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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."
Well, a friend and I decided that since Doom 3 doesn't have coop, we'd effectively create our own using VoIP. Quite surprisingly, this was more fun than I could have imagined. Talking to a friend vocally whilst navigating the same dark corners and running into the same ugly creatures creates a better coop experience than you might think. Voice quality was very good, even when being played on the same channel/s as the Doom 3 audio. The only problem we ran into was stuttering of the vocal channel in Skype as a result of my friend using BitTorrent in the background (any sort of mild uploading seems to cause issues with Skype).
Nothing disturbs me more than blind loyalism towards some unrealistic and over-idealistic notion of one's nationality.
there are also questions about whether this new form of instant access could become as oppressively intrusive as e-mail often seems
As intrusive as email? I consider email to be the least intrusive form of communication. Making a phone in my pocket ring no matter where I am in the world is the most intrusive way to communicate, if you ask me.
I love the pay-as-you-go type of billing. Since Skype's main revenue generator is this Skype Out service, I wonder if they would object to seeing integration into instant messaging clients such as gaim? It would probably only help in getting more customers onboard.
Microsoft, or AOL, or someone with some bank could probably put Skype out on their ass by copying their business model and integrating similar services into their own already popular instant messaging clients. (Though I hope they don't)
"But the cars are all flashing me, bright lights are passing me, I feel life passing me by" - Stiff Little Fingers
The biggest boom for this market will NOT be you calling your friends to gossip or talk about cars, it will be to have instant tech support or online help while shopping: you're sitting at your computer, looking at something, and needing help.
There are already online stores (Amazon.com, backcountrystore, etc.) that offer instant chat with a service rep-- it`s a very short hop, skip and a jump from there to being able to dial up at customer service rep. and verbally talk while getting help or confirming an order.
Things will get mean when this process goes the other way: once I buy a CD on Amazon, someone will call me on my VoIP to upsell or cross sell me on related titles...
davejenkins.com |
'Skype, a made-up term that rhymes with "tripe,"
It rhymes with 'hype' much better.
--
But in general (not zealots), the person using the software cares about the functionality and price. If something is free do most people care if it is open source? Have you modified your open source software today?
Fight Spammers!
It Just Works. Linux, PCs, Mac. Qt 3.3 limitation, tho.
I'm guessing "SkypeIn" will be available before long, allowing POTS to call a number assigned to you, representing your PC, and if you are not online do the "answering machine thing". Maybe $7.99 a month?
They also have an "Echo Test Service" user that you can fool with while testing the stuff, and lots of help forums.
Also instant messaging...
For all the people against closed source, all I can say is "the gaim people will be licking their chops" to get to sniffin'.
There seems to be a lot of anger toward Skype, but even tho it is closed source, most open source projects could learn a lot from how they did their project. I say this because I tried using three VOIP libraries/clients over the last few months and none of them worked. Out of date howtos, difficult to find help without endless we searches to dead links--you know the routine.
Here is the place I usually get blasted and whiners say "what do you expect for free, skype had all that kazaa money, so they can do better, you shouldn't complain about free software it's wrong, etc". Yeah, well, if I'm not allowed to use free speech to complain about FSF/GNU software (because it's free?!?!) well screw it I like Skype.
Skype just works.
I have been using skype ans more importantly skypeout (internet to telephone) and I have to say I love it. The only drawback is the CPU required I think they are using some powerful compression. As regards the bandwidth it is not much , my father uses it on a 56K dial up without problems.
For me the best part is the savings. From my phone to call family in the Czech Republic , I used ot pay 35-45 "euro" cents ($0.4-$0.5) , I live in a country without cheap telecoms carriers. For me this is a blessing now I pay 2.7 cents per min.
I really must congratulate them . Many people I know use their service for long distance calls..also for the financial side.
I just started using Skype to talk to my girlfriend in Canada (Im in the UK), and I have to say that everything is painlessly easy to use. Installed and setup an account at either end within 5 minutes of the software download, no firewall reconfiguration, and call success first time. It Just Worked (tm).
:) Try it, thats all I can recommend.
Yes, having the thing attached to the PC all the time is a downside, but you cant have everything. For me it saves huge phonebills, so Im willing to put up with having to sit at my PC while im using it (like I wouldnt anyway, I have a webcam
I've been using Skype heavily the last few months. Despite being closed source (and thus attracting the ire of the Slashdot community in much the same way as bikies don't like bikes that aren't black) and not conforming to a standard (who is to say the VOIP standard is any better than Skype's methods?), the thing works brilliantly.
End users don't give a stuff if it conforms to a standard. Just look at how many ignorant users log into AOL IM every single day! They care about features. Reliability. Simplicity. Cool icons. Pretty colours. RFC compliance does not factor into their decision. The sooner developers in general realise and accept this, the better life will become.
I use Skype for gaming. It runs in the background, does not interfere with my entertainment, and almost never causes any problems at all.
I use Skype for staying in touch with my home while travelling. It's a cheap alternative to expensive international phone rates in hotels. Again, it has yet to fail me.
I don't use Skype for calling land lines, but that will change pretty soon. They admitted to overload-related problems recently, so I'm waiting for these to die down.
Some observations from using their free service include... nice low latency even during international calls. Possibly lower latency than calls placed from a land-line. Reliability makes me smile - find user in contact list, highlight user, click CALL and it rings. They answer, we talk, no bugs, no glitches. Not requiring an expensive handset (ala Cisco VOIP) also makes me smile. Lots.
Show me an equivalent solution with all these good points that adheres to some magical standard and I might show an interest. But only if it look purty.
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"