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VoIP + 802.11 = Bad News For Phone Companies

Posted by timothy on from the like-new-buggywhips dept.

r.future writes " Netstumbler, a site that has downloads for software used by wardrivers, points to an article on Red Herring that talks about combining voice over IP and 802.11 wireless technology. The article states "Individually, VoIP and 802.11 are hot technologies with promising futures. Now they are gaining attention for their potential as a combined force. Convergence, or the melding of voice calls over an IP network together with wireless 802.11 technologies, is becoming increasingly popular. VoIP reduces the need for local carrier origination and termination." both Netstumbler, and the Red Harring article point to the University of Arkansas as a example of an institution that has combined the two technologies and was able to "circumvented its local carrier and reduced monthly service fees from $530,000 to a mere $6,000 by using voice over IP technology ""

1 of 225 comments (clear)

  1. Re:Why don't you pay your AT&T bills, GNU hipp by Pxtl · · Score: 3, Interesting

    Until someone can provide a VoIP solution that can actually be configured to work behind a NAT for a normal user, this shit will always be impossible.

    I have spent _years_ looking for a good VoIP solution - but for some reason, the average videogame is more network-friendly than this major enterprise app.

    I'll explain it plain and simple: I want to connect to Port X on IP Y and have a voice chat conversation.

    Alternately, if I cannot directly point Port X to IP Y to computer Z, I want computer Z to register its name with a third party, and I use the name and that third party to connect to computer Z.

    I don't want to have to forward 90% of the IP range to my computer. I don't want to upgrade my NAT to a "compatible" router - everyone else has to program for the hardware, yet for some reason the VoIP standards bodies thought the hardware should conform to them.

    I don't want to need a 3rd party unless I'm connecting to something otherwise unreachable from the outside (anonymous user behind a NAT).

    Thats it.

    Why is it in every game I can say: I want to run a server, and I want it to run on ports X, Y and Z, and just tell everybody else "hey, connect to my IP on port X" I can, and they do, and we play. But, if I want a voice chat, I have to rewire the whole friggin' internet. No, I can't change what ports it runs on. No, all users involved need to leave all their ports open.

    Its pretty sad when X-fucking-box-live is outdoing the entire tech-industry for usable cheap VoIP.