Internet telephony - VoIP - software - Pricelessware - (hardware - OT)

[Chris]

Internet telephony - VoIP - software - Pricelessware - (hardware - OT)

I wonder if we could have a discussion about this?
I've looked into Internet Telephony a few times over the years
but it may be coming of age now. There are articles saying it's the
"killer app" for broadband etc.

Speak Freely http://speak-freely.sourceforge.net/ might be worth
considering for Pricelessware
and so might PicoPhone http://web.tiscali.it/vitez/picophone.html

I would be interested in guidance about what's practical,
and what works well,
and what is simple enough to tell one's friends about.

And, though it's off-topic here, if anyone would like to comment on
hardware I would be pleased - because - although I don't expect hardware
to be free - hardware and software do seem to go together to some extent
when considering this subject.

 

[MightyKitten]

I always had mixed feelings about VoIP. Though I admire the technology, I'm
still convinced it is not very practical for real commercial use.
The power of her internet is the accessibility, and therefore security is
its weak point.

- Heavy traffic on your lan can cause delays and the assistant.

- If the network in a company is down for sometime, people most often will
do chores they had to do a long time ago. More often than not, I found
phoning is one of them (along with cleaning out the room and filing papaers)
If the network is down you cannot use VoIP anyways

- You will have to trust on your ISP and/or Phone company. It might be just
me, but I found the ammounts of technical breakdowns by ISP's and phone
companies ttho have increased since 2000. Could be just in little old
Holland, but I guess there are more countries suffering from this...

- If you want to be sure about your VoIP network, you will need to invest
(Seperate networks, security, VoIP providers), making VoIP almost as
expensive as a 'normal' phonecall.

Again 2 cents of
MightyKitten

 

[BlueRinse]

Internet telephony - VoIP - software - Pricelessware - (hardware - OT)

See the thread I posted "Free phone calls using Voice over IP (voIP)"
for a few pointers to services.

I have several call in numbers in the USA and UK that ring my free X-Lite
software using a free FWD number account, oh and the dial ins are free (to
me.)

Here are the relevant links I posted

http://freeworlddialup.com for the full scoop on FWD and a free account

http://www.xten.com for X-Lite software
http://www.sjlabs.com for SJPhone software
http://www.eyepmedia.com FWD eyeP Phone Lite.

I have tried all three of these and find X-Lite (Windows) to be best; YMMV


ICH (IconnectHere.com) works great (but is not free so I didn't mention it.)

 

[BlueRinse]

I would be interested in guidance about what's practical, and what works
well, and what is simple enough to tell one's friends about.

Forgot that part. The answer is Skype.com (freeware with planned paid
premium services.) It manages to get through your NAT firewall without
asking any questions, has end-to-end encryption both for voice and "text
chat" and as of recently allows conferencing of up to (I think?) 10 people.

Audio quality is excellent. I've spoken to people on dialup (I am on
cable) for an hour with nary a glitch.

 

[GoodTime Barnie]

Internet telephony - VoIP - software - Pricelessware - (hardware - OT)

I wonder if we could have a discussion about this?
I've looked into Internet Telephony a few times over the years
but it may be coming of age now. There are articles saying it's the
"killer app" for broadband etc.

Speak Freely http://speak-freely.sourceforge.net/ might be worth
considering for Pricelessware
and so might PicoPhone http://web.tiscali.it/vitez/picophone.html

I would be interested in guidance about what's practical,
and what works well,
and what is simple enough to tell one's friends about.

And, though it's off-topic here, if anyone would like to comment on
hardware I would be pleased - because - although I don't expect hardware
to be free - hardware and software do seem to go together to some extent
when considering this subject.

I'm on dialup, and it saved me a large amount of money calling our
daughter when she was in S.Korea for a year. Used MS Messenger and some
service I have forgotten to go PC to Phone. This was of course not free but
$1.00 a minute cheaper than our Phone service. There was a slight delay,
which I understand with Broadband is hardly noticable, if at all. When
talking to friends pc to pc it was even better and totally free. You do
need to talk hardware, an earphone-mike system is essential, or you get
feedback and spillage from your speakers, which is very annoying. All in
all even a year ago I gave it a thumbs up, probably much better now.
GoodTime Barnie

 

[Rex777]

Skype.com

Unfortunately doesn't appear to work with 98SE


Gentlemen! You can't fight in here. This is the War Room."

- Dr. Strangelove

 

[BlueRinse]

Rex777 :

Unfortunately doesn't appear to work with 98SE

You don't want to hear this and it's probably not the first time anyone's
said it:

You really need to move on. If it's a financial issue, bite the bullet and
learn to use a freeware OS like linux. Otherwise, buy borrow beg or steal
a better, more stable Windows version like 2000 or even XP. 98 is barely
supported anymore. You may be "holding out" because of hardware issues
like needing more memory, etc. If you are in the US, you can get a decent
PC for a few hundred these days.

Sorry, I had to say it.

oth, if your current Win98 PC does *everything* you want it to do, there
is no reason to change.

PS? try AIM talk, it works ok too.

 

[Rex777]

Rex777 :


You don't want to hear this and it's probably not the first time anyone's
said it:

You really need to move on. If it's a financial issue, bite the bullet and
learn to use a freeware OS like linux. Otherwise, buy borrow beg or steal
a better, more stable Windows version like 2000 or even XP. 98 is barely
supported anymore. You may be "holding out" because of hardware issues
like needing more memory, etc. If you are in the US, you can get a decent
PC for a few hundred these days.

Sorry, I had to say it.

oth, if your current Win98 PC does *everything* you want it to do, there
is no reason to change.

PS? try AIM talk, it works ok too.

Thanks for your concern.. I have my share of problems but finances
isn't one of them. I do have a win 2k disk that I used in my son's
computer. I also have about 560k ram running in a 1.8 Athelon. I
have tweaked 98SE to a point where it's more stable than win 2k was,
use it successfully daily for netmeeting video cam and prescribe to
the old adage "If it ain't broke.. don't fix it!" based on past
painful experience and I suppose laziness. If the OE had a terminal
crash, I most likely would install win 2k rather than XP but until
then I'm having fewer problems with 98SE than anyone I know with the
latter two OEs! OTH, Skype sure looks interesting!


"We're lost, but we're making good time"
- Yogi Berra

 

[BlueRinse]

I have tweaked 98SE to
a point where it's more stable than win 2k was, use it successfully daily
for netmeeting video cam and prescribe to the old adage "If it ain't
broke.. don't fix it!"

Yes, agreed on that last. Surprisingly, although I was not happy about XP
early on, I now have it on 4 of the 6 computers we use and it is more
stable and less error prone than Win2k and the Pro version has never asked
me to revalidate (or whatever it is.)

I am seriously considering replacing 2k on our last Win2k PC, the laptop
will not work with XP because of driver issues. (Thanks, HP.) I still get
a very occasional blue screen on Win2k. Never seen one on XP on any of our
systems including the Dell which is the least stable (freezes and needs
reboot once in a while.) Rebooting XP is many times faster than Win2k so
having to reboot isn't even a big deal.

Anyway, bottom line, ya want Skype and stuff like it, you gotta bite da
bullet