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More dangerous than you think.

Microsoft has traditionally hired heavily from Waterloo, (e.g. http://blogs.pulver.com/jarnold/archives/2005/11/google_gets_ano.html ).

What do you think when Steve "the chair tosser" Ballmer meets up with Stephen Hawking in his new position as Research Chair?

Here: http://pulverblog.pulver.com/archives/006846.html

My guess is that the cellular companies will fight this vigorously, but that might be short sighted. If they provided competitively priced Internet access, they would take the wind out of the municipal network and hotspot movements. More important, an open wireless network would be an important piece of infrastructure, providing a much needed boost to the US economy and our sagging Internet.

There will be powerful companies on both sides of this important issue -- make your voice heard by signing an FCC petition.

The Skype petition is not yet posted on the FCC Web site, but we will update this post with a link when it is: http://cis471.blogspot.com/2007/02/petition-to-ope n-cellular-networks.html.

UPDATA

A Call to Phones
When the first Internet telephone hit the market last spring, the response was enormous - at least according to VocalTec Inc. The maker of the mercurial Internet Phone, VocalTec claimed 150,000 downloads from its Web site in the first three months of the software's release. The barbarians were at the gate, ready to topple the telco monarchs. A flurry of other, less polished computer- to-computer telephony products followed. Soon enough, folks with IPhones and similar permutations would be barking up and down the Net, and old Ma Bell would have to fall in line with lower long-distance rates. Yet, across jumpy, static-filled connections it was most often the uncomfortable, fuzzy silence of communication delays that resounded across the ether.

And guess what? A year later, the transmission delay is still there (yes, even in full duplex conversations), and Internet telephony - with all its "hang-ups" - has yet to revolutionize telecommunications. But no matter: International Discount Telecommunications Corp. (http://www.ios.com/), a Hackensack, New Jersey, Internet access provider and callback service, is positioning itself to become the first company to market with a computer-to-telephone product early this summer.

The company's Net2Phone software will soon enable users to dial any phone number - straight from their computers. Howard Jonas, Discount Telecommunications Corp.'s president, points out that while the typical international call runs at approximately US$120 an hour, the figure will be closer to $6 with Net2Phone. What will telephone companies worldwide say about this? "I'm sure nobody likes it, but there's nothing they can do," he says. "They hated the callback business, too." Jonas pioneered the squirrelly and very profitable callback service in 1991, much to the chagrin of telcos that stood to make money in IDT's place.

International Discount Telecommunications won't be alone in the campaign to cheapen international calls. A project called Free World Dialup (http://www.pulver.com/fwd/), which launched in January and will run through April, is accomplishing exactly what its title suggests: providing people with free links from the Net to international phone lines. Jeff Pulver, one of the volunteer organizers of Free World Dialup, says the project is simply an experiment for proof of concept. Pulver, who also moderates the NetWatch mailing list, a discussion group for Internet telephony issues, adds that he wouldn't mind rattling some chains in the process. "It's the spirit of the Net," he says. Problem is, the Net is also marked by bandwidth limitations that keep Internet telephony quality down - a prime reason telecom execs aren't up at night sweating bullets. Until the arrival of technology that will create real competition, Pulver says, "there's a coolness factor to Internet telephony, and then it just goes away."

>If so[nationwide telco video franchises], then fiber optic cables to the home are going to happen far more quickly than anyone would have predicted five years ago -- a major upgrade to the U.S. information infrastructure.

Yes, and if Lucy holds the football I can come running up to kick it. Telcos have spent *decades* saying "give us this break and we'll lay fiber', "give us that break and we'll lay fiber", then taking the money and doing nothing.

>abolition of the USF altogether -- but that seems unlikely, as that would impose an immediate and costly burden on many rural Americans.

The USF money is not accounted for and when rural areas get service the telcos raise the rates by the amount of the subsidy.

At least this one isn't telco propaganda:
>electronic versions of anonymous cash
That was the cypherpunk dream from the previous millenium, but if you look around at all the anonymous payment systems that used to exist they've all been shut down by the requirements of USAPATRIOT.

Correct. The ruling also covers any broadband over 200Kbps separately - i.e. they can force your ISP to tap your connection. The act really is about forcing the ISPs to install equipment to make it EASY to tap by flipping a switch electronically - they already had the power to order a tap; it's just that it might be hard/slow/impossible for the ISP to comply. And yes, this means there's a HUGE gaping hole waiting for someone to exploit. Knowing the capability is there is 1/2 the battle of accessing it, and CALEA spells out a lot of specifics about the interface.

This lawsuit is about the part of the ruling that states that in addition to the ISP, any VoIP supplier who has any connection (even through a 3rd party!) to a PSTN gateway must provide the same ease-of-tapping under CALEA for ALL calls. Not just calls going to/from the PSTN, ALL calls.

Colleges are suing as well (separately), over the up to 7 or more BILLION dollars to re-architect and rebuild their campus networks to support this. The original CALEA was aimed at telephone companies; gave them years to comply; and reimbursed them for their expenses. None of that here.

This means Skype (unless they drop SkypeOut/SkypeIn). Ditto Vonage, sipphone, etc. I think FWD might be ok since it's IP-2-IP only.

Check out http://pulver.com/ and Pulver's blog on this http://pulverblog.pulver.com/archives/003241.html.

Correct. The ruling also covers any broadband over 200Kbps separately - i.e. they can force your ISP to tap your connection. The act really is about forcing the ISPs to install equipment to make it EASY to tap by flipping a switch electronically - they already had the power to order a tap; it's just that it might be hard/slow/impossible for the ISP to comply. And yes, this means there's a HUGE gaping hole waiting for someone to exploit. Knowing the capability is there is 1/2 the battle of accessing it, and CALEA spells out a lot of specifics about the interface.

This lawsuit is about the part of the ruling that states that in addition to the ISP, any VoIP supplier who has any connection (even through a 3rd party!) to a PSTN gateway must provide the same ease-of-tapping under CALEA for ALL calls. Not just calls going to/from the PSTN, ALL calls.

Colleges are suing as well (separately), over the up to 7 or more BILLION dollars to re-architect and rebuild their campus networks to support this. The original CALEA was aimed at telephone companies; gave them years to comply; and reimbursed them for their expenses. None of that here.

This means Skype (unless they drop SkypeOut/SkypeIn). Ditto Vonage, sipphone, etc. I think FWD might be ok since it's IP-2-IP only.

Check out http://pulver.com/ and Pulver's blog on this http://pulverblog.pulver.com/archives/003241.html.

Pulver Innovations had a WiSIP phone that would connect over your LAN to act as a standard SIP phone, which you could use, for example, with Free World Dialup or asterisk@home. Unfortunately, as one article points out, most WiFi hot spots don't co-operate and the the phone connect, so it has some major limitations. Even Pulver doesn't push it anymore... I had a tough time finding a link to it on any of their sites.

They also had a gadget that you could plug a cell phone into that would allow you to preferentially use the cell phone's free minutes for long distance calls from your VOIP system. Since most cell phones come with a huge number of free long distance minutes, it might be worth the lower quality to some, but I can't even find a link to it any more :(

How about xten, firefly, pulver, sjphone, sflphone, minisip, kphone, linphone, phonegaim? This is just the software I know of, there are probably many more that other people can add to the list. Which that would suit you depends of course on what your needs are.

FreeWorldDialup already has a free service that supports all sorts of existing standards. If you want to use a difficult to set-up SIP phone you can, but they also have an, apparently, brain-dead-easy Pulver Communicator for those who don't want to deal with the hassles. They also have a small set of pre-configured SIP phones and even sell pre-configured hard phones. The only thing they don't have is a huge marketing push to skype... err.. hype this service.

The OP mentioned the main-stream press. The following blogs all give different angles on the same story, all worth viewing: ZDNet Russ Shaw Om at Gigaom Jeff Pulver Mark Evens and the Vonage Forum

FreeWorldDialup has been doing pretty much the same thing for years now. They even have their own pre-configured software. If you don't like the Pulver Communicator you can always get one of half a dozen other SIP phones (soft or otherwise) that work with the service. They even offer a pre-configured version of The SJPhone, which is essentially what the Gizmo folks are offering. If you want a dial-out service FWD offers a choice of affiliates who can give you that portion a-la-carte!

So, why would you want to use Gizmo?

In fact SBC recently attempted to do just that. They filed a petition to the FCC for forbearance to title II. Jeff Pulver has covered the issue well in his blog...

Jeff Pulver's Blog on SBC Forbearance Petition

My final thought on today's events: Amidst all the emotionally heart-wrenching anecdotes about failed Vonage 911 calls, no one ever mentioned the failures of traditional carrier emergency response services. I'm forced to wonder what would have happened if the FCC had paraded the spouses and parents of those who died when 911 failed on traditional wireline and wireless networks? I guess that wouldn't be acceptable - that might scare consumers of traditional telecom services and antagonize the traditional communications power structure. Let's bully the new weak kids in town but not draw attention to current emergency response failures by those that are capable of fighting back.

1. But what about your open source, small office/home office/home VOIP setup? It's not gonna work! Until we have some real standards and maturity in the VOIP industry we aren't going to have voice over internet protocal (VOIP) we can really trust to work when we need it.

Look here. The Asterisk PBX is open source. It uses ethernet and SIP protocols. You can get native SIP phones that work with it or use two different styles of converters that allow you to connect any analog phone you want to it. While it is not cheap, it is cheaper to deploy and has many feartures not found in even much more expensive PBX systems.

Asterisk has the ability to handle any call and route it transparently to SIP phones, analog, or software phones.

One of the analog phone converters can be used with a variety of VOIP providers by hooking it up to your sound card. Even has an audio pass-through.

http://voipstore.pulver.com/product_info.php?produ cts_id=35

I haven't gotten one.. yet. I'm curious how it will handle NAT'd public WiFi spots when you can't poke a hole through the NAT/Firewall. Apparently it still works if it's only NAT'd once (multiple NAT's within NAT's cause the phone to fail I read). Maybe it goes into Poll mode or something.

Still, cool either way.

I suspect they're actually going to sell a rebadged phone from Pulver Innovations (something lots of Vonage competitors already do).

SIP based VoIP, Asterisk compatible if you want to get fancy, uses STUN to traverse nat'ing firewalls. They even sponsor a few SIP clients so it's all free, and you can buy a cheap hardware SIP phone or interface and make the calls from a real phone instead of a PC.

I have seen a couple, bought none:
http://voipstore.pulver.com/product_info.php?produ cts_id=48
and
http://voipstore.atacomm.com/shops/Search.aspx/279 34028032.htm?search=asterisk
also some much worse deals on ebay.

http://fwd.pulver.com/. There are OSS and closed-source clients, based on international standards, and it does the trick on any platform I've used. Truly it is "teh good stuff." And every now and then FWD enables their VOIP POTS gateway so you can make free calls to your relatives on July 4th weekend.

The clients on offer at free world dialup all support STUN for NAT traversal, and some (like X-ten) support speex.

They're all preconfigured to use free world dialup if that's where you download them. Pretty much zeroconf. I think X-ten also does GSM codec (though it doesn't say whether it uses EFR).

Too bad the default codec is G.721 muLaw (64 kbps, feh!).

For vonage the instructions are here while for Packet8 it's here.

We've seen how the Internet offers cheaper, more diversified communications - at the price of quality *cough World Wide Wait cough*. Telephony might flourish with the growth of VoIP over protocol networks like FreeWorld Dialup. But how can we ensure services like 911 are reliable and universal? So far, we've done that with regulated monopoly phone companies, which are more manageable than a decentralized VoIP P2P system. How can we keep the required services, while expanding beyond them?

Mainly, latency is the biggest issue to be conquered at this time.

I live in Los Angeles and communicate with an FWD SIP with which I call a conference in Japan almost daily. Latency with that is very low, and that's with a free service!

I really don't latency is the problem as much as it is making the technology easier to use for the average joe ( X-Lite is NOT easy to set up if you have router ).

Setup an asterisk pbx server, and signup with any number of VoIP providers who support G.711 codecs (like Voicepulse or their no bells service, Voicepulse Connect service). Plug your fax machine into a TDM400p card from digium.

Another option, pickup a Grandstream HandyTone 286 (from here for instance) or a Sipura SPA-2000 (from here for instance) (SIP devices, plug a regular phone, or fax, into it) instead of the asterisk box, but it gives you less flexibility. Both devices would work with the Voicepulse services, or most any other true SIP based VoIP service.

This works, been able to fax to people over Pulver's Free World Dialup service without any problems using both types of setup.

Setup an asterisk pbx server, and signup with any number of VoIP providers who support G.711 codecs (like Voicepulse or their no bells service, Voicepulse Connect service). Plug your fax machine into a TDM400p card from digium.

Another option, pickup a Grandstream HandyTone 286 (from here for instance) or a Sipura SPA-2000 (from here for instance) (SIP devices, plug a regular phone, or fax, into it) instead of the asterisk box, but it gives you less flexibility. Both devices would work with the Voicepulse services, or most any other true SIP based VoIP service.

This works, been able to fax to people over Pulver's Free World Dialup service without any problems using both types of setup.

Yes, and that's most likely why current telecom providers want this to be considered a regulated service...

Interestingly, Jeff has several friends in the telecom and datacom industries, among them AT&T, Qwest, Worldcom, Global Crossing and Cisco. Outside of that, the venerable EFF is also in favor of his petition. (Donate now!)

I didn't include it in the story in order to avoid trampling his site too much, but he still has the original petition [PDF] available online.

Yes, and that's most likely why current telecom providers want this to be considered a regulated service...

Interestingly, Jeff has several friends in the telecom and datacom industries, among them AT&T, Qwest, Worldcom, Global Crossing and Cisco. Outside of that, the venerable EFF is also in favor of his petition. (Donate now!)

I didn't include it in the story in order to avoid trampling his site too much, but he still has the original petition [PDF] available online.

I can now make unlimited, free calls to them, saving $100/month. What's more, there are no monthly charges for either of these services, all you have to do is buy the equipment -- which can be either a hardware IP phone, or a software phone.

I'd always seen the hope and potential for VoIP as similar to my hopes and potentials for WiFi: low-to-no-cost community networks that could be used to get everybody wired... unlike what's currently happening, just another area for corporate intervention.

You mean like:
SIP Phone
or snom
or Grandstream
or Pulver

and that's just naming a few.

You mean this and these?

You sound a lot like a consumer (:-), so check out things like Net2Phone and Dialpad. But also check out Free World Dialup. Vonage is trying to replace your whole phone line, including local and inbound calls, rather than just skimming your outgoing long distance calls.

Consumer-oriented services typically want your credit card to set up an account, though there are other models. Business-oriented services usually have more interesting options for billing, accounting, grouping users together, incoming calls, etc. Hardware ranges from single-line frobs to 4-line PC boards to 24-line T1s to PBXs, etc. Check out www.openh323.org if you're interested.

An interesting editorial regarding this CNET story run yesterday on Voxilla.com.

Being one of the people singled out in the story the good news is that since the story ran, I spoke with Janus and Free World Dialup will be working with the Skype team in interconnecting our respective networks.

What concerns me more than this story is that last Friday it was first reported that Wisconsin
joined the growing list of US States that is taking action against VoIP.

An interesting editorial regarding this CNET story run yesterday on Voxilla.com.

Being one of the people singled out in the story the good news is that since the story ran, I spoke with Janus and Free World Dialup will be working with the Skype team in interconnecting our respective networks.

What concerns me more than this story is that last Friday it was first reported that Wisconsin
joined the growing list of US States that is taking action against VoIP.

Yes and no. The phone can only call other SIP devices, but there is no reason that the SIP device cannot be a gateway to the PSTN. Mr. Roberton's service includes the ability to call other sip directory networks, including Free World Dial-up.

Free World Dial-up already has the ability for USA and UK PSTN phones to call a FWD phone number (see the "3rd Party Inbound" section at http://fwd.pulver.com/index.php?section_id=78 ). In addition, the same page explains how to call USA nationwide, UK, and Neatherlands Toll Free numbers from your FWD SIP phone. Since SIPphone can call FWD, they are able to do the same.

So, maybe this is not so useless afterall... ;-)

This is a good price for SIP phones (I've seen the same model for sale for $75/phone, which is $150 for two). You can use these phones for any SIP stuff, I would recommend that people check out free world dialup which has been doing this exact same thing for a long time, and has been doing it as a community service, instead of as a company. This isn't anything new, but it is good that it is getting press... the more people who have SIP phones, and use something like FWD, the less I have to pay in long distance charges to those who are stuck with PSTN.

If you would like to give SIP a try just try out the latested X-Lite/FWD Client available
here.

Please read the FWD Quick Start Guide to you get familar with our community.

Once you have a Free World Dialup account, you can dial your friends who have a SIPphone account, by dialing **747 followed by the SIPphone number. You can also dial people on other SIP networks.

FWD now also supports the ability to place
"toll-free" calls into the US, UK and the Netherlands. more Details are availalbe: here.

At the moment there are approx. 44,000 FWD subscribers in 150+ countries.

If you would like to give SIP a try just try out the latested X-Lite/FWD Client available
here.

Please read the FWD Quick Start Guide to you get familar with our community.

Once you have a Free World Dialup account, you can dial your friends who have a SIPphone account, by dialing **747 followed by the SIPphone number. You can also dial people on other SIP networks.

FWD now also supports the ability to place
"toll-free" calls into the US, UK and the Netherlands. more Details are availalbe: here.

At the moment there are approx. 44,000 FWD subscribers in 150+ countries.

Here's why this might be reasonably successful:

1. What they are selling is a Directory Service + Grandstream phones which support the SIP protocol -- which is *the* standard for VoIP signalling -- oh, which is also supported by the Cisco ATA 186, Cisco 7960, MS IM, X-Lite, Asterisk, etc. -- i.e. basically anyone playing in the VoIP space who doesn't have a legacy H323 or proprietary protocol already deployed.
2. They've already got an interconnect agreement with FWD which has circa 40,000 users signed up. (albeit not fee paying)
3. The phones aren't locked to being used for this particular service -- nothing to stop you taking the phones and pointing them at FWD/your own Gatekeeper etc. (Refer: Michael Roberton's comments)

They've also had the smarts to set their SIP phone numbers as a "US area code" (don't know if they've actually been allocated it, who knows) -- no doubt PSTN access is in their plans at some stage like Vonage.

Doomed? I doubt it. While nothing here is revolutionary, the genius is in offering the total package (phone + directory service) for a one-off fee that even your grandmother could figure out how to use. All they need to add is PSTN access. If you'd like to learn some more about VoIP, I'd suggest FWD is a nice easy learning curve.

Here's why this might be reasonably successful:

1. What they are selling is a Directory Service + Grandstream phones which support the SIP protocol -- which is *the* standard for VoIP signalling -- oh, which is also supported by the Cisco ATA 186, Cisco 7960, MS IM, X-Lite, Asterisk, etc. -- i.e. basically anyone playing in the VoIP space who doesn't have a legacy H323 or proprietary protocol already deployed.
2. They've already got an interconnect agreement with FWD which has circa 40,000 users signed up. (albeit not fee paying)
3. The phones aren't locked to being used for this particular service -- nothing to stop you taking the phones and pointing them at FWD/your own Gatekeeper etc. (Refer: Michael Roberton's comments)

They've also had the smarts to set their SIP phone numbers as a "US area code" (don't know if they've actually been allocated it, who knows) -- no doubt PSTN access is in their plans at some stage like Vonage.

Doomed? I doubt it. While nothing here is revolutionary, the genius is in offering the total package (phone + directory service) for a one-off fee that even your grandmother could figure out how to use. All they need to add is PSTN access. If you'd like to learn some more about VoIP, I'd suggest FWD is a nice easy learning curve.

Please take a
look at the people registered for this meeting and reach out to them and
let them know that VoIP should not be regulated in the United States.

Your collective feedback can make a difference.

"This process contains three phases: (1) Completing a cover sheet, and (2) Attaching documents or submitting typed comments, and (3) Receiving a Confirmation." (from ECFS user manual)

Upload expert, submitting an attached MS Word 6.0 and higher, MS Excel 4.0 and higher, Word Perfect 5.1 and higher, ASCII Text, and Adobe Acrobat Portable Document Format (PDF), as specified in the ECFS user manual. Or (maybe?) do a quick file submission under "Broadband over the traditional telephone." (I'm not sure if this files under the proper proceeding, as it provides minimal information so you may want to use expert.)

File using expert

1. Proceeding: 03-45
2. Fill in relevant information (pers info)
3. Document type: Comment
4. Attach document or just type in a quick comment

Now instead of ranting here on the issue. Make your statements on the issue available to people other then techies, law types and such. Not that I'm saying law types don't come here, or techies don't understand ... err ... shut up ... right. The rest of this comment is thrown in for reference.

Home Site ECFS (Electronic Comment Filing System)
http://www.fcc.gov/cgb/ecfs/

Documentation in regards to proper response filings in response to the petition posted by pulvar.com":
http://pulver.com/fwd/fccfwd.html
http://hraunfoss.fcc.gov/edocs_public/attachmatch/ DA-03-439A1.pdf

The CFRs referenced from time to time are Code of Federal Regulations. On the site referenced, you should come to see quickly there are different titles corresponding to various sectors of industry, Title 47 referencing Telecommuniation.

USC stands for United States Code. You can search this database or download each to view structurally.

I have just discovered all this information out in the past 15 minutes via Google and the www.fcc.gov site and www.pulvar.com. I can't give you a cut clear definition of the difference of U.S.C. and C.F.R., however there is an about page that clearly defines this on each respective home site.

In other words, I'll leave my post and allow the higher states of entropical discussion to follow ;)

P.S.I'm not really a coward, just an ignorant fool who forgot his password/email. Ohhly well. That also means to imply I am not affliated with anybody pertaining to the topic of discussion.

"This process contains three phases: (1) Completing a cover sheet, and (2) Attaching documents or submitting typed comments, and (3) Receiving a Confirmation." (from ECFS user manual)

Upload expert, submitting an attached MS Word 6.0 and higher, MS Excel 4.0 and higher, Word Perfect 5.1 and higher, ASCII Text, and Adobe Acrobat Portable Document Format (PDF), as specified in the ECFS user manual. Or (maybe?) do a quick file submission under "Broadband over the traditional telephone." (I'm not sure if this files under the proper proceeding, as it provides minimal information so you may want to use expert.)

File using expert

1. Proceeding: 03-45
2. Fill in relevant information (pers info)
3. Document type: Comment
4. Attach document or just type in a quick comment

Now instead of ranting here on the issue. Make your statements on the issue available to people other then techies, law types and such. Not that I'm saying law types don't come here, or techies don't understand ... err ... shut up ... right. The rest of this comment is thrown in for reference.

Home Site ECFS (Electronic Comment Filing System)
http://www.fcc.gov/cgb/ecfs/

Documentation in regards to proper response filings in response to the petition posted by pulvar.com":
http://pulver.com/fwd/fccfwd.html
http://hraunfoss.fcc.gov/edocs_public/attachmatch/ DA-03-439A1.pdf

The CFRs referenced from time to time are Code of Federal Regulations. On the site referenced, you should come to see quickly there are different titles corresponding to various sectors of industry, Title 47 referencing Telecommuniation.

USC stands for United States Code. You can search this database or download each to view structurally.

I have just discovered all this information out in the past 15 minutes via Google and the www.fcc.gov site and www.pulvar.com. I can't give you a cut clear definition of the difference of U.S.C. and C.F.R., however there is an about page that clearly defines this on each respective home site.

In other words, I'll leave my post and allow the higher states of entropical discussion to follow ;)

P.S.I'm not really a coward, just an ignorant fool who forgot his password/email. Ohhly well. That also means to imply I am not affliated with anybody pertaining to the topic of discussion.

One thing I don't like about Vonage is that you have to use their Cisco ATA-186(the "POTS-to-Ethernet gizmo" you mentioned). Of course, they password protect it and provision it themselves, so it can only be used with their service. This means you don't get to play with this nifty device, 'cause they've locked you out. Goes against the hacker spirit, seems more like the Microsoft "we've set this up for you for your own protection" thing. I even emailed them to ask if I could use my own ATA, here is their response:

"We do not currently offer service on devices that we do not provide. We do include the Cisco ATA 186 free of charge. We do appreciate your interest in our service. Please do let us know if we may be of further assistance."

Why would you want to configure the Cisco ATA yourself? Well, you might want to try Free World Dialup, or you might want to play with VOCAL from vovida.org. Or whatever.

What I did was to buy a Cisco ATA-186 myself from YesMicro for about $170 with shipping. Then, I got an account at iconnecthere.com and set up my ATA using their setup instructions (it's a Word file, oh well...). I pick up the phone, and it works. When I make a call, they just charge me by the minute (2.9 cents to the U.S.). They have other plans that are cheaper, if you make a lot of calls. If you want to send and receive calls, you can do that for $8.95/month, or $10.95/month for a toll-free number (first hour is included, extra minutes at $0.10/minute). I don't, however, need my own phone number. So, here was my decision-making process, in a nutshell:

With Vonage, if I don't need my own phone number, too bad, no discount; I get a phone number anyway. I still can't tinker with the Cisco ATA, and I still need to give it back (it's not like I could do anything with it anyway, since it's locked down). $39.95 for unlimited calls to the U.S.

With iconnecthere, if I don't need my own phone number, then I don't pay the extra $8.95/month. However, I need to buy the Cisco ATA. Assuming a cost of $170, it would cost me $14.16/month to pay for it. Taking the cost of the Cisco into account, $39.95 buys me 1404 minutes/month, or about 47 minutes/day. Without the cost of the Cisco, it's 1767 minutes/month, or almost an hour/day.

However, I don't make a lot of calls every day. So, with iconnecthere, I can just pay by the minute. Assuming I make about 15 minutes of calls/day, that's $24.16/month including the cost of the Cisco as above, or $10/month not including the cost of the Cisco (with their 1000 minutes for $10 plan). Plus, I have the fun of being able to hack around on the Cisco ATA, and it's mine to keep.

So, in conclusion, if you don't want to hack around on your Cisco ATA, you don't mind giving it back, and you make over an hour's worth of calls every single day, go with Vonage. If you want to hack your Cisco ATA, own it, and make less than an hour's worth of calls a day, iconnecthere seems to be a better option.

Well, I hate to be nitpicky, but I'm pretty sure Yahoo!'s Buzz came first, and that Metacrawler's Metaspy came even before that. This study provides a more long range view along the same lines. I'm trying to start a web page that lists these sorts of "what are people interesed in" sites around the Net. If anyone has any suggestions, I'd be very interested.

A bill is on Capitol Hill which would make it illegal to provide VoIP services without FCC registration. The bill is HR1542. It basically wraps IP-based telephony into the Communication Act of 1934. Join the Fight to keep VoIP unregulated.

Freeworld dial up at http://pulver.com/fwd/ is using a bunch of this software to provide IP phone services.

Feel free to visit pulver.com for background information on the primary supporter for this 'project'. The first 20 node applications which meet our criteria will be given configured Nodes for free. (Including free shipping anywhere in the world.). Regards to all, Jeff Pulver jeff@pulver.com

Feel free to visit pulver.com for background information on the primary supporter for this 'project'. The first 20 node applications which meet our criteria will be given configured Nodes for free. (Including free shipping anywhere in the world.). Regards to all, Jeff Pulver jeff@pulver.com