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Project Gizmo Challenges Skype
valmont writes "The Register is offering an interesting introduction to Project Gizmo, a new player in the Voice over IP field, poised to challenge Skype with its ability to interoperate with others thanks to the SIP protocol it complies to. Whereas Skype has selectively licensed usage of an API that offers limited insight into a closed protocol, a closed ecosystem solely controlled by one organization, the SIP protocol is open. Free open-source proxy/server implementations are sprouting up, and many developers are actively working on SIP clients. The Gizmo Project is the first to bring a truly-usable, user-friendly, cross-platform SIP client (Mac, Windows, Linux coming soon) to market. Meanwhile, theappleblog.com is already offering a Gizmo Project Wish-List to promote better interoperability between current and upcoming SIP providers, to make it more practical for users of disparate SIP clients to communicate with one another."
SIP devices still have the problem of routing correctly through firewalls and the like. True P2P telephony is difficult with SIP, due to this. Skype gets around it by using their proprietary protocol. The much simpler and cleaner and far more open IAX2 protocol (a feature of the open source asterisk pbx) is being used by some devices to get around SIP limitations while still retaining (or exceeding) SIP voice quality. At least one IAX2 provider, firefly, gets it - (https://www.virbiage.com/products.php) calls to their network are automatically switched to the other user, getting the middleman out of the loop, and dramatically improving voice quality. Example - I place a call to a friend a block on vonage via vonage on comcast, and the packets get routed through about 17 routers, with a delay of 80ms - to get up the street. I place the same call via firefly - one router, and a delay of 25ms. Yes, theres windows, mac, and Linux clients. Also clients for most unixen, and several embedded devices....