VoIP Needs to be Part of Your Global Communications Tool Box
By Michael Pollock in Software
Voice over Internet Protocol (VoIP) is quickly becoming the dominant communication platform for the savviest of solopreneurs. If you’re not yet one of them, it’s time to take that step. Why? Low Cost. If you have clients or colleagues beyond your own town, you feel the pain of long distance charges each month. If you have clients beyond your own country, you really feel the pain of long distance charges.
For the uninitiated, VoIP is basically telephony via the internet. As an example, I can sit right here at my computer in Northeastern Connecticut, USA, and call as far away as Australia for free. And it’s free no matter how long my conversation lasts. You can do the same thing with Skype, one of the most popular VoIP applications on the market today. The trick, of course, is that for the call to be free, the other person has to also be using Skype. But with over 100 million Skype users (and growing everyday), it’s well within the realm of reality.
There are people the world over using Skype as their main telephone line for both personal and business purposes. The other key, however, is you really need to be using a broadband internet (i.e. cable, DSL or EVDO) service. Skype says you can use a dial-up modem as long as it’s running at least 33.6 bps, but I doubt the quality will be that great.
With Skype you can call other Skype users at no charge. You can also call non-Skype users via Skype’s Skypeout program, and you’ll pay about 2.3 cents per minute to most destinations. They also offer a whole host of other features, including your own telephone number for people to call you, voice mail, conference calling and a lot more that’s worth checking out.
If I sound a little over-excited, it’s because I am. I can’t tell you how great it is to be able to communicate and collaborate with anyone on the planet without worrying how much it’s costing me for the call. Do yourself a favor, go download Skype and just try it out for a bit. Make a few calls. If you want to call me to see how the quality is, my Skype id is mdp8593. I look forward to hearing from you.
By the way, there are alternatives to Skype, and we’ll get to those later.
On Nov 7, 2005, Alison Yates said:
Sorry to kick your can in but what a load of diatribe. This article is a total heap of mistruths.
There is no such thing as “free” voip phone calls using Skype or any other software solution you may find such as those presented here … http://www.netphonedirectory.com/freepctopc
Why do I say this?
The generally accepted equation is that it takes 1MB per 10 minutes of conversation. I don’t know about your ISP but mine definitely charges me for downloads, so your claim that “The trick, of course, is that for the call to be free, the other person has to also be using Skype.” is the most misleading statement you could make.
Both parites to a VOIP call are charged for the data transfer just the same as if you as a site owner place a podcast on your site. You pay for people to download it and the that person pays to upload it to their pc.
Yes the software is free, and unless you call a PSTN phone there is no payment to the software provider. I’d like you to prove that ISP’s charge nothing per MB for data transfers like mp3’s/podcasts and video? Cos they’re just the same as VOIP telephony.