Slashdot Mirror
Skype VoIP Software & Service Reviewed
securitas writes "The Atlantic Monthly's James Fallows reviews Skype VoIP software and the SkypeOut paid Internet telephony service in today's New York Times. Fallows almost raves about the software and service, writing, 'Skype, a made-up term that rhymes with "tripe," is the most popular and sexiest application of VoIP'. But he acknowledges that 'There is one huge drawback: Skype works best from a fully connected computer, which runs counter to the whole trend of ever more mobile communication.' Fallows interviewed Skype's CEO Niklas Zennstrom, who discussed company plans for 'partnerships with manufacturers of cellphones and personal digital assistants,' to address Skype's mobile limitations - it's currently restricted to Pocket PC. Fallows concludes with a provocative thought about Internet telephony when he writes, 'there are also questions about whether this new form of instant access could become as oppressively intrusive as e-mail often seems.' (Mirror at Taipei Times). Slashdot previously covered reviews of VoIP services Vonage, Packet8 and VoicePulse and profiled Skype."
the principle of skype's [pieyer-teuuuw-pieeeyer] connectivity is this:
1) make a random outgoing connection to 50 or more other machines (not behind firewalls)
2) route incoming traffic BACK down one of those random connections
3) during a call, check whether one of the other random connections has better connectivity, and if so, switch to it.
this is the sort of functionality that needs to be available in open source VPN software.
reason: SIP is pathetic in comparison to Skype.
98% of users don't give a flying fuck about NAT and firewalls (or updates. or anti-virus software. or anti-spam software).
also it's literally impossible for telecoms to cut Skype's VoIP traffic out of the internet to disrupt them from taking money from AT&T, France Telecom, BT etc. by contrast, blocking the SIP port "oops it's so hard to keep good VoIP software running these days"