIP only)
• THEORA video codec (SIP only)
• 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 with an address for VoIP communication similar to an e-mail address, enabling PC-to-Phone calls, Phone-to PC calls, Voice mails etc.
• 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
• SIP dialog-info notifications: This allows displaying notifications of incoming calls in the roster, and being informed of incoming calls reaching your contacts (if the server supports it, e.g. Kamailio and Asterisk do).

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.
• State-of-the-art LDAP support (supports authentication)
• 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
• Improved Windows build

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 link state (up/down) of network interfaces
• Better handling of multiple network interfaces with dynamic addition and removal

Administrators

• Possibility for administrators to block some settings

For developers

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

Standards implemented

• SIP RFCs in the OPAL stack (Ekiga does not use all of them, especially T.38 FAX features).
• H.323 standards in the OPAL stack.

Experimental features

• Significant improvements in IPv6 support.
• Gstreamer audio and video capture support.