Sometimes-Free Rehovot Outbound Internet Telephony Services

If you've been waiting to try Internet telephony, wait no longer. Skype is worth trying out—especially since it's free. Download your own free Skype software package, and have Skype running in just a minute or two.

"College kids, [University students, postdocs and professors,] hungry journalists, and other cost-conscious consumers like the word free. We looked at three "free-ish" services that use a computer rather than a phone to make calls. We say free-ish because the software is free to download, and with some services, calls to other people using the same service are also free. But calls routed through the PSTN (public switched telephone network), the traditional phone system, are charged on a per-minute or monthly basis. Still, the rates for domestic long-distance and international calls are often below what your local phone company charges.

The products shown here are not a replacement for your regular phone, because they don't have an associated phone number to receive inbound calls from the PSTN. But they do make a nice complement to your existing land-line phone for low-cost long-distance calls.

When you make a call using the software, the voice data is encoded and compressed, sent to the vendor's online service, and routed through either the PSTN or directly to another computer using the same service. When using these services, you'll almost certainly want to purchase a headset with a microphone, to avoid echoes and feedback from speakers and desktop microphones.

So is this legal? The answer is yes—for now. The Federal Communications Commission has recently ruled that Voice over IP will be regulated at the federal, not state, level. If these products are found to be more like instant messengers, such as those from Yahoo!, MSN, and AOL, they probably won't be regulated. If the FCC sees them as phone services, look out.

The next logical question is, how is the voice quality? With all three services we reviewed, call quality was very acceptable over a broadband connection. We tested with both a laptop using Wi-Fi and a desktop using DSL. Although we did not test with a cable modem, we expect your results should be similar. The PSTN is more reliable, but these services will satisfy most people with decent broadband ISP connections.

Trying these services over dial-up, however, is a different story. When we tested with a dial-up modem, the voice quality was akin to a bad cell-phone connection. Though you'll save a significant amount of money, it may not be worth the trade-off to suffer through a conversation listening to static and dropped words.

Also keep in mind that none of these services are interoperable, though some of them are working on this through the use of Session Initiation Protocol (SIP) and compatible codecs.

Skype

Skype is the clear category winner for its wide array of communication options, lower per-minute pricing than Dialpad, and a clean, usable interface that worked consistently. Free Skype-to-Skype calling can significantly lower your long-distance bills if you can convince your friends and family to use the service. Skype is very smart to offer this free service to increase its market penetration.

Skype is not designed to replace your current land-line phone, because it can't receive inbound calls from the PSTN and doesn't offer 911 emergency service. The SkypeOut paid service to the PSTN network works like a calling card.


Skype provides instant-messaging and presence technology, though it isn't quite on a par with the popular IM vendors. But you do have a host of options to communicate with other Skype users. Address books are kept locally, so you have to recreate them if you move between machines.

The service works with both Windows and Mac OS systems, and you can voice-conference with up to five people or conduct multiparty chat sessions. Although there is no real-time interaction with Outlook, you can import address books from Outlook and Outlook Express.

Skype has plans for a SkypeIn service for inbound calls from the PSTN. It has recently introduced an Application Programming Interface (API) so third-party software companies can extend the product. After trying out Skype, we added it to our communication bag of tricks.

Free per-minute rates (using SkypeOut) vary. Skype Technologies S.A., Skype.com.

Source: Sometimes-Free Internet Telephony Services. (12 January 2005) [FullText]