I wrote a little bit ago about VOIP (in the vernacular, telephone calls by internet), and characterised it as a ‘disruptive technology’ as it breaks many of the communication models we now think of as set in stone.
At the time I was bullish about Skype as a provider, but the main problem with Skype then (and this is only a few months ago) was that calls between Skype users were free BUT you couldn’t get out of the internet. So you could call your techie mate with Skype, but not your Gran with BT. And, practically, you could only do this sat with your headset on at your PC, not on your sofa with a glass of wine.
Well lets face it, I thought, this technology must have a long way to go. Because what you need is a phone, something that you can handle and take with you, not an IM clone rooting you to the PC spot however ‘unwired’ you are. And you need to be able to phone your Gran. And what happens when the PC gets turned off? Whatever the technology underpinning the service, the disruptiveness I talked about is to infrastructure not culture, and, at least initially, what we know and use easily now has to be retained to be able to evolve.
So, along comes Gossiptel. You get a 0870 number that people can call and you can use your broadband connection to phone ‘out’ of the internet for prices cheaper then BT. Wow, so we have escaped the internet then! And you can get a ‘SIP’ adapter for less than ?100 that you plug into your broadband connection directly. So its always on. And you buy a DECT phone and plug it into that. So its portable, and wireless. And theres lots of other voicemail caller ID stuff etc.
I’m testing this now, still with a PC softphone, but first impressions have been very good. All being well I shall get the adaptor in a couple of weeks. But, lets face it, you early adopters, it’s a phone, it’s connected, it’s pay as you go, it’s better quality, it has more features and it’s VOIP, so it does appear that the future is upon us… so get signed up and we can talk for free!
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Are you still using Gossiptel? Be interesting to share experiences…
Comment by Ben Rose — December 8, 2004 @ 10:32 pm
Well, it promised a lot, but when it came to delivering the promise I am afraid that Gossiptel had a lot left to do. It worked well with landlines, but I got plenty of echoes against mobiles or NTL. I found the support guys (volunteers) to be real devotees which was great, but some stuff just didnt get resolved
The last straw was the fact that I couldnt get an invoice out of them so I could put the calls to the business, which was why I got VOIP in the first place! So, I am now with Pipecall who I am generally pleased with although the call quality is still not 100% (might be my ADSL?) they are a professional outfit who do proper support etc.
On the tech side, I have a Grandstream adapter and a Panasonic DECT phone. I’d recommend Pipecall over Gossiptel now, and, of course, its a less silly name
Comment by David Hawdale — December 9, 2004 @ 12:48 pm
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Comment by VOIP News Blog — January 16, 2006 @ 10:41 pm