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AOL Enters the VoIP market
freitasm writes "AOL is entering the VoIP market with its new service entitled 'AOL Internet Phone Service'. The service will be available in 40 cities around the US and offer integrated IM presence indicator, voice/e-mail and features like Call Waiting, CallerID. As a bonus current AOL members wil receive a wireless AP when signing-up for the service."
It's so easy, even my dog has a line!
If I get woken up at 6am by a phone AOLer wanting to know my ASL I'm going to sue.
~~Every few years or so I'm accidentally fashionable!
It would be really easy to use, but you can only call other AOL users on AOL's proprietory phones.
Me too!
And why isn't this thing being released in September?
... and then they built the supercollider.
Notice that 911 isn't listed in the services offered. AOL's service likely suffers from the same deficiency as Vonage in this respect. Vonage's TOS says that if you cannot clearly state the nature of your emergency and your location, emergency services may not be dispatched. I'm sticking with my land line until the VoIP providers get the 911 thing figured out.
"You've got a phone call" Hopefully these use there swell anti-spam technology to block telemarketers!
The CRTC Issues 911 Ruling for VoIP Providers
You've got Ahoy Hoy!
This will never work, because you can't talk on the phone in ALL CAPS.
Pulp Audio Weekly - Geek News and Reviews
That's all we can hear about these days.
I'm wondering if regular phone companies have "the fear" or not... they should!
These articles forget to mention, however, that latency (jitter) is very important for VoIP QoS.
Are AOL and others going to shape their traffic in order to put their own VoIP traffic before the others?
If not, how do they expect to meet the QoS requirements?
AOL Canada (oxymoron?) already has something like this:
http://www.totaltalk.ca/
Doesn't VoIP have issues with 911 calls. I know they can be resolved but I don't see anything in the article about this. Will the average AOL user be aware of the problem? I somehow doubt it as the AOL user base is not known for it technical awareness.
All the bells and whistles will be great until the first time the house catches fire, dad has a heart attack, or there's bad guys in the cellar!
init 11 - for when you need that edge.
"AOL Internet Phone Service"
Someone got creative.
"If you're too drunk to drive, just say AOL Keyword "Cab" and a taxi will pick you up!
Why not just use Skype? Skype is P2P and actually works from behind NAT (or even if both ends are behind NAT). I mean what does AOL do better than Skype? In order to win anybody, it needs to be as good as Skype (in every way) and then use some standard protocol (the only way to beat Skype anymore).
AOL users use AOL VoIP.
AOL users don't have 911.
AOL users die.
No more AOL users!
It's genius.
I wonder if AOL will treat its VoIP subscribers like they do normal AOL users when they want to cancel their account.
About 3 years ago I loaded up an AOL free trial CD just for shits and giggles, and to see how much it had changed since I last used it (1.0). Well, I found the experience disappointing (as I expected though) and at the end of the trial went to cancel.
What happened at that point was a 30min conversation where the sales rep practically begged me to keep the service. He offered me 6 months free and told me that if I make this same call every 5-6 months I could end up not paying for the service ever again. I think I said "No, just cancel the damn account, I DO NOT LIKE THE SERVICE" about two dozen times. Finally, defeated, the rep canceled the account. That was the most painful phone convo I've ever had.
I'm wondering if I can pull the free-forever scheme with their VoIP service. Think they'll be desperate enough for subscribers to it?
Not even remotely funny asshole.
The only PT Boat Journal on the web: http://www.PT171.org
Does this mean we'll see a bunch of new unsecured wireless APs soon?
To a Lisp hacker, XML is S-expressions in drag.
http://sipphone.com/phonegaim/ has been around for awhile. =)
If you are at all interested in this service (or one of the alternate offerings from the other VoIP providers) then make sure your line can support a VoIP call by using this free service: ahref=http://testyourvoip.com/http://testyourvoip. com/>.
Also you can roll your own with the Asterix software, and some cheap hardware... (URL:http://asterix.org/). There are companies who you can pay to bridge to the phone network calls from an Asterix server.
-ben
AOL's VoIP includes a volume enhancer that makes everything a SCREAM.
AOL Internet Phone Service
AIPS
pronounced "apes"
AOL today announced thier new line of telephones to complement their VoIP service. The new phones include special buttons such as 'caps lock','LOL', and 'WTF'. The phone will be nearly impossible to disable. As an added bonus for those especially devoid of friends, if you hang on the line long enough, a random person will start offering you cheap meds and pr0n.
For what it's worth, my vonage line is my home office line, so I've even been known to travel with it when I want to work from my college friend's house. Just plug it in to their cable modem, then plug it in to a phone. Ultimate portability.
As if AOL users could even set VoIP up, let alone understand the concept :)
One man's Funny is another man's Offtopic.
So are Meg Ryan and Tom Hanks actually going to be able to talk on the phone this time??? Brilliant!
As a bonus current AOL members wil receive a wireless AP when signing-up for the service.
Excellent! Everyone in their neighbourhood will be getting free VoIP as well then!
Chances are these AP's will be open and most AOL users are not savvy enough to secure them. So looks like this should create some more open AP's for us when we are away from home.
AOL/TM knows my buddies, surfing habits, shopping preferrences, magazines subscriptions, TV and cable viewing tendencies - do they really need to know who I talk with on the phone???
I am probably giving them more credit than they are due but knowing that much about 40+ million people cannot be good...
Homer: Facts are meaningless, you can use facts to prove anything that's remotely true!
I wonder if they'll try connect to AOL using their VoIP phones.
In America, you spam computers In Soviet Russia, computers spam you!
What twelve year old is running this company? I really want to know. They made a mistake by holding off on not going to broadband. Now, they want to enter some completely foreign market. People are having all kinds of problems with Vontage. I don't understand why they would want to jump on this train-wreck. I will send my resume to AOL for CEO,CIO or CTO, I have zero qualifications for this role, but I might just make it.
---- Berlin Brown http://www.newspiritcompany.
Yes, the phones come with only 1 button.
Don't you think that'd be a little comlicated for the average AOL user? Maybe just have them talk into the air...it'd still be better then AOL's commercials.
Yikes, I hadn't thought about the whole spam/telemarketing clash that might happen with VoIP. Would I start getting 100 calls a day about what a great mortgage rate I could be getting? I like the idea of low cost phone plans.. but that might be a little too far. I suppose I'm thinking this because I really have no idea what VoIP will be like. And... now my comment is totally off-topic...
Note: This sig contains nine S's, nine I's and five O's which... means absolutely nothing.
and not sell my conversations to the government at the first available moment.
In Soviet Russia, tin foil hat wears you!
Annoy a Conservative...
Latency is not jitter. Latency is when packets get delayed. Jitter is when packets arrive out of order.
Latency is not generally a problem. Cell phone services tend to have rather heavy latency. Typically you don't even notice latency up to about 500 to 600 ms.
Jitter can be a problem if out of order packets aren't dealt with properly, that is, in most cases, they should be discarded, or more precisely, the longer they have been overdue the more likely they should be discarded for VoIP.
However, there are codecs that can deal with jittery connections and as long as your service provider is using open standards where it is up to the end user equipment or client software to negotiate the best codec for a given connection, you generally don't have to worry about jitter impacting your call quality to the point where you would notice.
the macintosh asterisk mailing list http://www.astm
I've got vonage, and when I signed up, I got to pick phone numbers from essentially anywhere in N. America, so really, where the customer is located doesn't matter.
I have been a Vonage customer over a year and hoping that they will add Knoxville,Tn.
Let me know when they have service for the 865 area code.
--fatboy
I hope they bombard us with Free VoIP trial CD's!
...
As I sit in my throne http://stupidco.com/aol_throne_intro.html I contemplate all the wonderous things which I could create from these circular wafers of enjoyment.
I might be able to create a VoIP ATA to complement my desk lamp http://neil.fraser.name/hardware/lamp/
Or I could just wang them at my brother like I've done with the last hundred or so I recieved.
It's http://www.asterisk.org/ and the name is Asterisk, not asterix.
the macintosh asterisk mailing list http://www.astm
It seems like VoIP will become more and more commonplace. I predict it will maybe be used about 50% or 75% of the telephone system by about 2010.
In America, you spam computers In Soviet Russia, computers spam you!
What's the problem with 911 calls? is it that the VOIP phone requires power, whereas standard house phones will operate even if power is out in a house? or is it something to do with what numbers can be dialled?
You are mistaken.
VOIP doesn't mean that your computer becomes a phone. All it means is that voice is encapsulated into IP packets. Period.
In fact, a software that allows you to use your computer as a phone, a so called softphone is a very bad compromise.
You will always get far superior quality if you use a real VOIP phone, that is, a device that looks just like an old fashioned telephone, but instead of a phone jack (RJ-11) it has got an ethernet jack (RJ-45) at its back and circuitry to convert between analog voice and IP packet encapsulated digitised voice.
http://www.voip-info.org/wiki-VOIP+Phones
the macintosh asterisk mailing list http://www.astm
I use broadband, so dont flame me. I have AOL For Broadband for free, and I participated in the beta test of the "Internet Phone Service". Its very reliable, and you get a free Linksys box to hook your telephone into. To make things easier, and less linksys boxes (I have 4 as it is now), I hooked up the TA into the Telephone Network Interface and put a label on it that says "Anti-Qwest Device". All phones work in the house on it. I performed one 911 test call, and took slightly longer to reach than a cell phone, but I was overall connected to the PSAP in a decent amount of time. However, I dont know how much AOL plans to charge for it, I'm thinking ballpark like $15/mo. I get it for free though, so thats maybe why I like it more. ;)
http://www.asterisk.org/
Sean Milheim
iDREUS Corporation
That's pretty much what I pay for regular service. One of the big pushes of voip is the national calling, but for me 99.9% of my calls are local.
Is there any voip service in canada that can really save you money over traditional local service?
When I see less than 5 bucks savings I think it's not worth the hassle. Plus the headaches of qos, e911 etc, it's gotta be worthwhile to switch.
The article doesn't say anything about what protocol AOL's service will be using. Does anyone know? Is it SIP or yet another incompatible derivative of SIP (like Skype and Apple's iChat) or something else?
the macintosh asterisk mailing list http://www.astm
Powered by Level3 VOIP network. ;)
But that might only refer to the backbone, not the "last mile" between AOL's POPs and AOL customer premises.
If they use SIP for the last mile, that would mean you could use your own SIP phone to connect to the network. I am kind of skeptical about AOL using a standard protocol, though.
the macintosh asterisk mailing list http://www.astm
Probably about 911 routing. Some VoIP providers that say they forward 911 to an appropriate PSAP number in your area don't forward it properly, or forward it to non-emergency numbers that aren't properly equipped to handle the typical 911 emergency call, or forward 911 to completely wrong numbers that either no one answers on when you do call them or are merely answering machine or fax lines or have absolutely nothing to do with any emergency service whatsoever. Short of testing your 911 functionality ahead of time, you might not know of this with VoIP until the time comes that you actually do need to use 911 and then realize it doesn't work.
You fail it! GNAA pwned by a fourth grader.
Another communications company dabbling in VoIP isn't news anymore. Everyone's doing it now...from big names like Cox, to smaller firms like Cavalier Telephone and a bunch of others.
1 01010010101010010101010010101010101010101010100101 01010101010101...
When a company can patch a network line straight into my brain, then I'll be interested...Oh...Hi, Sony...What's that?...You're working on it?...You want me to test it out?...Ummm, maybe that's not such a good ideeee0a1a10a01a101010101101010110101010100101010
GET FREE APPLE STUFF!
It's just called Time Warner "Digital Phone". (Web site)
It's the same company, and will be the same service. It's now just pointed/marketed towards AOL users and I'm guessing a few DSL users too. (I've got to add that I hate Time Warner after getting cable. I've only had it for 2 months, but their whole purpose for having a cable tv business is to put Time Warner commercials 25 hours a day! I've already got the service, quit trying to make me a fanboy.)
Get your Unix fortune now!
As a bonus current AOL members wil receive a wireless AP when signing-up for the service."
I think the bigger story here is that AOL's clueless subscribers will unwittingly be rolling out a national, free, wireless IP network-- if the wireless AP is unsecured out of the box and enough people sign up for this service.
Their back-end provider is trunked into the emergency system, same as a landline.
Of course I don't speak for my employer. My employer doesn't speak for me, either.
But the real fun will begin in a few years when VOIP, combined with free WI-FI seriously impacts the telecom giants.
Then we'll see RIAA vs. the people all over again (Save me the "Copyright is theft" rant).
I'm keeping me fingers crossed, but experience tells me this is going to be a massive legal mess.
E-911 also means reverse 9-11, so in an emergencey you can be told to clear out of the area.
Another anon employee of a different company.
Given AOL's history, there are other limits we should expect from AOL's service:
1. Extended phone calls must be made with a series of 4 minute calls.
2. The service will require a dialup line, and won't be available by TCP/IP over an existing ethernet connection until later.
3. All conversations with people you haven't spoken with in the past must begin in a conference call. Please have your gender, age and availability ready to answer questions from other people on the call.
4. When on a call, you won't be able to pick up another phone in the house without disconnecting the first phone.
5. Even though there are hundreds of phone available, you will have to use a boxy AOL manufactured phone with oversized buttons with graphics which have to be downloaded over the aforementioned dialup connection.
6. Despite having signed up for there service, you will be shipped additional phone receivers occasionally, packaged in plastic or tin boxes.
7. You can only contact men with the service, but the receiver will randomly change the pitch of the other person to make them sound like a woman.
What did I miss?
You are checking your backups, aren't you?
Yes some VOIP providers have that issue, but in many markets AOL supports E-911 which is the full 911 you know, love and crave. That includes reverse 911 where they can clear out an area in the case of a gas leak or something.
E-911 is the missing piece that makes VOIP a serious contender to replace classic phone lines.
Wouldn't a cellphone be ultimate portability?
If memory serves me correctly, and I do believe it does, a phone jack that doesn't have service has to, by law, provide 911 service. So if you were concerned about the 911 service from... whoever... you could get a red bat-phone style phone and plug it into a wall jack in case you ever need to make that emergency call.
I'm trying to teach myself to set people on fire with my mind... Is it hot in here?
The leader in VOIP right now is Vonage, who prices their time proven product at $24.99 a month. AOL's VOIP is an unknown product with no history that's priced five dollars a month more. Vonage also offers a rich feature set including simultaneous ring (where any incoming calls ring on both my home and cell phone; the first one answered gets the call). The next lower tier of VOIP is flooded with providers like Packet 8, Voicepulse, Broadvoice, etc. which offer similar service to AOL but are priced TEN DOLLARS a month less. As always, AOL has set their prices way too high.... AOL is also 10 dollars more then the next ter
Remember how AOL brought the internet to so many people by being an easy way into a new technology? I see the same thing happening here, once again with AOL. The joe average person isn't going to know the power of VoIP or know how to get it working and such, but a big name like AOL can get it to them much like it was with the internet not 10 years ago.
The interesting thing will be to see a new presence take over VoIP from AOL as similar to AOL's internet service has been declining over the last few years.
accurate info.
Is there any voip service in canada that can really save you money over traditional local service?
;-)
I've had Vonage's service since they began offering it in Canada about a year ago.
Their low end plan is great for me- 22.89 per month including 500 minutes long distance.
Plus I got the satisfaction of canceling my Telus service. That's priceless
Packet* has fully functional e911. As for vonage, they forword to the 911 call center but address nad other info the operator normally gets is not there. Packet8 works throught the Level 3 system. Not sure why AOL does not use it? I thought AOL was using Level 3 as well
Great.. another service that people will sign up for because of non-stop commercials... and get permanently stuck with a shoddy service, overkill proprietary software, and no way out. Have you ever tried to cancel your AOL service? HA! Good luck. Meanwhile, your local businesses are going bankrupt. *tsk*
If you read the actual press release you'll see that one of the features listed is "* Full Enhanced 911 (E-911) calling coverage in all of the markets targeted for the initial rollout of the AOL Internet Phone Service. E-911 helps deliver a user's address-specific information in the event of an emergency."
The parent comment is just more FUD, move along...
Straight from AOL/TW, not just a summary from a newspaper: AOL introduces internet phone service
"Welcome! ... You've got voicemail!"
Maybe not to you, so don't change. However, those of us making long distance or international calls save a small fortune by changing. Personally, I save around $60 a month by using vonage.
Why would a hard phone give superior quality to a soft phone? The link you provide doesn't explain. Do you mean for VOIP to POTS calls?
I use skype for PC to PC voice chat and the quality is very much better than a real phone, probably because I have much better speakers than you could ever fit into a handset, and more bandwidth than a phone line.
Slashdot - Mutual Assured Discussion
Having AOL at the VOIP table means bringing in someone with the financial backing to fight the telcos and their backpocket politicians who are trying to kill VOIP through regulation. Who cares if AOL VOIP works well, so long as AOL is using their clout to defend it? Could be worse - image Microsoft rolling out voip!
Last time I remember Level(3) used MGCP not SIP.
Who axed you?
"Avoid employing unlucky people - throw half of the pile of CVs in the bin without reading them." -- David Brent