You do not need to read or understand this page to use any Sopranica, Cheogram, JMP, or other project. For example, most people getting started with JMP on an Android device can install Cheogram Android, select "I need to sign up", tap the giant JMP logo, and follow the prompts.
However, some people feel the need to understand every piece they can see, can't see, or feel the presence of in some way. Some people want to know, even if it makes things more confusing for starting out. This page is for you.
Generally speaking, we talk about Sopranica, Cheogram, and JMP as different things, and they are. However, the worker co-op MBOA has as its members most of the maintainers of these things and sponsors or otherwise pays for most of the infrastructure, etc. So MBOA is a company, the members/employees of that company do many things, including maintaining projects which are part of the umbrella open source project we call Sopranica. Some gratis gateway services, infrastructure, and a client app are distributed under sponsored infrastructure named Cheogram. JMP is the commercial product for everything telephony related. So JMP is a commercial VoIP and SMS gateway which acts as a plugin to the gratis noncommercial Cheogram gateway system, often interacted with using the flagship Cheogram Android app. All the software is freedomware (aka open source) as part of the Sopranica group of projects.
The Jabber network is an openly federated communication network operating primarily over the Internet. Users and services are identified using "Jabber IDs" which typically look like email addresses and provide a way to reach something on the network. The protocol the network speaks is called XMPP. Cheogram Android is therefore a Jabber compatible app speaking the XMPP protocol.
Openly federated means that this network is composed of multiple service providers whose servers can all communicate with each other. To reach someone, your service provider will need to contact the service provider of whomever you wish to contact. For this reason, the domain name of their service provider is part of their Jabber ID, following the at sign. That is user@service-provider.com
Snikket is an open source project maintained and sponsored by Snikket CIC. This company and project are not part of Sopranica or MBOA. The project develops a set of apps, similar to Cheogram Android, which are designed to be similar in functionality and compatible with their server software distribution which they also develop. This software all speaks XMPP and in the default configuration automatically becomes part of the Jabber network when started up. A user on an instance of the Snikket server software therefore has a Jabber ID which is user@snikket-instance.com
Snikket CIC also runs a hosting service to make starting up and running a new Snikket instance as easy as possible. MBOA has partnered with Snikket CIC to provide one of these hosted instances to every JMP subscriber included in the price of a JMP subscription. This makes it easy for every JMP subscriber to get one or more Jabber IDs for use with their JMP account and subaccounts and also to invite friends and family to chat. Instances are ideally set up with the name of a domain or subdomain under the user's control, but for simplicity a gratis snikket.chat subdomain is also an option for now. Cheogram Android is fully Snikket compatible, so no separate Snikket app is needed.
The gateways developed by Sopranica, including the cheogram.com telephony gateway and the commercial JMP plugin/backend, operate on the Jabber network. For example, a JMP customer sending an SMS to phone number +15551234567 would contact the Jabber ID +15551234567@cheogram.com -- apps such as Cheogram Android provide integrated UI to produce these Jabber IDs from phone numbers so that most users never need to see or construct one manually. The user's own Jabber ID is used to identify what phone number to send the message from, what account to bill, etc.
It is the founders' hope that among other things Sopranica and JMP will provide useful reasons for people to join or set up a service on the Jabber network and acquire a Jabber ID to help push past the "chicken and egg" problems of any communication technology and give more people access to communication over the Jabber network and other open networks.