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BT to Offer Free Internet Calls
gnoos writes "The BBC is reporting that BT is to start offering customers free internet telephone calls if they sign up to broadband in December. The offer will be limited to the first 50,000 people who sign up and users will need to use BT's internet telephony software, known as BT Communicator"
Hmm, last I check through almost every major emergency the phone lines are about the last thing to go out, heck even power loss doesn't effect corded telephones. Cell Phones while improving, simply don't have the same reputation. And Internet Service can be very flaky at times.
Yes.
I'd much rather have a service like Vonage. It's simple to use, has a nice web GUI, is incredibly clear, and can work seemlessly with your existing telephone number.
so I need this...why?
Gee, it's not good enough for you! You want The World! Hell, it's only good for house to house! And as everyone knows, only old geesers in their workshops use land line anymore! Good lord, get a grip! Anyway, if it's not "good enough" for you, I guess you will not be using it! But if they offered it in my area, where as an "old geezer" I own a house, I might just use it!
"Who are in control, they are not in control of anything - they don't even control themselves!" - Glen Beck
It probably is... Nobody loves us Linux users. "Sorry, we don't support linux." "What's "Linux"? I'm asking for your Windows Version, not your web browser." "Screw off, penguin-boy!"
It's a Windows only service. But look at it this way: Good use for an old P-3 box. Use your Linux box for real cutting edge apps!
"Who are in control, they are not in control of anything - they don't even control themselves!" - Glen Beck
before...warez over the phone!!
Hmm, last I check through almost every major emergency the phone lines are about the last thing to go out, heck even power loss doesn't effect corded telephones. Cell Phones while improving, simply don't have the same reputation.
Power loss doesn't really effect cell phones, either. Hell, there could be a complete cable, phone and power outage at your house but your cell phone would still have reception. I'd think that they'd have the best reputation!
- dshaw
It's hard to understand as an American how important this maneuver is to BT. Unlike the States, The UK and other EU nations prefer mobile phones over landlines to such an extent that telecos are losing money. The only source for revenue for this redundant system presently is DSL service, and even that is being offered at reduced rates.
The American business model for telco service has always been charge a little extra for flat rate local calls and save thousands of dollars in not having to itemize billing for something that costs jack squat. BT has clearly acknowledged that this is the only way to compete with the booming mobile phone industry is to go VoIP and following the American standard but because it's a new technology they don't have to say America was right.
leaving on a 300 watt computer for use as a phone is over kill. there's got to be some sort of stand-alone solution that basically replaces the phone altogether.
Wow, this is radical stuff. Almost as good as Skype, but without the hassle of simply clicking and talking.... ;-)
Minimum requirements -Microsoft Windows 98/Windows 2000/Windows Millennium/Windows XP operating system (XP recommended) -Microsoft Internet Explorer version 5.01 or later not so sure about the latter, because i bet it just requires flash and so would work in firefox. but it probably doesn't work in linux since it specifies: Please note that BT Communicator is not Mac compatible. All in all, how many windows users want to use something possibly IE-based so that they can talk to hardlines and such for free?
Telephone calls via BitTorrent???
If Microsoft was mass, stupidity would be gravity.
Anyone can make VoIP or video conferencing calls using NetMeeting for the past 6 years for free if they were using broadband. There are many other software packages that do the same thing.
Why would a broadband company try to charge extra for VoIP when they are already charging for the connectivity?
It makes no sense!
coz its free to land lines
I'm not out of order! You're out of order! The whole freaking system's out of order!
BT are lying theiving scum that have exploited the British public with their monopoly for years. This is an obvious gimmick (that will fail) to attempt to steal customers from other broadband providers.
Their ADSL service is fine up until layer 3, at which point it becomes crap. Their web service will only let you download two simultaneous files, and given half a chance they will cap your downloads. Service is unreliable. I have several remote sites using VPN's - one uses BT at the moment, and VPN is up and down like a yoyo.
If you want broadband in the UK and you live in an area where you can get cable, use Telewest (I have a 3Mb line which is 1Mb faster than the fastest BT offering) or if you can't get cable and can only have ADSL, use Demon.
Oh and don't use BT for regular telephone lines - they are overpriced.
In fact, don't use them for anything.
no, but living next to the wrong building(my sister's apartment) doesn't make your cell phone almost useful. and for all my experience, land lines give the best and far and away most consistent reception to be had.
Why can't people realize there are advantages and disadvantages to both types of phones. I will not make many important calls on my cell phone in certain areas(my dorm at my school for the last two years) because reception is just that bad at times. Its never at a dependable level. But that is what I have where I live so land lines are the best option. My friends in UF only have a cell phone because they are rarely in their apartment and reception is near 100% no matter where they are.
Slowly though, cell phones are moving to replace most land line uses, but for now, cell phones aren't the end all answer for everyone out there.
I'd think that they'd have the best reputation! ... except when they drop out unexpectedly in the middle of a call ...
"Go to CNN [for a] spell-checked, fact-checked summary" -- CmdrTaco
We have free national house-to-house VoIP phone for about a year or so in France. And you don't have to use your computer: just plug your phone in the 'Freebox' given with your Free.fr subscription. You also get broadband internet (up to 15 mbits in some areas) and TV (not everywhere), all for 30 euros/month. For once that France isn't years behind technologically, I thought I'd mention it...
What's next? Free web access if you pay for broadband. Free email if you pay for broadband. Free virus protection if you pay for broadband.
Might as well go wild and give free access to Slashdot.
Does any___ even _____ gr__nd l__ anymo_____
You're breaking up. Can you call back when you get better reception? Or when you get to a real phone?
Just so you don't have to go down a whole thread, the requirements are listed below.
In short, Windoze only, and needs Internet Exploder and Flash as well. So tough if you're using any kind of alternatives with, say, a better security record.
Thanks BT, but not very much.
Minimum requirements
Multimedia PC with 700MHz processor or faster *
Microsoft Windows 98/Windows 2000/Windows Millennium/Windows XP operating system (XP recommended)
Minimum 128MB RAM (256MB recommended)
256-color VGA or higher resolution graphics card (SVGA recommended)
Microsoft Internet Explorer version 5.01 or later
Macromedia Flash version 5.0.25 or later (Flash version 6+ recommended).
Right here in Cincinnati, Ohio a cable company (no names) has hired and trained installation and support personell for a VoIP roll out. They plan on offering unlimited service to those who are more than delighted with their digital cable and *oad *unner Internet service.
Considering the amount of low key recruiting they did I'd say they plan on it working. They actually plan on kicking normal home phone service out of their homes completely.
Not bad for a city that is said to live twenty years behind the rest of the world.
Get your Unix fortune now!
Skype is already free and works with many OSs and who you want to talk to doesn't have to be with BT. Seems pointless to me.
Doing it for only the first X makes it just a gimmick. [spits]
A Multiplayer Strategy Game for Mac OS X, Windows, and Linux
... doesn't Microsoft already have a patent on free VoIP?
what, the bluetooth service?
funny cause my land line is never used for phone calls anymore, just internet. cancelled all long distance service, no call waiting, etc, and voila, very cheap internet! not too fast though, but hey, i ain't downloading movies or swapping files, so ain't not big thing.
i disable sigs
European telcos are losing money? Funny, because BT makes a profit of about £100 (~$190) every second. If that's what you call losing money then please help me lose some by donating all of yours to me right away.
And this crap is modded insightful? How sad.
"Accept that some days you are the pigeon, and some days you are the statue." - David Brent, Wernham Hogg
"Damn and blast British Telecom," Dirk said, the words coming easily from force of habit.
... send UDP or RTP or RTSP packets through the Internet if I sign up ?
.... I had to phone them 3 times to get the password to access their ADSL router to start it up and endure sniggering adolescent tele-plonkers who seemed to think I was *mad* as a hatter for even trying to do it without using the free windows software (read browser page).
I should bloody well hope so.
I remember working at one company where we ordered a BT business ADSL line
And then we discovered BT blocked *every* incoming port to the ADSL router. Very useful that was.
HOW-TO setup a soft-VPN system:
1) rent ADSL service from ISP that know's the f*ck what it's doing
2) connect penguin box
3) install, configure, start service
4) go for a cup of tea
5) fire twat who ordered BT ADSL Busy-being-idiots Service.
BT is an ISP?
My arse.
I did too...then I thought "Aww crap, all this technology just so I can come back to using a party line"
Sera
Slashdot, where armchair scientists get shouted down and armchair theologians get modded up.
There are no such words in modern proper English as "Quoth", "Boxen", or "Ummm..."
boxen - \Box"en\ (b[o^]ks"'n), a. Made of boxwood; pertaining to, or resembling, the box
That was the good old days of 1993. The market has changed since then, and BT is no longer quite that profitable.
With a smile, I wonder why you didn't get modded flamebait.
Cellular calls between mobile networks were expensive until customers told the Office of Fair Trading, who investigated and told Ofcom (the phones and internet regulator) to force companies to lower prices. They have come down to a more reasonable price now, comparable to ordinary calls.
Signing up for Cox cable internet when I moved into my apartment...
Me: "Hi, I'd like my account activated" (there is a web-based activation procedure that requires some activeX components, but it says to call if you're having problems... and apparently not running windows is a "problem")
Support: "OK. What windows version are you running?"
Me: "I'm not running Windows, I'm running Linux."
Support: "Is that 98 or XP?"
I nearly choked on my own digust.
any major outage of any type usually downgrades cell phone performance. reason being, each cell can only handle a relatively small number of simultaneous connections, and at the first sign of anything odd happening those connections will all be used up by people phoning their friends to tell them about it. if you're ever unlucky enough to see an accident on a motorway, just try using your cellphone then.
handily, under GSM emergency calls are meant to get priority and disconnect plain voice calls, but this doesn't always work...
To put it another way:
Qxe4
I fail to see why BT should use a headset and windows-based software when they already ship an ADSL Ethernet router with some of their internet services.
Surely a digital handset that plugs into an Ethernet port would be a much simpler option, as well as being completely OS-independent?
I have been a user for about 10 years. This ends Feb 2014. The site's been ruined. I'm off. Dice, FU
You mean not only can I get trance and electronica from BT, but I can also get phone services? And he's written a program called BT Communicator for it? Wow, tallented man.
"If you were plowing a field, which would you rather use? Two strong oxen or 1024 chickens?" --Seymour Cray
your cell phone would still have reception Well, yes. Almost any conductor will 'receive' radio waves.
The main problem with cellphones during a power outage is that they need to connect to a cellphone relay mast (those things they stick on buildings everywhere).Can anyone enlighten me as to how many of these have UPS and/or backup generators?
They whose government reduces their essential liberties for temporary security, receive neither liberty nor security.
BT, together with their mobile subgroup O2 really are the worst company in the UK. I was ripped off by O2 on a mobile telephone bill to the tune of several hundred pounds and I know many others who have similar tales of woe. We also have an ISDN from BT themselves the service on which is truly dreadful.
Of all the corporates I've ever dealt with in the UK BT are by far and away the worst, and that includes the various rail companies. No other company comes close for their attitude of not giving a toss about their customers, indeed they are the only corporate I know which actively seems to go out of their way to treat their customers with contempt.
Avoid.
Anyone with BB can do free internet telephone calls anyway. What's the biggie? Plus it's only 1month? Hah. try again.
Does your mom know you're online again ?
(after the monthly bill of course with its submarined things in there)
Why mess around with the other free guys and use free software for free internet telephony on free free, why be open when you can be closed, why pay when you can be free? No, why be free when you can pay. Why? Because free. And we will go out of business shortly. Thanks for staying on the line.. someone please hang up the phone? It's free!
That's the beauty of renting all inclusive. Good for growing dope too.
So... can I connect a modem over this to use a dial-up internet connection? oh wait...
Sorry, but this market is self deprecating.
Unless they somehow sabotage world networks, all voice traffic can easily squeeze in right next to the bittorrent traffic.
Pay for VOIP? Are you mad! I hope they don;t try and neuter DSL connection in the future to stop voice calls, one day, everyone will have a compatible voice software, and I think it will be within 4 years.
4 years telcos. Wise up.
#hostfile 0.0.0.0 primidi.com 0.0.0.0 www.primidi.com 0.0.0.0 radio.weblogs.com
Of course people still have land lines. I use nothing but. Some of us make international calls; you'd have to be crazy to do that on a mobile.
After the free period, the pricing is the same as your standard BT landline costs.
To have BT Broadband you must have a BT Landline
I have a walkabout phone for round the house so i can be in any room, in the garden, garage etc. But my PC is tied to the wall. Even if you had a laptop do you really want to lug that around?
So I pay the same for a net call and get less 'features' than my landline. Sounds like a bargain!
ok, I need to learn to type and preview comments, and not be moron. read the first line as
but living next to the wrong building(my sister's apartment) doesn't make your landline useless.
I think I can beat that. Spin back to 1999, I was having trouble uploading a website to the hosting provider.
Me: "I'm trying to connect to your FTP server but it says 'Connection Refused'."
Tech: "What FTP client are you using?"
Me: "FTP. Command line FTP."
Tech: "Er... hold the line a moment..."
BT now have BT Mobile, having gone out of the market once.
This could all look like typical BT anti-competitiveness, but surely it can't be? ;-)
Just see the way that BT Wholesale is the dominant DSL trunk carrier. Most UK ISPs have to buy this wholesale product and get their retail price squeezed by BT's retail product.
Welcome to the monolith that is BT!
-- Why is there only one Monopolies commission?
I hear you why the heck do the phone companies force me to pay for a voice phone line when all I ever use is adsl, in the case of the UK i guess because we have a monopolistic company dictating how technology is used, if only I had cable in m area.
Yeah, BT are really altruistic giving all this stuff away for free. Or not.
First I heard of this was when I was prompted to 'upgrade' my version of Yahoo Messenger to the U.K. version (sponsored by BT, there name was all over it). It nagged me everytime at start-up, so off I go and click Yes.
Turns out the new version is just like the old version, except with all chatrooms and voice chatrooms *removed*. (Apparently Lycos UK have carved these up into a separate enterprise, some sort of godawful web-based "U Come here to flirt! A/S/L! Kisses! Love online" 'service')
But there is one extra button to make up for this. It is "BT Communicator". Make voice calls over the internet to a normal phone! If you are on BT interent. I am not.
But it is free!
FOR THE FIRST MONTH ONLY.
All it is, is some trial offer trying to hook you in so you can be charged at a later date. So beware!
Oh, I've just seen that the £549 million was for the second quarter, not for half a year, so you can double the figures I've just calculated.
£68 profit per second: they're hardly "losing money" like the AC that I originally replied to was suggesting.
"Accept that some days you are the pigeon, and some days you are the statue." - David Brent, Wernham Hogg
Are BT better than Telewest? I doubt it. I have had a Telewest connection for almost 2 years now and have nothing but good things to say about it. I bought a 1Mb connection, about a year ago this upgraded this to 1.5Mb for the same monthly charge. The installers came on time and did a very professional job, all rigged up in under half an hour including a very good job of cable laying to my PC cupboard and making good.
I have only noticed one 20 minute outage in the time I have had the service. Their customer support and billing have also been very good. I have a number of other friends who use them in London and they all have had good service. By contrast I have heard some real horror stories about BT....
That's right, I'm sharing your drunkness. Who is this person? And also seems to be posting all the last news.
What's going on?
There's a large number of posts further up this discussion just not getting it. Here is my summary of what is different about this:
BT communicator is just Yahoo messenger with VoIP software in it, that's nothing new. BT offers a gateway to the real phone network that they have been charging to the customers household phone bill at standard rates. That's nothing new either.
What is new here and news worthy is that BT is giving away FREE PHONE CALLS TO THE REAL PHONE NETWORK from the VoIP phone until the 31st January 2006. That is what makes this story interesting.
Steve.
A latent existence
In NTL's defence, I switched over from BT three years ago thanks to their complete incompetence and several spurious charges that they held us responsible for. When I eventually decided to go for broadband a year later, I was pretty much forced to go with NTL as Demon (my dial-up ISP at the time) only dealt with BT lines. I've had two internet outages since, both related to the set-top box.
Their customer service has been excellent every time we've called them. We lost interactive TV for a couple of days once, so we phoned and had an engineer at the house the same day. He was there for half an hour, did some tests, fitted a new attenuator, our interactive service came back. Half an hour after he'd gone, Customer Services called us back to make sure everything was still OK.
Our STB completely died on another occasion. This time the engineer only arrived the following day, but he had a new STB with him (a newer model), wasn't there more than 20 minutes and left me with an instruction sheet for re-registering my MAC address with the STB.
People slate NTL, but I've found them to be excellent.
James Tait, Programmer and Free Software Advocate
JID: jayteeuk@wyrddreams.org
It is good to remember:
"When someone privatises your sector, make sure the regulator is a bureaucratic half assed wuss!!!" - Somebody
(Also see rail companies and ticket prices)
And they'll make their money when you have to use the phone to call and complain. :) <-- This means it's a JOKE.
Big Deal! It's just a sign-up promotion.
Yes, I was a bit too simplistic in my summary. LLU is starting to take off, and is available from several companies now, but still only in a very limited number of places. (By which I mean not where I live, of course!) The deal with Cable and Wireless buying Bulldog to roll it out further affield looks quite promising.
:-(
I have been frequently checking the Homechoice website to see when I can get unbundled broadband with video on demand but it's still only in London.
A latent existence
Is it going to take another "MCI vs ATT" type monopoly lawsuit to get these emerging VoIP telcos to open their services to niche players? Otherwise their end-to-end service model closes the market to everyone who isn't providing the bundle. Voipcos might outsource some services, like voicemail and bill processing, on the back end, but their monopoly will control the consumer market, though they benefit from a more competitive supplier market. With "prosumer" roles so abundant in the VoIP architecture, their gain is everyone else's loss.
Too bad the antimonopoly days at the US Justice Department are dead and forgotten. Perhaps the EU will lead the world in 21st Century telecom by forcing its markets more open, and beat monolithic US competitors at their own game. Or perhaps another overseas company will find the clout to make it happen. I'm sure going to miss living in a "superpower" in more than tanks and missiles.
--
make install -not war
Does anyone even have a ground line anymore?
Cellphone service is spotty at best in Silicon Valley. You'd think a major tech hub would have decent technology. San Francisco and San Jose also got DSL a year later than Atlanta, Chicago, and St.Paul/Minneapolis.
Perhaps 1 out of a 1000 people here don't have a land line. (that's 0.1%)
I'd be happy if I could just get the ADSL service without the vestigial phone service.
If you don't like the phone server you can get SDSL. Also some place have unbundled ADSL. Which is exactly what you want. I think even SBC will do that these days, but don't quote me on that.
“Common sense is not so common.” — Voltaire
Power loss to an individual home won't cause a problem with cell phone reception, but when a whole neighborhood goes black, then the cell towers go down too.
We had an ice storm a while ago here, and parts of our city were without power for nearly a week from where ice-laden trees gave out under the strain and took out power lines when they fell. We still managed to have phone reception, but I couldn't get a cellular signal at all in places where I normally had a good or perfect signal.
When the cell towers in our area went down, the ones that were still up were too far away to be of any use. Unfortunately even cell towers still need power to operate.
-Through the server, over the router, off the firewall... Nothing but 'Net!
> Hell, there could be a complete cable, phone and power outage at your house but your cell phone would still have reception. I'd think that they'd have the best reputation!
Not necessarily so. When the power went out along much of the Eastern North American grid (Aug. 2003), my cell phone wasn't of much use; a base station requires electricity . . . and once its UPS beeps its last, a cell phone is of little use. There may have been base stations somewhere running on generators, but I don't think my provider had any.
POTS, on the other hand, kept a-chuggin' on.
This seems like one more step towards the all you can eat model. For example when Internet service first came out it was billed by the hour. The same thing is happening with long distance today but there are several options for unlimited long distance. I see this being offered more and more by more and more phone companies. At some point I think the billing per minute model will have run it's course.
-- "Life's not fair, but the root password helps."
Well, flat rate to be accurate (159 NOK,approximately 19,50 Euro)
;)
A norwegian company Telio is offering a flat rate which gives you free calls to the following countries:
Sweden, Danmark, Finland, Iceland, Great Britian, Ireland, France, Netherlands, Belgium, Luxemburg, Germany, Austria, Liecthenstein, Switzerland, Italy, Spain, Portugal, USA and Canada.
Count 'em: free calls to 19 different countries. And no BS computer stuff, just plug your regular phone to the broadband line (trough an adapter) and make calls to ordinary phones just like before (like in France, as you were saying).
No broadband or TV though, you'll have to fix that yourself
Disclaimer: I am not affiliated with Telio other than being a costumer of theirs. And translating the country names from Norwegian to English was done on the fly, so sorry about any mistakes..
Life is Reality
I didn't mean to imply that telephone lines are useless- far from it, they don't run out of batteries (most of the time), don't have static-y reception all the time, and are very useful in themselves. My point was that in an emergency (let's say a fire), it might be difficult to get to a landline phone, where a cellphone would be in a pocket, for example. Also, in an earthquake (I'm in San Diego, I have to mention Earthquakes!) telephone lines go down, but cell towers are usually reliable. I didn't mean to start an argument over which is better, since cellphones and landlines both definitely have their strong points.
- dshaw
Too much time on your hands? You know EXACTLY what the parent means, stop acting like a teen aged ass.
Oh! Sorry! You ARE a teen aged ass!
"Who are in control, they are not in control of anything - they don't even control themselves!" - Glen Beck
http://shit.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=04/11/11/0 140252