VoIP

Overview
VoIP is an acronym for Voice over IP, i.e. telephone-like communication carried over the Internet. This is a rapidly growing area of telecommunications, and many experts are predicting an imminent upheaval in the telecomm industry. Most VoIP service providers in the U.S. offer unlimited calling within the U.S. and very low rates (less than 5 cents/minute) for calls to most other countries. Established telecomm providers offering VoIP tend to charge about $40/month, with minimal frills; alternative providers tend to charge less and offer much better service, especially in the area of web interface.

Reference

 * VoIP wiki
 * VoIP wiki

Related Articles

 * Many VoIP and cellular phone providers are now charging a regulatory recovery fee

Computer as phone

 * Gizmo
 * available for Linux
 * rich computer-oriented features
 * Skype
 * based in Europe, but available in U.S.
 * dial-in phone numbers cost &euro;30/year or &euro;10/quarter
 * no fixed monthly rate for dial-out ability; pay only for minutes used
 * conferencing & group tools
 * recently went over to the dark side by partnering with Intel to provide better service on PCs using Intel's chips  (2006-03-11 A hacker has now released a patch to defeat this limitation: slashdot)
 * additional evilness: one user reports that if you install a button on your site from http://www.skype.com/share/buttons/, the code includes Javascript that detects whether each visitor to your site has skype installed; if not, it spawns a popup window telling them to download it. This fact is not disclosed on the buttons page.

Regular phone

 * lingo
 * Cheaper than Vonage, with some more advanced features
 * SunRocket
 * may be incompatible with regular phones; web site is not clear
 * Vonage
 * unlimited within U.S. for $25/month
 * plans start at $15/month
 * no setup charge
 * list of recent calls available via web
 * voicemail can be emailed to you automatically
 * annoyingly, the emails do not include the text of the caller ID, only the phone number
 * they also do not include the length of the call
 * in mid-2007, Vonage began offering an optional paid transcription service for their voicemails (text transcription of the message is apparently included within the notification email)
 * Vonage links: Technometria (2 articles as of 2006-09-19)

Software

 * Asterisk PBX
 * eyeBeam

Links

 * VoIP versus traditional telephone: "Why is making a phone call over the Internet more efficient?"
 * 2006-10-05 A free telephone consultant by James E. Gaskin