Hi everyone!

Welcome to the latest edition of your pseudo-monthly JMP update!

In case it’s been a while since you checked out JMP, here’s a refresher: JMP lets you send and receive text and picture messages (and calls) through a real phone number right from your computer, tablet, phone, or anything else that has a Jabber client.  Among other things, JMP has these features: Your phone number on every device; Multiple phone numbers, one app; Free as in Freedom; Share one number with multiple people.

As we approach the close of 2024, we want to take a moment to reflect on a year full of growth, innovation, and connection. Thanks to your support and engagement, JMP has continued to thrive as a service that empowers you to stay connected with the world using open standards and flexible technology. Here’s a look back at some of the highlights that made this year so special:

Cheogram Android

Cheogram Android, which we sponsor, experienced significant developments this year. Besides the preferred distribution channel of F-Droid, the app is also available on other platforms like Aptoide and the Amazon Appstore. It was removed from the Google Play Store in September for unknown reasons, and after a long negotiation has been restored to Google Play without modification.

Cheogram Android saw several exciting feature updates this year, including:

• Major visual refresh
• Animated custom emoji
• Better Reactions UI (including custom emoji reactions)
• Widgets powered by WebXDC for interactive chats and app extensions
• Initial support for link previews
• The addition of a navigation drawer to show chats from only one account or tag
• Allowing edits to any message you have sent

This month also saw the release of 2.17.2-3 including:

• Fix direct shares on Android 12+
• Option to hide media from gallery
• Do not re-notify dismissed notifications
  
• Experimental extensions support based on WebXDC
• Experimental XEP-0227 export support

Of course nothing in Cheogram Android would be possible without the hard work of the upstream project, Conversations, so thanks go out to the devs there as well.

eSIM Adapter Launch

This year, we introduced the JMP eSIM Adapter—a device that bridges the gap for devices without native eSIM support, and adds flexibility for devices with eSIM support. Whether you’re travelling, upgrading your device, or simply exploring new options, the eSIM Adapter makes it seamless to transfer eSIMs across your devices.

Engaging with the Community

This year, we hosted booths at SeaGL, FOSSY, and HOPE, connecting with all of you in person. These booths provided opportunities to learn about our services, pay for subscriptions, or purchase eSIM Adapters face-to-face.

Addressing Challenges

In 2024, we also tackled some pressing industry issues, such as SMS censorship. To help users avoid censorship and gain access to bigger MMS group chats, we’ve added new routes that you can request from our support team.

As part of this, we also rolled out the ability for JMP customers to receive calls directly over SIP.

Holiday Support Schedule

We want to inform you that JMP support will be reduced from our usual response level from December 23 until January 6. During this period, response times will be significantly longer than usual as our support staff take time with their families. We appreciate your understanding and patience.

Looking Ahead

As we move into 2025, we’re excited to keep building on this momentum. Expect even more features, improved services, and expanded opportunities to connect with the JMP community. Your feedback has been, and will always be, instrumental in shaping the future of JMP.

To learn what’s happening with JMP between newsletters, here are some ways you can find out:

• The chatroom remains the heart of the community.  You can also join from your web browser or from Matrix.
• The blog, where you may be reading this. Can also be followed in a client like Movim.
• The Lemmy Community
• The Subreddit
• On ATprotocol
• On Twitter

We have for a long time supported the public Cheogram SIP instance, which allows easy interaction between the federated Jabber network and the federated SIP network. When it comes to connecting to the phone network via a SIP provider, however, very few of these providers choose to interact with the federated SIP network at all. It has always been possible to work around this with a self-hosted PBX, but documentation on the best way to do this is scant. We have also heard from some that they would like hosting the gateway themselves to be easier, as increasingly people are familiar with Docker and not with other packaging formats. So, we have sponsored the development of a Docker packaging solution for the full Cheogram SIP solution, including an easy ability to connect to an unfederated SIP server

XMPP Server

First of all, in order to self-host a gateway speaking the XMPP protocol on one side, you’ll need an XMPP server. We suggest Prosody, which is already available from many operating systems. While a full Prosody self-hosting tutorial is out of scope here, the relevant configuration to add looks like this:

Component "asterisk"
    component_secret = "some random secret 1"
    modules_disabled = { "s2s" }
Component "sip"
    component_secret = "some random secret 2"
    modules_disabled = { "s2s" }

Note that, especially if you are going to set the gateway up with access to your private SIP account at some provider, you almost certaintly do not want either of these federated. So no DNS setup is needed, nor do the component names need to be real hostnames. The rest of this guide will assume you’ve used the names here.

If you don’t use Prosody, configuration for most other XMPP servers should be similar.

Run Docker Image

You’ll need to pull the Docker image:

docker pull singpolyma/cheogram-sip:latest

Then run it like this:

docker run -d \
    --network=host \
    -e COMPONENT_DOMAIN=sip \
    -e COMPONENT_SECRET="some random secret 2" \
    -e ASTERISK_COMPONENT_DOMAIN=asterisk \
    -e ASTERISK_COMPONENT_SECRET="some random secret 1" \
    -e SIP_HOST=sip.yourprovider.example.com \
    -e SIP_USER=your_sip_username \
    -e SIP_PASSWORD=your_sip_password \
    -e SIP_JID=your-jabber-id@yourdomain.example.com \
    singpolyma/cheogram-sip:latest

If you just want to connect with the federated SIP network, you can leave off the SIP_HOST, SIP_USER, SIP_PASSWORD, and SIP_JID. If you are using a private SIP provider for connecting to the phone network, then fill in those values with the connection information for your provider, and also your own Jabber ID so it knows where to send calls that come in to that SIP address.

Make a Call

You can now make a call to any federated SIP address at them\40theirdomain.example.com@sip and to any phone number at +15551234567@sip which wil route via your configured SIP provider.

You should even be able to use the dialler in Cheogram Android:

Inbound calls will route to your Jabber ID automatically as well.

What About SMS?

Cheogram SIP does have some basic support for SIP MESSAGE protocol, so if your provider has that it may work, but more testing and polish is needed since this is not a very common feature at providers we have tested with.

Where to Learn More

If you have any questions or feedback of any kind, don’t hesistate to stop by the project channel which you can get on the web or using your Jabber ID.

Hi everyone!

Welcome to the latest edition of your pseudo-monthly https://jmp.chat update!

In case it’s been a while since you checked out JMP, here’s a refresher: JMP lets you send and receive text and picture messages (and calls) through a real phone number right from your computer, tablet, phone, or anything else that has a Jabber client. Among other things, JMP has these features: Your phone number on every device; Multiple phone numbers, one app; Free as in Freedom; Share one number with multiple people.

The biggest announcement this month is the launch of our new inbound voice and SIP account system! Due to changes at our major carrier partner, all inbound call handling had to be rewritten and the SIP accounts some people use are moving to a new server with a new server name. As part of this rewrite you can now use the configure calls command to set call forwarding to any XMPP, SIP, or tel URI without involving support. If you haven’t used the JMP bot before, you do so by sending a message to your cheogram.com contact with the text of the command you want to run. You can send help for a list.

If you have not tried it yet, now would be a great time to try our features allowing calling from your Jabber account. All your regular SMS contacts can be called as well with no changes on your part, from any client that supports voice calls. Inbound calls can be routed to your Jabber ID using the configure calls command.

If you still need a SIP account for some reason (such as to use with a device that does not support Jabber calls) you will need to use the reset sip account command to get a username and password on the new server, as the old server will be going away soon. Be sure to use UDP as the transport!

In other news, our founder Denver Gingerich (ossguy) has returned from his leave and is rejoining us in day-to-day operations. You will see him more often in the chatroom and sometimes answering support.

There has also been a bit of movement on the mobile app front. We have been partially sponsoring development work on the now-released Snikket iOS which is now our recommended client for all iOS users. When paired with a Snikket server this client should receive calls and messages reliably, and also supports DTMF (entering digits for phone menus) during calls.

We’ve also had a volunteer working with us to clean up some of the features in our prototype app for Android. Not many visible changes yet (except for a much better icon to open the DTMF pad) but watch this space for updates.

As always, if you have any questions, feel free to reply to this email or find us in the group chat per below. We’re happy to chat whenever we’re available!

To learn what’s happening with JMP between emails like this, here are some ways you can find out:

• find us in xmpp:discuss@conference.soprani.ca?join - a group chat accessible from most XMPP clients, and on the web: https://anonymous.cheogram.com/discuss@conference.soprani.ca
• signup at https://jmp.chat and try it out!

Thanks for reading and have a wonderful rest of your week!