Vocalscape announces that they are participating in an open source softphone project - the Ekiga softphone.

"Joining the open source community working on the Ekiga softphone allows Vocalscape to share our experience with VoIP technology and provides our customers and end-users with added functionality more quickly," said Ron McIntyre, President of Vocalscape. "Soon, in addition to our Eyefon softphone for Windows, end-users running Linux operating systems will be able to make calls on the Vocalscape network. Additionally, the Ekiga softphone will give users some added functionality such as video calling and text messaging." The number of subscribers to retail VoIP services rose by 83% during 2005, from 10.3 million at the beginning of 2005 to over 18.7 million subscribers worldwide by the end of 2005.

Ekiga (formerly known as GnomeMeeting) is an open source VoIP and video conferencing application for GNOME. Additionally, the first version of Ekiga for Windows was released recently. Ekiga uses both the H.323 and SIP protocols. It supports many audio and video codecs, and is interoperable with other SIP compliant software and also with Microsoft NetMeeting. Learn more about the Ekiga softphone at: http://ekiga.org