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On Sun, 10 Apr 2011, tom wrote:
On 09/04/11 22:48, Anthony Williams wrote:
What do other VOIP services charge?
Ekiga et all - nothing to other internet based and they allow your to talk to other VOIP services for free -Skype (last time I looked) doesn?t.
Ekiga may well allow you to call other VoIP services, but that is only if other VoIP services allow incoming anonymous calls - and to do that, you don't need Ekiga, just a SIP phone/program that will allow you to enter SIP URI's.
However most commercial SIP services do not allow anonymous incoming calls. I certainly don't - and even if I did, I would not trust incoming caller ID.
Skype is a wannabe tollbooth on the info highway you've already paid for. OK they do provide a bit of a service to land lines but they are not to be encouraged - they use their profit to get further in your way so they can charge you for the 'privilege'.
Skype got lucky - right thing at the right time. Used by millions now - including businesses - which I find incredible - you'd trust your business phone service to a company with no support! (And look what happened recently when Tesco decided to drop their VoIP service - many people, businesses included lost their phone number...)
Skype also used a system where they didn't need to make a large investment in hosted services - although the outage last year seems to indicate there is now reliance on some hosted servers at least.
But maybe it's just me - I regularly read posts from people on how to get free calls for both their home and business - some ways involving some rather complicated plumbing of programs and services together. All to save a few quid a month.
Free incoming phone numbers: http://www.sipgate.co.uk/ Free outgoung calls: http://backsla.sh/betamax Free virtual PBX to plumb them together: http://www.pbxes.com/ And off you go :) Gordon -- The Mailing List for the Devon & Cornwall LUG http://mailman.dclug.org.uk/listinfo/list FAQ: http://www.dcglug.org.uk/listfaq