Voice Over IP Goes Global, The DNS Way

awehttam writes "A couple of geeks have setup a non-profit public DNS root designed to map phone numbers to Internet protocols. These days we're hearing lots about Skype, and Voice over IP. Asterisk - the open source PBX - is nearing its version 1.00 release, Free World Dialup has applied to run the .tel top level domain, Good old Bell's are migrating to native IP, private sector layer 2 clearing houses are exchanging bits between companies the like of Packet8, China Telecom, MIT and Harvard and even the various regulatory agencies are pondering just what to do about things. In the mean time, consumer SIP phones are dropping in price, and free and open source software is helping to drive a new generation of provide the services networks." Read on for more.

"You just knew the other shoe had to drop. E164.org let's people register their existing phone numbers, and aim various services including VoIP towards a URL on the Internet. Now you can have your calls sent to your Free World Dialup account, or routed to your home Asterisk PBX instead, possibly where you have a $20 card attached to your phone line letting you make and receive calls through both your regular phone line and the Internet. E164.org isn't just about VoIP though, it can also map phone numbers to Email addresses, Instant Messager URL's, or any other protocol that fits in the "foo://bar" scheme of the 'net. :)"

Comments

End of Long distance calls?

[NeurAlien6]

could this be the end of long distance charges?

Re:TeamSpeak

[NeurAlien6]

i've been using Skype for quite some time now and i really like it. i don't know about TeamSpeak but i don't find that Skype uses to much of my resources. I just hope they won't start charging.

This is only the beginning

[TheMadPenguin]

Obviously we are in the beginning stages of something very large. Telecom as we know it today will change... it's only a matter of time.

Link collection great, but more info?

[Jonah Hex]

Thanks, I've already linked most of those sites and the only useful info I get is that there's a cheaper Asterisk compatible card out now. :( How about a bit more info on how these different methods actually stack up against each other? Maybe some success stories?

Jonah Hex

Re:Link collection great, but more info?

[Anonymous Coward]

FYI, The guy who did most(if not all) of the early work on the wildcard(previously known as the Tormenta card) does not work for Digium.

Skype to POTS idea

[dave1g]

I was thinking about this the earlier today, and since it is relevant to this story I thought I would post it.

Currently Skype is a computer to computer only program, but I have an idea to make it somewhat better.

At signup each user should put in his local calling area/country codes whatever they all are.

Then each user has the option of donating his phone line by hooking up his modem to the phone cord.

Whenever someone wants to call a phone number they could try Skype, or a similar program, and the Skype network would then go search for any available modems in that area code. If there is one then your call would be sent over the net to that computer, and out on his modem.

Now obviously this is a pretty generous donation on the part of the users. There fore there would have to be controls given to the user such as only allow people to call through your line if they are sharing their line. And there needs to be a polite "get off my phone I need it" button for when a Skype user is using your phone and you need it. Something like a message interrupting the call saying "the host modem owner want to use his phone line, please end your call in 30 seconds or it will be disconnected for you."

And if there are no modems available in the area code you wish, you will get a message telling you so.

I think this is would be a nice way of getting around long distance even to people who don't own a computer and/or use Skype.

Are there any technical problems with routing audio info taken from the internet into the modem in the computer without the host having to listen to it over his speakers?

What do you guys think?

Ventrilo

[Daath]

When I play and use voice comm, I use Ventrilo. When I (or some of my colleagues) work from home, we use Ventrilo to conference, it works very well!
Ventrilo is also free.

Packet 8

[Scorchen]

I've been using Packet8.net for my telephone service for about a half a year now, and I've been thoroughly impressed. For 20 dollars a month, I get completely unlimited long distance, call waiting, voice mail.

There are a few glitches every now and then. Somedays it won't let my calls go through, but usually my voice mail bails me out. It's just as reliable as a cell phone, and much much cheaper.

how about VOX

[w1r3sp33d]

VOX is an old term that covered any Voice Over type (ip, frame relay, atm, whatever) and it sounds cooler than voip or v,o,i,p.

Re:Progress is good but wha

[ReverendRyan]

I know you were joking, but I recently decied to try out Vonage. With a cable connection you cant even tell its using the internet, and the ability to get a real phone number anywhere (well, almost) in the US beats a landline hands down.

After 2 weeks with it, I've decided I'm going to drop my landline.

Re:Progress is good but wha

[Tandoori Haggis]

Thanks for the info. I must admit I'm starting to hear more and more positive stories about VOIP. Its certainly picking up in Europe and I have met engineers who assured me that in practice it can work really well. One pointed out that the quality seems much better than mobile phones and we don't complain about them too often.

Those Tariffs are interesting 2c / minute is seriously cheap. If I was living across the pond I think I could be tempted.

Cheers

BT's Bluephone..

[KitKitNet]

Someone should check out this new Bluephone! It is the ultimate VoIP package, u can use your cell over Wifi, 3G or GSM networks, probably the killer app for VoIP.

Scenario.

[mindstrm]

My mother has a SIP phone (actually, a SIP adapter) at home.

So does my uncle.

So does my little sister.

So do a half dozen friends (spread out over several countries in both hemispheres).

All these SIP devices connect to a very small linux box colocated in the US, running asterix (which is an excellent piece of software, btw).

Through that, I issued everyone an extension, voicemail, etc.

Further to that, anyone who wants an account at iaxtel, free world dialup, voicepulse, well, the asterix box can connect to those for them, and route calls to the appropriate extensions. It can also share the outgoing services (Which may violate some TOS, who knows) among all the users (or selected ones).

I can also use end-user phone systems as dialin/out lines, which does require some slightly different adapters.

My point?

VOIP is not a heavyweight thing. The only big scary part is locating the correct parties... this is where POTS works well.. because we have a global dialplan that everyone agrees to.

Eventually, everyone with any bandwidth will just HAVE phone service to each other, with some kind of globally understood dialplan beneath it (which will not be based on numbers at all) and links back to POTS will be fewer and rarer.

Re:Progress is good but wha

[The Vulture]

We have Vonage at our office, and while it saves a lot of money on calls (especially to Taiwan, which we call a lot, but we use it for our long distance U.S. calls too), we don't feel that it's good enough to drop out landline.

Don't get me wrong, I think Vonage is great, and I really like the service - just that sometimes it will break up, or give us strange echos, or other things.

The Vonage MTA is connected straight to our DSL router (I don't remember the brand), on our SBC DSL line. There's no firewalls or NAT that it's going through.

Despite the glitches (which don't happen very often, but always seem to happen at the wrong times), it's a pretty good service. But not good enough to replace a primary landline.

-- Joe

What about ENUM?

[CoolGopher]

Without having read the article (this is slashdot after all), what's wrong with ENUM? That already provides phone# to location/service mapping via DNS...

can we call it VoIP?

[Anonymous Coward]

coz thats what im calling it

I wrote a simple app...

[justin00]

I was wondering how long it was going to take someone to set up a DDNS server for this purpose. About time.

I wrote a cool app which streams voice in between two IP addresses after having some bad experiences trying to get some of the more complex app's to work well, and thru a firewall correctly.

It's here...

It just uses one UDP port (51981), and works pretty well. Other things work well, but they require a service, like yahoo IM... and I like the software to be independent of any servers, and be lightweight enough to use in the background.

voip elsewhere

[Anonymous Coward]

guys.. its great that i see you posting about USA and Canada. But VoIP is happening worldwide. It is a reality weather we want it or not. Most carriers are doing VoIP for ILD and we dont even know about it. I work for HablaNow (http://www.hablanow.com), a LatinAmerican VoIP provider, and i must tell you, what is most disturbing is the attitude of the governments down here and the problems deploying VoIP legally due to monopoly telco situations. All of this is changing wether they want it or not. Everybody's doing VoIP, from small cyber cafes, people using SkyPe, Asterisk, iptel, etc all the way to traditional carriers. There's no stopping for VoIP ;-)

SpamOverVoiceOverIP

[upside]

Great stuff, now we can just expect MILLIONS of spam calls from China.

- Unregulated
- Dirt cheap
- Easy to script a 5 sec call to millions of numbers