VoIP

[arcticpenguin]

Voice over Internet Protocol

http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&ncid=&e=5&u=/usatoday/20030707/tc_usatoday/5301653

Has it arrived? Are any of you using it?

[Yahweh]

I've heard of Net-Based calling before. The best adjective to describe it so far has been "shoddy". But when combined with cable internet, they will become more practical. Maybe one day, net-based calls will do for the average telephone calls, what email did for snail mail...

[Moose]

I'm using it through a client called SJPhone. It's very handy and _really_ cuts down on long distance bills. Although you pretty much have to have a cable/adsl connection with a moderately strong box.

The sound quality is vaguely comparable to AM radio.

Note that earphones are a must on both ends, or your mike will pick up and retransmit what the speakers are outputting. Feedback city.

[Attrayant]

Feedback from my customers (anybody with T1 or higher service in the midatlantic or northeast US) is less than stellar. But what do they expect when running VoIP over a best-effort public frame relay network?

[davidhorman]

Dialpad used to allow absolutely free calling to any number in the US, via the Internet. I often wondered how they could afford to do it, as it wasn't just for a few weeks, but at least 6 months.

It was pretty good quality too (I have broadband), although there was maybe a second of lag.

David

[Khalid01]

I'll confirm Davidhorman's post, as I used dialpad when it was free as well. And it was a pretty good service. I used it a couple of times to talk with a guy from the SA chatroom, and he even played some music through his system (the wonders of the new-at that time-SBLive I think it was), that was pretty nifty. And the whole chat, once also used it for a more... sinister purpose that I shan't describe. Overall, we had a lot of fun with it, I think it was a quality service.

[scribble]

I too tried dialpad and was impressed.

My boss and a couple other folks at this company are currently using one of those VoIP hardware phone thingies, and they swear it's the hottest thing since sliced bread.

-Chris

[corplinx]

Originally posted by arcticpenguin
Voice over Internet Protocol

http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&ncid=&e=5&u=/usatoday/20030707/tc_usatoday/5301653

Has it arrived? Are any of you using it?

Its been out for years. Heck, internet phones have been out for years. They just suck.

The last job I had we used a voip solution called aspect winset. It wasn't that special and the software wasn't perfect.

A plain telephone works. It just works. It requires no software, no upgrades, no configuration, blah blah blah.

[ntech]

Although it is available by Cisco to run all the phones in an office, I believe that most companies use it for point-to-point between two of their offices. To eliminate the glitches in voice and video, the router must understand a QOS (quality of service) tag on the packet of information. As more routers support this and companies go fiber and homes go broadband it will become much more reasonable to use.

There is also a company(I can't find the link at the moment) that sells a box used on any broadband home line to give a person a phone number local to any city. I could have a local area code in San Francisco and live in New York. $25 per month unlimited. The quality on cable modem and DSL I heard was excellent.

[thrombus29]

I think you mean Vonage.

http://www.vonage.com

[ntech]

Originally posted by thrombus29
I think you mean Vonage.

http://www.vonage.com

Yes, That's it.

Thanks thrombus29

[Baker]

I have been using Net2Phone CommCenter for the last two months and have had no problems with it and also used dialpad before that.

[arcticpenguin]

Maybe I'm not asking the right question. Suppose I want to talk to someone over the Internet. It doesn't necessarily have to resemble telephone service.

Some standard formats should be involved, because one party uses Linux and the other uses Windows. It would be helpful if the connection could be tunneled through SSH because of the Firewall.

Naturally, a free solution would be best.

[arcticpenguin]

http://searchnetworking.techtarget.com/originalContent/0,289142,sid7_gci935769,00.html

IBM throws in for VoIP. This could give the technology some push.


During a presentation Tuesday at TechTarget's Networking Decisions conference, Johnny Barnes, IBM's vice president of global IT solutions and standards, told attendees that his company plans to migrate at least 80% of its more than 300,000 employees to voice over IP by 2008.
...
BM's server-based IP telephony platform will run on Linux and provide gateways for connection to the public switched telephone network (PSTN).