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Skype Courts Businesses With "Skype for SIP"

Posted by ScuttleMonkey on from the squeezing-blood-from-a-turnip dept.

Skype has made a new foray into the business front with their announcement of "Skype for SIP." This allows businesses to migrate to Skype without having to move off of their old PBX systems. "Skype has long had a business unit, but that version of its service required computers and software, which is how most users make their Skype calls. With Skype for SIP the company seeks to lower the pain barrier by requiring no hardware installation whatsoever, and the re-configuration of a SIP-enabled PBX to an established codec that presumably is within the skillset of whoever maintains it already."

3 of 79 comments (clear)

  1. Questions on Supernoding & Security by eldavojohn · · Score: 5, Informative
    1. Are they going to give you the option to turn off supernoding (I think this was included in version 3.0 but I don't use Skype) instead of having to work around them destroying your bandwidth?
    2. Will it still punch holes in the company's firewall?
    3. Is Skype still reading the machine's BIOS?
    4. And what about the rumors at home and abroad of back doors for bugging on Skype? Have those rumors been quashed or does my company risk dissemination of proprietary phone calls?

    Sorry guys, my very large employer gives me a big policy denial if I even try to visit Skype.com let alone download anything from them and install it. You have to address the above before you even start to gain the trust of large companies.

    --
    My work here is dung.
    1. Re:Questions on Supernoding & Security by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Interesting

      Don't feel bad. Your questions about Skype are all valid (I am a telephone / networking specialist) and have valid support from past headlines.

      I think there's a lot of people here on /. that have a knee-jerk reaction to VoIP (it's 1337!!!!11) and can't stand to see someone ask the important questions behind the 'free' service.

      I'm managing a VoIP system now (Asterisk) using a fractional T1, and can attest that there are issues with VoIP, and just running blindly toward it will cause pain. Keep asking those questions.

      VoIP can be a fine system, but you must be aware of the issues and the compromises it brings. At this point, it's no better or worse than other phone options, just different. I hope that answers to your questions show up so that people can make an educated choice for their service options.

  2. I don't know about Skype's quality of service by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Interesting

    Just browse through their forums. Their support system is almost nonexistent. The Skype software also seems relatively buggy in my experience.

    I have been trying to use both SkypeOut and SkypeIn as my primary phone for almost a year now. SkypeOut is pretty decent, it's really cheap on the subscription plans and it works well. SkypeIn has been a whole different story. It has been very unreliable. Often I miss calls as Skype sends them straight to voice mail (like I'm not logged in even though I am). When this happens there is no trace of anyone calling unless they leave a voice mail. I have to log out then log back in to get the SkypeIn number to start working again. Then just stops working again after a while. It is unusable in my opinion.

    I still use SkypeOut but I use a regular SIP provider for incoming calls. I probably won't be using SkypeOut much longer though because there does not appear to be any way to set your caller ID number to anything other than a SkypeIn or cellphone and I want to set it to my SIP incoming number.