The FCC ruled today (9 November, 2004) that Voice over IP (VoIP) services aren't subject to state regulations or Universal Service Fund contributions. It's rare that I agree with any decision of the Bush administration, but I think that they're on the right track here. It's the beginning of the end of access charges! So, in light of the above, it's fitting that after a 3-year hiatus I started playing with VoIP services again over the past couple of weeks (some of you may remember I was a Sprint ION beta tester from 2000-2002). Wow. What a difference a few years makes! While the technology is still very new, it has moved from the bleeding-edge beta test stage to the cutting-edge early adopter stage. Yes, it's still rough around the edges, but it's interesting nonetheless, now that you no longer have to fumble around with software phones and computer headsets. To get started with VoIP, you need an adapter. You can buy stand-alone VoIP adapters that plug into your LAN, but the USB variety that attach to your computer are cheaper. Initially, I bought a USB adapter from Fry's made by Actiontec. Its functionality was somewhere between what I last tried a few years ago and the current generation of products. It essentially turned a regular phone into a computer speaker and a microphone. Unfortunately, you need to mess around with installing and configuring a "soft phone" on your computer, and you have to dial with that (using your keyboard rather than the phone). Even more annoying, to answer the phone you have to rush to your computer and click a button. Definitely not acceptable, so I took it back. A lot of people recommended adapters made by Cisco and Sipura, the dominant manufacturers, but they all cost over $100. This was more than I wanted to spend. You can buy USB handsets that look like cell phones, but I didn't want to be tethered to a computer--I wanted to use my ordinary cordless phone. After an hour of searching, I discovered the PC Phoneline, made in Taiwan by WorldCall International Ltd. out of the UK. The most interesting fact about this company I was able to track down is that they tried to hijack a domain belonging to VoIP pioneer IDT via a dubious subsidiary in Turkmenistan. So they're uber-shady, and that's the kind of company I like; at $59, the price was attactive so I ordered one. To set up the adapter, you first need to subscribe to a VoIP service. There are over a dozen of these, and I signed up for FreeWorldDialup, which is run by Pulver Communications. They sell VoIP phones (also called SIP phones), and give the service away for free. It's only supported on their phones and the expensive Cisco and Sipura adapters, but the service works fine with the PC Phoneline adapter (SIP version). FreeWorldDialup set me up with a number on their system in about 5 minutes. There are gateways between virtually all of the VoIP providers, so I can now call anyone else with a VoIP phone--whether on Vonage, Earthlink, or another service--for free. Additionally, I can call US, German, Japanese, UK, and Netherlands toll-free "land-line" numbers at no charge. Finally (and this seems too good to be true for US expatriates), I got--for free--a regular phone number in Washington state that rings to my FreeWorldDialup VoIP number. This is provided by IPKall, and even includes free voicemail. Armed with a VoIP account and a cordless phone, I was ready to receive calls. A few days later, the adapter arrived from PCPhoneline.com, in a nondescript envelope shipped from Alabama. The adapter was smaller than I expected; it's about the size of an ordinary telephone jack. It came with an installation CD and an instruction sheet. Although you use your ordinary phone to dial and receive phone calls, the call processing takes place on your PC so software needs to be installed first. I followed the installation instructions exactly as they were written on the instruction sheet. There were a few things I had to figure out on my own, though. First, I had to log on with an account in the local Administrators group to perform the installation, and the software then only worked on the account under which it was installed. This wasn't the account I actually wanted to use, so I had to use System Restore to remove the software (Add/Remove Programs didn't work), and then reinstall with the correct account--after adding that account to the local Administrators group. After installation, there is a very annoying product activation mechanism; the software has to register with a PCPhoneline.com server before it will run (otherwise, your calls get cut off after 30 seconds). This is designed to keep it from running on more than one PC, although I don't really see the point since it only works with the adapter that PCPhoneline.com ships, anyway. While the installation instructions were clear, the configuration instructions were not. It took me several tries before I figured out how to properly configure the software for FreeWorldDialup (the instructions were correct, but confusing). Eventually I got it right, though. I placed a few test calls successfully, both to other FreeWorldDialup subscribers and to toll-free numbers, and dialed into my IPKall phone number successfully as well. The voice quality is much better than I expected. No problems with echo, which was my most persistent complaint about Sprint ION (the VoIP service I beta tested from 2000-2002). Overall, the quality is about the same as a GSM cellular phone. This makes sense; the most popular VoIP audio compression method is the same one used by GSM cellular phones! The latency is greater than with a land line, but not annoyingly so--it's slightly more than a circuit-switched long distance call. If you're not paying attention, you'd never notice. It's still not completely smooth sailing, though. Calls take considerably longer to go through versus either a land line or a cell phone. When your Internet connection is busy, audio quality can suffer badly; I started running a few simultaneous downloads and voices began to sound like a CD skipping underwater. Finally, touch-tone recognition needs some improvement. When calling into robot phone systems that require touch-tone input, I found that I needed to dial slowly and hold the buttons down longer than usual. Otherwise, numbers get "dropped" and aren't recognized correctly. Finally, 911 calls aren't supported at all, and if your PC or Internet connection is offline, you can't place or receive phone calls. Overall, I'm pretty impressed with the improvement in this technology over the past couple of years. It's definitely worth enduring the hiccups and idiocyncracies for people on a budget who have a high-speed Internet connection (such as college students). This is also an incredibly useful product for American expatriates with broadband; your family and friends can call an ordinary phone number in the United States (where long distance is cheap or free), and your Internet phone will ring abroad. Want to call home? Skip the international toll charges; just use a prepaid calling card with a US toll-free access number (reachable through FreeWorldDialup) and talk for as little as a penny per minute. It will probably be another few years before this technology enters the mainstream; it's still not ready to replace land lines or cell phones. However, at this stage, it's surprisingly functional and inexpensive. Have a look! ![]() back |