VoIP

VoIP is an acronym for Voice over IP, i.e. telephone-like communication carried over the Internet.

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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.

Service Providers

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 €30/year or €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 [1] [2] (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

• 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

Software

• eyeBeam