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VoIP Going Wireless
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."
*ring*......*ring*...Hello?
"Hey, I have to tell you something importan....."*click*...Hey! Quit downloading pr0n, I'm trying to use the phone!
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If you want, you can run a free VoIP quality test at http://testyourvoip.com/. So if you have wireless, or want to place a VoIP call over your Cell data link (for whatever perverse reason) you can check your quality before setting it all up if you have a web browser with Java enabled.
-ben
Okay, here's the thing that bothers me about VOIP going wireless: I already find cellular (wireless) unacceptable in quality. I already find VOIP unacceptable in quality (though I will concede under perfect conditions, it can be quite good). I may not be able to pick out different brands of beer on a bet (actually, I can), but I can smell a cellular call 12,000 miles away. And I can tell a VOIP call 5 "route" hops away.
I assume this development implies some marriage of the technologies (I wasn't able definitively to tell from the article). I can only shudder at the thought. Can you hear me w8erfjkldfa?...., Caeoa yow hear ewlrkj now? FSCK!
Maybe the most irritating thing in this is the stampede to not offer great technology for what I'll call "comfortable" conversation/communication, but instead: Get there first; Maximize throughput; and Make lots of money. The technology on the other hand is quite capable of delivering the high quality land line users are accustomed to... but, you're never going to see (hear) it in the competitive sleezy crappy quality and service world of wireless.
When was the last time you had to constantly repeat yourself on land line to land line phone conversations (not attribtutable to non-understandable help desk support)? Yeah, technology marches on, I just wish it would spiff up its uniform.
Got a Bluetooth headset hooked up to my iMac running Skype. I can call from anywhere in the world...as long as I'm about 20 feet away from my computer...
Knowing how weather is prone to interfere with cellular communications right now, how are they going to make wireless VoIP proof against mother nature?
And I can really imagine how much it's going to suck if lightning takes out a tower.
Really, we don't even have widespread wifi access across the country. What's the point of doing this now when the infrastructure doesn't fully exist in all areas?
Still waiting on Serviscope_minor to wake up to fucking reality and realize that Jessica Price isn't going to fuck him.
I notice a quality difference between VoIP when I am directly plugged into my router and when I am using WIFI. And VoIP sound quality is already subpar to begin with. Eventually, wireless VoIP will be king. As it stands now, however, wired VoIP still needs some significant quality upgrades.
Hopefully people will stop pushing the propriatry nonsense that is Skype and look toward the future and the open protocol SIP...
and btw the SIP already permits crypto negotiation.
"I reject your reality, and substitute my own" - Adam Savage
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.
VOIP is really kicking ass in the callcenter world and wireless voip will undoubtably follow suit. Hopefully this doesn't mean that the dell service rep answering your call is in starbucks :)
Search your logs like the web: splunk!
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 ;)