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Microsoft to Launch "Skype Killer"
TheChillPill writes "Microsoft is due to announce the launch of a service to rival Skype following the acquision of VoIP provider Teleo.
While a crude version of VoIP is already included in most Instant Messaging programs, Skype is currently the only provider to allow calls to landlines and cellphones.
Microsoft intends to launch the service by the end of the year. "
DialPad allows users to make calls from their PC to landlines/cellphones.
Thats not entirely accurate. British Telecom have an add-on to Yahoo messenger that allows calls to landlines and cellphones.
Oh, really? What happened to all the H.323 and SIP based services? Did they all vanish?
skype isnt the only one, at least one more major program can do it also:
voipbuster also allow net2phone connections (and even free for some european countries!!)
there is also a manual to work with linux
but there are more, at least around here (portugal/europe) http://voip.necty.com/ its also testing a voip to phone and it use kaix as its oficial client (so both windows and linux works fine)
Higuita
"Skype is currently the only provider to allow calls to landlines and cellphones."
I currently call landlines on stanaphone (via both softphone and hardware-based SIP), iconnecthere (both softphone and hardware-based), and packet 8 (hardware based). Skype is certainly not the only one allowing calls to the PSTN, and they're certainly not the most flexible.
but our copper lines are so outdated that most of the nation's DSL services, by definition, aren't fast enough to be considered 'broadband' (at least 3MBs, last time I checked but I could be wrong so please don't flame me).
Technically, most modems above about 600bps are "broadband" (in the true, uncorrupted sense of the word). Marketting dweebs corrupted the technical meaning of the term and the ITU-T have now officially classified broadband speeds as anything greater than the speed of a PRI (1.5Mbps in the US, 2Mbps in Europe). That said, the advertising standards agency here in the UK has ignored all definitions of broadband in the past and gave NTL a bollocking for using the term "broadband" in reference to 128Kbps cable modems (which use broadband modulation). The advertising standards agency meanwhile think it's fine for everyone else to market 512Kbps DSL lines as "broadband" despite them nowhere near meeting the ITU-T criteria.
barebones phone service only for the purpose of internet, and then use VoIP for actual calls.
The problem is that BT's "bare bones" package isn't that bare-bones - it's still a reasonably pricey monthly charge and has "inclusive minutes", so once you're forced to pay that then VoIP isn't actually that cost effective. I guess if I had relatives abroad then it'd be cost effective to use a SIPPSTN gateway to call them, but then the UK VoIP gateways would still not be getting any of the market share because I'd be using a foreign gateway to get the best rate.
http://blog.nexusuk.org