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What VoIP Is Actually Good For

Posted by timothy on from the not-brain-surgery dept.

gManZboy writes "One of the things that's bothered me about VoIP is that other than so-so quality phone service at a cheap price, what's the big deal? I mean so you can now deliver voice mail into e-mail because it's all IP packets, does that mean I should ditch my telecom investment. Well in part 3 of Queue's special report on VoIP (here's part 1, part 2) two authors from Bell Labs help explain actually useful things you might do. Now I get it."

1 of 288 comments (clear)

  1. In use? by freitasm · · Score: 5, Insightful

    Many telcos are using VoIP in parallel with their PSTN backbones, and this is ok - most users don't even notice this behind the scenes VoIP application.

    When it comes to services to end users, except for companies like Vonage and a few similar ones there's a huge gap. For example I've subscribed to Stanaphone just to find out that my account disappeared simply because I didn't use it for a month. Well, there's no way these companies can compete with operators if they keep this kind of policies in place. Could you imagine if you're enjoying a 45 days holiday in Europe (or in New Zealand, which is really cool!), and when back home find out your phone doesn't work anymore because of this kind of policy? No POTS operator would do this...