[billmeek]

I know Bryan's using Vonage for an internet phone, but has anyone tried a PC based phone lately? I used net2phone quite awhile back with fair results. I just ran across another one called Skype that not only supports Windows, but also Linux, Mac, and Pocket PC. Most of the PC based Internet phones support Windows only. Anyone tried it yet?

 

[Arby]

I've been using Skype since Christmas and it works great. Free software. I've had conference calls with my siblings. You can have up to 5 people on a single call. They were calling from, Thunder Bay, Florida, Kingston, Ottawa and Kitchener. If you want you can upgrade to the pay version which allows you to call a land phone from your computer. I think it charges about 2.5 cents per minute for this option. They just released a new version on Jan. 5/05.

 

[billmeek]

Thanks for the feedback. I've already installled it on the Linux laptop and going to try using to talk to my son at college. Since they have a Pocket PC version, I might be able to use my Dell handheld along with the wireless network as a cordless phone around the house. :idea:

 

[Court Jester]

Let me know how the dell works.

there are a lot of hotspots around here.

 

[billmeek]

Well ... after trying for a couple of hours to get it working correctly under Linux, I've discovered the audio input drivers for the Crystal sound system shipped with Mandrake are garbage. Audio recording doesn't work at all on the laptop. Rather than spend much more time, I just switched to my Windows 2000 hard drive and loaded Skype.

I've spoken to one of my friends thats using DSL (I'm on cablemodem) and the audio quality was about the same as telephone. We're both using NAT and have firewalls. I expected to have to change the firewall setting on at least one end and was pleasantly surprised no changes were required. We tried establishing calls in either direction ... no problems. While we were at it, I tried the file transfer.

Most chat programs have file transfer but it usually fails due to the firewalls. Skype didn't fail ... but instead used "relayed transfer" which is where the file transfer relayed though other peers on the network. The relayed transfer speed is only .5 kB/second. :shock: But it's better than failing completely.

I've also spoken to my son at college using Skype. Same good sound. Of course it should be. He's on a faster connect than I am. I'll probably try Skype on the Dell X5 Pocket PC soon. Might be fun using it as a wireless pocket phone without using up my cellular minutes.