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Peter Judge explores the worldwide phenomenon of Voice over IP technology
Last year, internet phone calls were a geek hobby.
This year, we’ll all be doing it, because it saves money, and the technology has matured. Companies like Skype and Google have made it easy, cool even, while businesses are finding ways to improve their performance by using it in the office. Making calls across the Internet, instead of by phone, is likely to become increasingly popular because it offers cheaper calls, travels well and links up with other Internet features, like video and chat.
The World Wide Web has already replaced the phone as a communication tool in areas such as purchasing items, researching information and personal banking. So making an actual phone call over the Internet is not such a big leap.
The big name in Internet telephony for individual users is Skype (www.skype.com), which currently has around four million users online at any one time. A free Skype download, similar to chat programs like MSN Messenger, allows free calls to any other Skype user.
Users can also buy pre-paid credit for SkypeOut – cheap outgoing calls to regular phone numbers. To a large part of the world, including America, China and most of Europe, SkypeOut costs €0.017 (1.7 euro-cents) per minute. Calls to other countries tend to be more expensive, but are still cheaper than via a landline.
The big advantage is users can log onto Skype from any PC, or laptop, when abroad, and the same rates apply. Thus making it extremely attractive to anyone tired of paying for pricey hotel (or mobile) phone calls when abroad.
You can also purchase a Skype phone number for incoming calls. Choose a country and buy a geographic number (the current choice is the US, UK, France, Hong Kong, Denmark, Finland, Sweden, Poland, Germany, Switzerland and Estonia).
Anyone can call that number and reach you, whatever your location, providing you’re on the Internet and have Skype running – if not, it goes to voicemail. SkypeIn costs €30 a year, or €10 for three months.
Most Skype callers use simple headsets that plug into the PC, but other products are appearing. There are Skype phones that attach to your PC; wired phones cost around €30, and cordless Skype phones are about €75. If you like your existing phone, there are also gadgets like ActionTec’s Phone Wizard, that connects it to your PC for about €60, thus facilitating the dual purpose of Internet calls plus ordinary landline calls on the same phone.
Skype is constantly developing – a new version of the software facilitates video conversations with other Skype users, again for free. It only works on Windows XP, but it works well.
Skype is not the only VoIP in town, but it has the most users and a well-designed scheme to find them.
However, other VoIP services may offer cheaper rates to countries that you need to contact often. Voipbuster (www.voipbuster.com) and Vyke (www.vyke.com ) both come well recommended and use the SIP protocol – a widely supported standard that may become important as Internet phone services become embedded in more devices.
Instant messaging services such as MSN and Yahoo are also adding to the mix – they have offered voice calls to other users on the same service for some time, and are adding the facility to dial out to regular phones.
Google Talk was well publicised because of its name, but it won’t replace your phone just yet. It doesn’t dial out to the regular phone network, and doesn’t have any of the extras available with Skype. It’s most impressive feature is the voice quality, which is often better than Skype. If you can persuade your friends onto Google Talk, it would be worth running alongside a service that can dial out.
At first glance, using the Internet as a telephone makes about as much sense as watching TV over your water pipes. We have phones, and they work. So why complicate things and try to use something else?
>>The Internet can make phone calls more efficiently. The Internet Protocol (IP) can carry anything – that’s why you can listen to the radio and watch TV over the Internet. Internet phone calls put voice over the IP protocol – so they are called VoIP services.
>> VoIP slices up your voice into tiny packets of data, which take the cheapest route across the network, and re-assemble themselves when they reach the person you’re talking to, so quickly and efficiently that – in theory at least – you can’t hear the difference.
>> It’s free to call someone directly connected to the Internet. It’s cheap to call anyone else, because the Internet phone providers run gateways in the most popular countries, these link Internet calls onwards to regular phones at local rates. So the international part of the call is free. Regular phone providers have spotted this, and are already using VoIP to save money on your international phone calls – so why not use VoIP and take advantage of the savings yourself?
>> The drawbacks to Internet phone calls used to be the hassle of switching on the PC, establishing a connection and the fiddle of putting on a headset. However, because of broadband services those problems are disappearing and services like Skype make it easy to make calls, and adaptors allow existing phones to be used.
>> With all these developments, Internet calls are increasingly like regular phone calls – but they can be even better, thanks to the integration of the PC. Skype and other programs let you dial from your PC’s address list, share pictures, and even add video to the conversation.
Another class of Internet phone service entirely replaces your landline, by providing hardware to connect your ordinary phone directly to an Internet router. The advantages are that it doesn’t require a special phone, and you don’t have to keep your PC switched on. An incoming number is included with the service. Such specialised hardware results in a better voice quality and it functions like an ordinary phone, but you should keep your ordinary phone as backup, because Internet connection failure will result in a loss of service.
The best example of these is Vonage, a US-based company, which plans to sweep Europe from its UK office, where £10 (€14.50) per month allows unlimited national phone calls and access to cheap international calls. Vonage will be introduced to other countries soon. Meanwhile, travellers can take Vonage with them, as the latest router, PAP2, is compact enough to transport in a travel bag and plug into the Internet at your destination. The company is also launching a Wi-Fi handset, which can connect through Wi-Fi, making it even more portable.
Eventually VoIP may also save on the bills that really hurt – mobile phone bills. There’s a handheld version of Skype, for Windows Mobile devices, but this isn’t yet practical enough for most people, as the device required to operate it is so expensive it would take forever to make any real savings on a subsidised handset which you use moderately.
These services will become more practical when phones that can connect to Wi-Fi networks become cheaper. At that point, Skype or another VoIP service will be a feature you can add to a mobile phone and use at will.
VoIP at work is a different matter. Companies can replace their traditional phone exchange system (PBX) with an IP version, that routes calls across the Internet, but they don’t do it for financial reasons, explains Etienne Saelens, of Brussels-based VoIP integrator Escaux (www.escaux.com).
“For most people it would be cheaper to stick with their traditional PBX,” says Saelens, who sells an IP PBX for companies of ten or more people, that starts at around €1,495. “In IP, the phones are more expensive. Despite this, businesses are choosing VoIP because they get new applications and can work more efficiently.”
VoIP services allow a receptionist to handle calls better, and route them cheaply anywhere. Softphones on PCs can replace desk phones and can be given the intelligence to decide whether or not to forward calls.
The next step for business VoIP, as with consumers, is when mobile phones get Wi-Fi. These phones are coming this year, and will eventually get cheaper.
A phone that can access the mobile network and business networks in the office could replace expensive office phones, and let workers carry one device. That is something for the future, but there are currently plenty of options to explore in the world of VoIP.
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