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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."
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.
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.
The CRTC Issues 911 Ruling for VoIP Providers
This will never work, because you can't talk on the phone in ALL CAPS.
Pulp Audio Weekly - Geek News and Reviews
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.
"If you're too drunk to drive, just say AOL Keyword "Cab" and a taxi will pick you up!
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?
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
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.
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!
How fitting, considering most AOL users are only slightly more advanced than trained monkeys. And on the bright side, if you get this service you can look forward to koreans calling you at 4 AM asking you if you want a larger penis or herbal cialis.
The Nigerian VoIP Spam ought to be really interesting, especially if it comes with sounds effects like machine gun fire in the background.
I doubt anyone gets porn VoIP spam, though - people wouldn't have a reason to call 1-900 numbers anymore.
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!
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.
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
It's http://www.asterisk.org/ and the name is Asterisk, not asterix.
the macintosh asterisk mailing list http://www.astm
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
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
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.
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
Straight from AOL/TW, not just a summary from a newspaper: AOL introduces internet phone service