Verto Communicator Primer

 

Verto Communicator is distributed with the open source FreeSWITCH software which is the enterprise level telecommunication server that powers all of the VOIP services hosted here. Verto communicator uses HTML5, javascript, and WebRTC to provide a secure soft phone that rivals stand alone applications. This should work in any modern web browser that supports those standards. It has been tested in house with Firefox and Chrome. It should also support Opera and Safari. It might even work on other browsers. It uses the OPUS codec to deliver very stable crystal clear 48khz audio. FreeSWITCH is capable of transcoding to other codecs to be able to interoperate with most standards codecs and endpoints. Verto also takes full advantage the advanced video features of FreeSWITCH with VP8, VP9, h263 and h264 codecs.


The only information required to log in to the system is your username and password. All of the complicated stuff is handled by the system. Verto uses SSL and secure WebRTC. It is set up NOT to work over insecure connections. Upon logging in to Verto you will be presented a dialpad. Any internal extension on the system can be dialed from here, such as other users or conferences. If it has been enabled for your account, dialout to PTSN, other external gateways, and SIP URIs can also be used. If your extension should be called while Verto is idle it will ring and present an opportunity to answer the call. Whenever a call is completed you will be returned to the dialpad.


There is a call history feature that can be accessed by clicking on the left side of the number display window. There are a few things that cause odd behavior with this at times. You will either get the drawer that is on the left side of the dialpad with all history features or a simple dropdown. Generally when you see the tiny phone icon in the upper left of the dialpad it will work with full features. Clicking on the background outside of the dialpad has brought full features back. If you click on the big green phone icon at the bottom of the dialpad with nothing in the display window, the last number dialed will be recalled making redial a simple double click. Your history will be saved and available on the next session.


Verto really starts to shine above the rest when it is used with the enterprise level conferencing functions of FreeSWITCH. Not only do you get amazing audio, each conference participant can also send full framerate HD video. The presentation of these streams can be muxed together in many different ways making it a perfect platform for business teleconference meetings with many participants from many different locations. This could even be well suited for television broadcast remotes and presentations. By using mod_rtmp inside FreeSWITCH, it is even possible to broadcast live to services such as YouTube.


Built into every conference is a text chat feature that works between all conference members. While in conference, the right sidebar can be toggled off and on by clicking the message icon on the navbar at the top. There are two tabs, MEMBERS and CHAT. On the members tab, conference moderators can click on the name of a member to perform moderator operations such as muting or kicking a member out of the conference. A very handy facet of the moderator menu is the ability to manipulate audio levels of individual members. That can be a very useful tool in meetings or even professional broadcasting.


Another useful indicator in the member list is the halo that appears around the avatar icon. When it is red the member is muted. This can also be revealed by a slash through the microphone and/or camera icons to the right of the member's name. The red halo should stand out better at a glance. When a member is sending audio into the conference there will be a green halo around the icon. When there is no halo the member is silent but unmuted. This makes it easy to identify where any audio is coming from.


By clicking on "CHAT" at the top of the sidebar, the view will change to the text chat mode. Messages typed at the bottom next to the SEND -> button will be sent to everyone currently logged into the conference. Currently you will not see any messages sent while you were offline. The chat clears after the call exits. If a full url to a direct link to an imagge is put into the chat the image will be shown instead of the url. Other links will show in text link format. All the links can be clicked on.


If they are not needed, the video functions can be turned off in settings by clicking on the gear icon on the navbar. When doing audio only conferences the video part of the screen will just remain black. By default the record button, available to moderators, will record the conference on the server. This can be setup to record to a stream server elsewhere instead.


KNOWN ISSUES

If Verto has been logged in from a multi homed machine (meaning multiple network cards with multiple IP addresses) with Chrome, audio can take upwards of 15 to 20 seconds to start flowing. After that all works perfectly from then on. As most clients will not be on multi homed machines this is a lower priority to fix. If this is causing problems for anyone in the real world contact us and we will increase the priority of the fix.


A minor glitch is caused when changing credentials. Sometimes not everything inside Verto gets refreshed with the new data. This is resolved by reloading the page in the browser. Easy to work around thus low priority to fix.


Verto will attempt to recover calls that are in progress even through a browser reload. For this reason calls might not drop as quickly as one might expect even if the connection is lost. If your computer reboots quickly enough it might even be possible to recover the call after the reboot, although I haven't tried it and would be interested to see if this could work.


Contact us with any questions or comments.

 

 

For server side documentation and more information: FreeSWITCH Verto Documentation