Slashdot Mirror

← Back to Stories (view on slashdot.org)

VoIP Going Wireless

Posted by ScuttleMonkey on from the now-give-me-the-hardware dept.

imashoe writes "CNet's News.com reports on the wireless future of VoIP. Similarly BonaFideReviews.com has published an interesting article that attempts to predict what the future of voice communications will be like. The two editorals seem to agree that VoIP is going mobile and in a big way."

2 of 129 comments (clear)

  1. Hmm by andreyw · · Score: 4, Informative

    I am no luddite, but this a solution to a problem that doesn't exist. Using existing *public* Internet carriers for low-latency and naturally real-time voice streams is asking for a trainwreck.

    As an end user wishing to say, tie together two offices of my company with VOIP, there is a lot that is not under my control. Although I can use QoS/various traffic shaping facilties to ensure minimum latency and maximum bandwith for VOIP on *my* side of things, I have completely no control over what happens to the data when goes out of my DSL modem into the DSLAM and on forward (or T1 line, whatever).

    QoS: A lot of ISPs dump all IP QoS flags, silently, because well... heh... they can provide that for mucho dinero. Even if they don't, who is to guarantee that my voice won't get congested someplace clogged by someone's pr0n torrents? No one.

    Mobile VOIP is not new folks. Your Sprint phone uses SIP over IP. Your iDen phone uses TCP/IP to communicate to the servers. The mobile carriers, however, have their own private networks that are not part of the ``Intarweb''. The mobile carriers can control traffic on their network. The mobile carriers can ensure service. Combining mobile phone technology with VOIP over the public Internet is going to combine the worst of both worlds - get cut off because network congestion someplace upstream or lose the signal. I'll pass.

    Btw, of course I didn't RTFA.

  2. SIP is the path by Broken_Ladder · · Score: 4, Informative

    The only VoIP "solution" than really matters in the long run is SIP. It will eventually win out because it's an open standard, and already supported by the popular Gizmo Project (http://gizmoproject.com./ I'm currently using an analog telephone to SIP adapter, and calls to other SIP users directly over the net are clearer than PSTN-to-PSTN calls by a great margin. To handle dialing sip addresses like brokenladder@iptel.org, you just register with a free ENUM number at enum2go.com (uses the standard e164.arpa) or get one at e164.org for instance. Then you can go to brokenladder.com and look at the contact page to call me and test out your equipment ;)