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MagicJack Moving To Smartphones

Posted by timothy on from the don't-restrict-yourself-to-spyware-at-home dept.

robo45h writes "The late night infomercial VoIP company magicJack is moving into the smartphone space. The competition there is really going to be interesting. We have the likes of Skype and other VoIP companies competing against the wireless carriers still selling over-priced voice calls. It's such a big battle that the recent Verizon / Google Proposal specifically excludes (provides a loophole for) wireless. This has been brewing since cell phones added data capabilities, but it's coming to a head now." Free calls sounds nice, but it's worth noting that not everyone's happy with MagicJack's EULA.

5 of 94 comments (clear)

  1. Good... by rbarreira · · Score: 5, Insightful

    It's about time the phone companies recognized that phone calls are just data passing through their networks.

    I know they don't want to be seen as purely "bit carriers" which don't add much value, but that's what they are.

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    1. Re:Good... by Animats · · Score: 4, Insightful

      It's about time the phone companies recognized that phone calls are just data passing through their networks.

      Actually, no. Voice over IP over cellular data is an incredibly inefficient way to send voice. Worse, all the ad-related blithering in "free" applications uses more bandwidth than the call.

      The best phone audio quality today is with an ISDN voice phone. End to end digital, end to end synchronized at the bit level, full duplex, no need for echo cancellation, no lag beyond speed of light lag. Many home phones in Switzerland have worked that way for a decade.

      It's disappointing. We ought to have CD-quality telephony by now. But instead, audio quality has gotten worse. The phone network is 64Kb/s: 8KHz sampling of 8-bit samples. That's PC audio circa late 1980s. Cell phones don't even deliver that; they use very lossy compression.

    2. Re:Good... by localman57 · · Score: 4, Insightful

      We ought to have CD-quality telephony by now.

      Why? 8 bit 64k is perfectly adequate for voice. If we have spare cash to spend on communicaitons, spend it somewhere else, on something that isn't perfectly adequate, or that benefits substantially from improvment. If we get better voice quality as a side effect, great! But it isn't something to focus on.

      Now run along. I think I saw some vinyl records in the other room you can play with.

    3. Re:Good... by Capt.+Skinny · · Score: 4, Insightful

      I doubt that much innovation ever followed the phrase "perfectly adequate."

  2. Re:Skype VOIP over wireless? by TheRaven64 · · Score: 4, Insightful

    Most people have wireless data plans

    No, no they don't.

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