Speak Freely - Voice-Over-IP Taking Root
by Trevor Bauknight
Published on this site: May 4th, 2005 - See
more articles from this month...
Years ago, I tried to convince my parents, who lived about three
hours away from me, to install a program called PGPfone on their
computer so they could call me online for free (as a bonus, it was
encrypted, so nobody could eavesdrop on their lecturing me about
school and work!); but this was in the days of dialup access, and
it was too complicated or something.
But it did allow me to look a decade or so into the future
and see the Internet merging with and taking over traditional
technologies like phone service. That's finally starting to
happen, now that broadband for the masses is a reality, and
one little company stands poised to make it huge.
In 2003, Niklas Zennstrom and Janus Friis, better known as
the founders of the wildly-popular peer-to-peer file sharing
system called KaZaA, created Skype, the Global Internet Telephone
Company. Based in Luxembourg, the Skype Group's website (http://www.skype.com)
states that their client program has been downloaded over
100 million times and the company's website ticks the number
of minutes served -- over 8 BILLION and counting.
- How Does It Work?
At the most basic level, you download the free Skype program,
which most resembles a chat program like iChat or AIM. You can
even use it to type back and forth if that's your thing. You set
up an account at the Skype website where you can maintain profile
information,preferences and contact lists. It even stores your
chat transcripts in your account online so that you can access
that important website link your boss sent you while you were
home when you get to the office the next day. Yahoo! could take
a lesson.
The real beauty of Skype is when you connect with another Skype
user and talk with them as if they were sitting next to you. I
was blown away by the quality and ease of use the first time I
used it here at Cafe ID (http://www.cafeid.com)
to talk to one of our programmers in Eastern Europe. You set up
contact lists and making calls is as simple as initiating a chat
in a lesser program.
You can also use your Skype program to call normal phones anywhere
in the world simply by depositing money into an account and dialing
the numbers. SkypeOut Calls are billed based on their destination.
For example, if you're in China, and you want to call the U.S.,
you pay the low U.S. rate, but if you're in South Carolina and
you want to call China, you pay a higher rate. Skype has blessed
large portions of the globe -- the continental U.S. and Canada,
Western Europe and Australia -- with a low (roughly $.02/minute)
Global Rate. Other destinations are more expensive, as is calling
mobile telephones. The most expensive rate is $1.17/minute to
-- you guessed it! East Timor.
Two new features are in the works, as well. SkypeIn is a service
that allows you to set yourself up with a Skype phone number where
the technological laggards can reach you. It doesn't matter where
you are, as long as you're logged into Skype, you're at your phone
number.
This is an invaluable service for business travelers who
go places in which their cellphones don't know they're in
the world. The other new service is Skype Voicemail. It,
of course, works like your traditional voicemail system,
but stores your messages online where you can retrieve them
at any point.
- What Do You Need?
Not much. It doesn't take broadband to carry decent-sounding voice
traffic -- a 33.6 Kbps dialup connection is fast enough. The Skype
site states that you need a PC running Windows 2000 or XP, at
least a 400 MHz processor and 128 MB RAM, 15 MB free disk space
on your hard drive, a Sound Card, speakers and microphone. The
Skype program is free, and is available for Windows, Mac OS X,
Linux and even PocketPC devices. To use Skype to call normal phones,
you'll have to put money in your account.
If you have those things, you're set. A good speaker and microphone
combination goes a long way toward making your Skype experience
more enjoyable. Better still is a nice comfortable headset with
a boom mic. It doesn't take much tinkering to get your setup performing
well, and once you do, the conversations are crisp and clear,
with a presence you really don't find in a normal phone call.
- Are There Drawbacks?
Not really. I'm sure some of you groaned when I mentioned that
the company was started by the founders of KaZaA, the notorious
peer-to-peer file sharing program that relied on advertising for
its revenue and became an enemy of the anti-spyware effort. But
Skype isdifferent. Skype plans to earn money through services
like SkypeOut and by offering value-added services to businesses.
According to its founder, viral marketing drives awareness of
the product. Zennstrom points out that "If we had adware
in Skype, it would kind of be counterproductive to our business
model."
For viral marketing to work, he continued, "you need
to gain trust of end users... If there is a bunch of adware
in the software, you probably don't recommend it to friends
and family."
As a practical example, we're super-paranoid about spyware and
adware at our office. We've had Skype installed on our machines
for months, and haven't seen anything out of order yet. Skype
is going out of its way to appeal to business users, and the company
seems intent on doing things the right way with regard to privacy
and security. Calls are digitally encrypted and Skype has a stout
privacy policy. Three cheers for that bit of news.
- What Next?
Who can say? Zennstrom and Friis both seem proud to be purveyors
of what they have termed "disruptive technology." That
sounds like it could be a bad thing; but in reality, what's being
disrupted is a stale status quo in desperate need of disrupting.
Most local phone companies are a monopoly in the regions they
serve and are only now beginning to face competition. Cable companies
like Time-Warner want a piece of the VoIP action, and deals are
popping up everywhere.
We're pulling for the friendly little Luxembourg company, however,
to change the face of not just Internet telephony, but of all
sorts of person-to-person direct communication. They want you
to tell your friends, family and coworkers to treat themselves
to Skype and spread the word by cheerful praise. It seems far-fetched
to talk about talk about that in the same sentence with your telephone
service provider; but that's the point here. Once in a while a
company comes along with an idea that changes the world, and I
wouldn't be a bit surprised if this wasn't one of those times.
Trevor Bauknight is a web designer and writer with
over 15 years of experience on the Internet. He specializes
in the creation and maintenance of business and personal identity
online and can be reached at [email protected]. Stop by http://www.cafeid.com
for a free tryout of the revolutionary SiteBuildingSystem
and check out our Flash-based website and IMAP e-mail hosting
solutions, complete with live support.
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