"Still, it's the first offer of a free number. To get a number that can be called on Skype costs about $4 a month."
The $4/month is a comparison (free AOL tel # vs $4/mo Skype tel #). AFAIK there's no $4 Skype-compatible product. I'm fairly certain that AOL's using SIP, given that their previous VoIP effort used Level 3 as infrastructure.
But these aren't the same product. Digital Phone replaces your home phone service with VoIP underpinnings, cutting the cord to the phone company but your phones work just like they did before. AOL's product allows you to make and receive PSTN calls to and from your computer, like Skype does.
As much as AOL US would love to have something like the AOL Box, the Box isn't sold in the US because the services are very different. AOL France is an ISP, selling broadband connections directly. AOL US is primarily a content/services business and provides broadband by linking buyers and sellers (telcos/cable cos). Once the deal is made AOL is out of the broadband part of the customer's experience.
The AOL Box is a key part of the service in France. The broadband market in France is sufficiently different that AOL US can't get into the market in the same way - France's telephone & DSL network is very open and companies compete on an equal basis. In the US the existing telcos have killed that freedom. In the US, the DSL provider supplies the modem so AOL US doesn't get that locked-in position with the customer that AOL FR has.
Technically there is little reason that the AOL Box couldn't be used in the US although it is fairly Eurocentric as built now: DECT wireless phones aren't available in the US and like many French services uses MGCP-based VoIP.
The Box is a nice piece of gear, not everything that Free offers but close (WiFi, USB, RJ-45 ethernet, TV uplink, RJ-11 phone, etc). I'm certain that TV will come very soon.
AOL France does have a decent reputation for customer service, which may be a reason that people subscribe over Free. Free is a very fast leader, though, and a tough act to follow. AOL FR has its work cut out for it, but then so do the rest of Free's competitors.
Nope. Strange as it may seem, in France the broadband market is thoroughly deregulated, and the former state-owned telecom is just another player.
The French get 18+Mbps DSL (in the major cities) through good old fashioned competition. Here we just roll over to the non-state-controlled monopoly telecoms and continue to allow them their shelter from competition.
There's nothing about VoIP that keeps it from working with regular or enhanced 911 services - as noted Packet 8, Lingo, and Vonage all do stadard 911, as will others. In these cases it does depend on the user entering the correct service address in the provider's database. Newer services will do e-911 with more robust location handling, but any of them can be compromised by the user moving the TA from his or her home to another site.
...and they had a very nice auction of industrial strength CD burners when they liquidated a couple of years ago. It wasn't a winning way to sell music.
Their management at least realized that they were fighting a losing battle and shut the doors before they ran out of cash (the cash was returned to investors).
Charles Frankel, father of Nullsoft founder Justin Frankel and the company's vice president for business development, acknowledged that with no previous equity investments to dilute ownership, he and other Nullsoft shareholders will be substantially rewarded.
I figure he had some vesting to do before he left, coming up on 4 years since they were bought...
I can certainly identify with the man, but have about as much sympathy for him as I do for Phil Greenspun of Ars Digita. When you sell out to the man, you don't just get his money, he owns you. Don't want that? Don't sell.
More RAM may not be sufficient to make a G3 really happy with OS X. I've been running X exclusively for the last 3+ months on my 266 G3 PB with 192MB of RAM. It's a nice OS to use, and quite stable (some of the apps are another story). However, the poor little G3 gets overwhelmed occassionally, especially when running OS9 apps.
I love the machine, after 3 years of daily use it's been very low maintenance. But I'd spring for an iBook in a heartbeat. Or as soon as the business starts making money, I guess.
Don't confuse cost and cost of goods sold. 106.67 is parts & labor to build the box; there are many other costs you can legitimately ascribe to the box that they'll need to recover to make any money. But as noted, they still should let you hack it to your hearts content if you pay them their subscription fee...
Lucent indicates that they're going to release their TTS libs for Linus RSN. The Lucent libs are quite good, and come in US english, European French, German, and Mexican Spanish.
If you want something really understandable, this is the one.
The downside is they're pricey ($595 for personal use, and licensed by the copy if you distribute). However, if you want excellent, they are it. Obviously they're not OS. However, having listended to a bunch of really crappy TTS while evaluating them, it's worth it to me.
As for APIs, there is a half-decent Java API, but no Linux support for the engines - you'd have to roll your own glue.
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I think you might have misread the article:
"Still, it's the first offer of a free number. To get a number that can be called on Skype costs about $4 a month."
The $4/month is a comparison (free AOL tel # vs $4/mo Skype tel #). AFAIK there's no $4 Skype-compatible product. I'm fairly certain that AOL's using SIP, given that their previous VoIP effort used Level 3 as infrastructure.
Too late - "You've Got Voicemail" is already there, although it came in about 3 years ago with AOL Voicemail...
But these aren't the same product. Digital Phone replaces your home phone service with VoIP underpinnings, cutting the cord to the phone company but your phones work just like they did before. AOL's product allows you to make and receive PSTN calls to and from your computer, like Skype does.
What makes you think they don't use SIP? Or is it that you feel the service should be open to any soft phone client software?
As much as AOL US would love to have something like the AOL Box, the Box isn't sold in the US because the services are very different. AOL France is an ISP, selling broadband connections directly. AOL US is primarily a content/services business and provides broadband by linking buyers and sellers (telcos/cable cos). Once the deal is made AOL is out of the broadband part of the customer's experience.
The AOL Box is a key part of the service in France. The broadband market in France is sufficiently different that AOL US can't get into the market in the same way - France's telephone & DSL network is very open and companies compete on an equal basis. In the US the existing telcos have killed that freedom. In the US, the DSL provider supplies the modem so AOL US doesn't get that locked-in position with the customer that AOL FR has.
Technically there is little reason that the AOL Box couldn't be used in the US although it is fairly Eurocentric as built now: DECT wireless phones aren't available in the US and like many French services uses MGCP-based VoIP.
The Box is a nice piece of gear, not everything that Free offers but close (WiFi, USB, RJ-45 ethernet, TV uplink, RJ-11 phone, etc). I'm certain that TV will come very soon.
AOL France does have a decent reputation for customer service, which may be a reason that people subscribe over Free. Free is a very fast leader, though, and a tough act to follow. AOL FR has its work cut out for it, but then so do the rest of Free's competitors.
Nope. Strange as it may seem, in France the broadband market is thoroughly deregulated, and the former state-owned telecom is just another player.
The French get 18+Mbps DSL (in the major cities) through good old fashioned competition. Here we just roll over to the non-state-controlled monopoly telecoms and continue to allow them their shelter from competition.
324 million per quarter, 1.3 billion dollars per year net to the company, not 'siphoned off'.
AOL's got huge problems, but making cash isn't one of them. The trick with cash cow is milking them til they fall over.
Their back-end provider is trunked into the emergency system, same as a landline.
I'm able to use them here in Paris as easily as I do at home!
There's nothing about VoIP that keeps it from working with regular or enhanced 911 services - as noted Packet 8, Lingo, and Vonage all do stadard 911, as will others. In these cases it does depend on the user entering the correct service address in the provider's database. Newer services will do e-911 with more robust location handling, but any of them can be compromised by the user moving the TA from his or her home to another site.
...and they had a very nice auction of industrial strength CD burners when they liquidated a couple of years ago. It wasn't a winning way to sell music.
Their management at least realized that they were fighting a losing battle and shut the doors before they ran out of cash (the cash was returned to investors).
To paraphrase the dead parrot sketch, he's *vesting*.
I figure he had some vesting to do before he left, coming up on 4 years since they were bought...
I can certainly identify with the man, but have about as much sympathy for him as I do for Phil Greenspun of Ars Digita. When you sell out to the man, you don't just get his money, he owns you. Don't want that? Don't sell.
More RAM may not be sufficient to make a G3 really happy with OS X. I've been running X exclusively for the last 3+ months on my 266 G3 PB with 192MB of RAM. It's a nice OS to use, and quite stable (some of the apps are another story). However, the poor little G3 gets overwhelmed occassionally, especially when running OS9 apps. I love the machine, after 3 years of daily use it's been very low maintenance. But I'd spring for an iBook in a heartbeat. Or as soon as the business starts making money, I guess.
Don't confuse cost and cost of goods sold. 106.67 is parts & labor to build the box; there are many other costs you can legitimately ascribe to the box that they'll need to recover to make any money. But as noted, they still should let you hack it to your hearts content if you pay them their subscription fee...
Why did he stay so long? He stayed because he said he would in order to make the transition work.
Oh, and a bucketload of cash didn't hurt - check out his recent 88 million dollar AOL stock sale...
Lucent indicates that they're going to release their TTS libs for Linus RSN. The Lucent libs are quite good, and come in US english, European French, German, and Mexican Spanish.
If you want something really understandable, this is the one.
The downside is they're pricey ($595 for personal use, and licensed by the copy if you distribute). However, if you want excellent, they are it. Obviously they're not OS. However, having listended to a bunch of really crappy TTS while evaluating them, it's worth it to me.
As for APIs, there is a half-decent Java API, but no Linux support for the engines - you'd have to roll your own glue.