Some of you might have noticed that our logo looks rather spiffy now as it has recently just had a facelift.

Don’t get us wrong, our previous logo has served us well since our founding years and we will miss it very much. However, as Hoiio’s business evolves, we think it is time to define the coming of a new age for us and our users.

If you look close enough, we have made our new logo brighter, bolder and simpler. These 3 design tweaks represent our aspirations and the ideals that define the direction we are moving towards.

Brighter Colour

When Hoiio was first launched in 2008, before Whatsapp and Viber existed, we wanted to provide cheap and convenient call services so that people in different parts of the world can remain connected. Today, Hoiio has moved into the next phase – we are creating smart solutions that powers agile individuals and their businesses. As businesses strive for high productivity and return of investments (ROI), we provide tools that work seamlessly with their operations.

Bolder text

Having received numerous validation from our users and won four prestigious awards last year, we are more confident that the apps we build are transforming the way people communicate. Hoiio aspires to bring more innovative cloud communication solutions to businesses and developers.

Simpler font

We understand that some engineers create awesome tools that actually sometimes make our lives more difficult because they are so hard to use. Therefore, we aim to provide excellent user experiences through keeping our apps simple, clutter-free and relevant.

Thank you for supporting Hoiio through the years. We promise more exciting news so stay tuned.

We have shown how you can configure a 3CX soft phone on Windows PC before. This blog post is to guide you on how to configure a Yealink SIP-T20 IP Phone with Hoiio SIP.

Configuring Hoiio SIP on Yealink SIP-T20 IP Phone

Step 1: Prepare Hoiio SIP details

Login to Hoiio and get  SIP username, password, and incoming number ready. If you have not subscribed to Hoiio SIP, try it now with 30-day money-back guarantee.

Step 2: Configure a new SIP accounts on the SIP-T20 phone

Click the “Menu” button

Next, choose “Settings”

Choose “Advanced”

Enter your admin password, the default password is “admin”

Next, you can choose line 1 or line 2 to be configured. After choosing the line, enter the follow information:

• Label: <anything you want>
• Display name: <anything you want, can be your incoming number>
• Register name = <Hoiio SIP User name>
• Username = <Hoiio SIP User name>
• Password = <Hoiio SIP password>
• Sip server = siptrunk.hoiio.com
• Outbound = enable (if you want to make outgoing call)
• Outbound host = siptrunk.hoiio.com
• STUN = <you can choose to enable it>
• STUN server = stun.hoiio.com
• Auto answer = disable

Press “Ok” then you are done. After a few seconds you should see the line shows “Registered”.

To make outgoing call, follow this standard: <country code> + <area code> + <destination>. For example, you are making a call to a number in Singapore 94392633. On your phone, key in: 6594392633 then press “Ok”.

Hoiio SIP is the best SIP trunk provider in Asia. For only SGD 9.99 /month, you can connect IP-PBX, ATA, or soft phones to Hoiio infrastructure, get incoming numbers in various countries, and enjoy unlimited concurrent calls.

We thought that since Hoiio’s suite of applications were working so well for individuals, with cost savings up to 70%, why not provide a solution tailor-made for the workplace?

A solution that is flexible, convenient and cost effective.

So we came up with Hoiio Business.

Perks

With Hoiio Business, admins can easily create Hoiio accounts for employees and manage their subscriptions (Direct Line, Main Line, Fax, Conference etc) from a web-based tool. Get a Direct Line number for each member in your team and allocate a monthly credit limit. With a centralised payment system, all usage by employees will be charged to the Business Account admin. Auto top up of credits can be enabled for a hassle free Hoiio experience.

You no longer need to run to any service provider to get lines set up. Hoiio’s services can be activated within minutes from your desktop and terminated when no longer needed.

Call forwarding is available with Hoiio Direct Line so employees will only need to carry one phone from now on. Hate to be disturbed after working hours? Simply set the time so you get calls forwarded to your personal line only when you want to.

Spread the love

Hoiio Business will completely change the way you make calls in the office. If you are already one of us, you know the perks so do us a favour and share the love with your colleagues.

If you have not given Hoiio a try, you really should not say no to good and affordable calls.

Photo credit: http://goo.gl/1wyHb (CC BY 2.0)

For the serious globetrotters, we realised call forwarding to only one number was not very convenient. For the cost-conscious seasoned travellers, they would purchase a local number to prevent incurring expensive roaming charges. At the rates and urgency at which people are crossing borders, we don’t always have time to inform people of the alternative number to reach us at or switch the call forwarding number for Hoiio’s Direct Line in time.

So, the engineers at Hoiio came up with another simple yet brilliant idea.

Ring All

With Ring All, calls will be forwarded to ALL numbers indicated in the user portal simultaneously.

• Forward calls to a maximum of 6 numbers.
• Choose between Yes, No or During Office Hours to select the numbers you want calls forwarded to and when you want them (time zone specific).
• If you would like some work-life balance, check the Rest Day box and you will not be disturbed.

I know we can’t be at two places at the same time, but we can help people reach us easily wherever we are. :)

The Hoiio team sat down for a rethink on how we can reward our valued customers. the very people who have been with us all this while in our journey of promoting the cloud communications platform.  So this time around, we are not going to give you a discount or a rebate. We will reward you MORE by paying you in CASH for every new subscriber to Hoiio services (applies to Hoiio Main line, Direct Line, S.I.P & Fax only) that you refer to us. Furthermore to maximize your rewards, we will not only reward you once off but it will be a recurring 20% commission on the value of the subscription that the person whom you refered to subscribes. When we say “recurring” we will continue to pay your commission for as long as the person whom you refered to continues their subscription.

The reward in a nutshell

We also believe in rewarding those who want to grow with us. So the more you refer the more you will earn through this program. Build a large pool of referrals and have a steady stream of passive income from the attractive recurring commissions that you could potentially receive. As a sweetener, we will also reward the people who subscribe to Hoiio through your referrals with a special reward of up to 2 hours free usage which is not offered anywhere else.

Referral through this program is easy. All you have to do is to follow these 5 simple steps! You are also able to track your referrals and earnings with our easy to use tracking system. So what are you waiting for? Start earning now!

Referral Link: http://content.hoiio.com/referral.html  

Multi-Digit Extensions Now Available.

Always wanted to have a multi-digit extension number added to your phone number?

Now you can with Hoiio’s Main Line! Previously, the system only allows a single digit extension number to be included.

As an upgrade to this particular function, you will be able to input multi-digit extension numbers using Hoiio Main Line up to a maximum of 3 digits (from 0-999). The maximum number of extensions allowed per Main Line subscription will remain at 10.

For example : +6565950489 ext (243)

This feature is brought to users to allow for a wider range of possibilities and personalization to your Hoiio Main Line number.We hope that with further personalization, Hoiio main line will remain “The main number for your business. “

For countless years, I have not received even a single call on my house phone.

If you are like me who finds Singtel home line useless, read on.

Hoiio’s Main Line app provides virtual phone numbers for companies. When you call a Main Line phone number, this is what you could hear:

“Welcome to Awesome Private Limited. For sales, please press 1. For technical support, please press 2. For all other enquiries, please press 3.”

Hoiio has always positioned Main Line as a great app for businesses.

Little did we know how it can be used for families too.

It is only recently that we discovered how a Hoiio user creatively set up his Hoiio Main Line for his family. When you call his Main Line phone number, this is what you hear:

“Welcome to Ong’s family. For papa, please press 1. For mama, please press 2. For little Kate, please press 3…”

With that single family phone number, you can now reach every. family. member. Even if they are not at home!

Perhaps it’s time to ditch your useless Singtel home line, and subscribe to the much useful Main Line. Would you?

Work-life balance? Perish the notion!

An article published on Mashable last year depicted the lives of seven successful tech entrepreneurs in their daily lives, focusing on their “insatiable passion”, and how “they’ll let nothing stand in their way”. While this notion seems rather romantic and all (in a “Social Network” kind of way), I’m sure the everyday entrepreneur would rather have some time for real romance with his/her partner instead.

Letting one’s business life cross over into their personal one is a recipe for disaster. Once you allow business matters to interrupt private moments, you can be sure that trickle will turn into a torrent of work flooding over you 24/7. In order to have a healthy personal life, you need to manage both your time and priorities well. For example, giving priority to your partner or close ones when you are with them is essential for maintaining a relationship with them. It is one thing to talk over certain issues about your business with your partner – it is another to spend every moment spent with your partner obsessing over things not done.

Work-life balance is not simply about shutting out work in your personal life, but about “learning how to truly live and enjoy our lives” – in other words, prioritizing what matters most to us in our daily lives. Richard Branson, English business magnate and founder of Virgin Group, addresses this issue using technology:

Just navigating each day can be a challenge. I find that technology is a great help — I use phone calendars, email reminders and mobile reminders to maneuver my way to each meeting, event and party. You can also use these things to make sure you have time to eat regularly and that you can get a good sleep. My family is the center of my life, so wherever I am in the world, when I have a few minutes, I talk to my wife and kids.

You’ve certainly heard a lot about how technology is ruining everybody’s personal lives. Numerous stories have been told about how the husband is always receiving calls about work during non-office hours, or how the wife is frequently replying to queries on her ecommerce website over dinner. According to Branson, however, technology can be a great help in weeding these distractions out. I fully agree.

Here is one way in which entrepreneurs and small business owners can wield technology for the good of one’s personal life today: Get Hoiio Direct Line.

Hoiio Direct Line features a telephone number that has the capability to divert to multiple phone numbers via call forwarding, receive missed call notifications via email, control the exact hours whereby the Direct Line service will divert calls, and even block unwanted calls via a “block list”.

So how would Hoiio Direct Line help to keep my personal life clear of business calls? Simply, by keeping my private numbers off the books. A DID number is a virtual number that “conceals” my private number. Hence, there is far more control and privacy afforded when I hand out my DID number instead of my private line.

At the same time, I could also easily set my Direct Line application to divert all calls from my DID to my mobile phone during office hours only. Furthermore, there is no risk of missing any important calls due to the notifications function.

Hence, the features offered by Hoiio Direct Line would allow smart business people to kill two proverbial birds with one stone by helping them to remain connected, yet be able to maintain work-life balance at the same time.

Recently, we have taken the difficult decision to introduce a price increase to our Vietnam call rates effective February 7 2013. We have made every effort to avoid this. However, our Vietnam Telecom partner suddenly increased the costs by more than 50%.  Unfortunately, we are left with no rational alternative but to increase our prices as well .

Our first aim is to please our customers. Indeed, however, we will not be able to serve you better if our business incurs losses. We are confident, nonetheless, that you will find the quality of our products/services even in light of this new prices to be quite reasonable and competitive in the market today.

Singapore to Vietnam

New Rate (SGD)

Internet call                                           11 cents/min

Callback                                                 12.9 cents/min

Please be informed that the new call rates only apply in calling to Vietnam. Rates to other countries remain the same.

Our full pricing can be found here.

If you have any questions or require further information please do not hesitate to contact us, we are more than happy to help.

Best Regards,

Hoiio

There are many soft phones available in the market. 3CXPhone is a free soft phone available for PC, iPhone or Android based smartphone. One of the advantages of 3CXPhone compared to other soft phone is that you can create multiple SIP profiles in 3CXPhone. In this blog post, I will teach you how to configure 3CXPhone on Windows PC.

Configuring Hoiio SIP on 3CXPhone

Step 1 of 3: Prepare Hoiio SIP details

Login to Hoiio and get  SIP username, password, and incoming number ready. If you have not subscribed to Hoiio SIP, try it now with 30-day money-back guarantee.

Step 2 of 3: Install 3CXPhone

Download the 3CXPhone and install it.

Step 3 of 3: Create a new SIP accounts on 3CXPhone

After new installation, click “Create Profile”.

Create a new profile by clicking “New”. Then, enter Hoiio SIP configuration as follows.

• Account name = Hoiio SIP
• Caller ID, extension, ID = <Hoiio SIP User name>
• Password = <Hoiio SIP password>
• I am out of the office – external IP = siptrunk.hoiio.com

Then, click “Advanced Settings” to configure Codec and STUN.

• STUN server = stun.hoiio.com
• Audio codecs = move GSM to the top of the codec list

Click OK until the end and you’re done. You should see the status of Hoiio SIP in 3CX to be “On Hook”.

Outgoing calls with 3CXPhone

The dialling rule with Hoiio SIP follows this standard: <country code> + <area code> + <destination>.

For example, you are making a call to a number in Sydney 94392633. We know that Australia Country Code = 61 and Sydney’s area code = 2. Therefore, on your 3CXPhone, key in: 61294392633 then press the call button.

Incoming calls with 3CXPhone

When someone calls your Hoiio SIP’s incoming number, 3CXPhone will ring. Click Answer to pick up the call.

edit: thank you for one reader who spotted an error in Australia country code.

Hoiio SIP is the best SIP trunk provider in Asia. For only SGD 9.99 /month, you can connect IP-PBX, ATA, or soft phones to Hoiio infrastructure, get incoming numbers in various countries, and enjoy unlimited concurrent calls.