Decius wrote:
] flynn23 wrote:
] ] "why would you want VoIP?"
]
] Because I don't want to pay a metered rate for long distance.
] I want to pay a flat rate. And I already am. Its my internet
] connection. I just can't use it this way, because no one seems
] to...

almost any of the tools available allow you to do this. I'm unaware of any OSS tools, but I'm sure they exist. The problem you're having isn't that it's not available, but that no one you want to talk to has a client.

] ] First, VoIP is alive and thriving.
]
] In terms of POTS interconnection yes... But I'm a different
] market. I want to talk to my friends in the states. I may not
] be as interesting a market...

you are a market that many people don't want to materialize for obvious reasons.

] ] There are several companies that offer clients and gateways.
]
] ] Google around. www.net2phone.com comes to mind. I have also
]
] Net2Phone wants your money upfront for metered rate service to
] the POTs network. They claim you can make PC to PC calls, but
] there is no discussion of how this works, if its free, etc....
] They focus you on their metered rate long distance pots stuff.

Net2Phone will do free PC to PC calls. It's in the FAQ. However, Net2Phone is annoying in that RealAudio/IE kinda way where it takes over your system. There are other clients available. I also believe that Linksys has a hardware box that utilizes Net2Phone's technology. You could use that to place IP only PtP calls I'm sure.

There are now enough standards in the VoIP world where you could conceivably place calls to different clients. I have not dinked around with this stuff since 1999, but it worked *very* well then (perfect quality over a cable modem). So I imagine that things are just as good if not better now. I'd be willing to act as a guinea pig for client tests if you find something you like.

]
] ] Finally, RBOCs will never have any incentive to deploy VoIP
] or
] ] any other advanced technologies because it fucks up the
] ] revenue models. Why use VoIP or VoDSL when you can sell over
]
] ] priced T1? Why deploy ANYTHING if you don't have to?
] ] Everything is already paid for. Everytime someone makes a
] ] call, it's almost pure profit.
]
] We're thinking on two different layers...
]
] What I want, as a consumer, is flat rate reasonable quality.
]
] Its not really important to me what the infrastructure is like
] on the back end. It just seems silly to me that when I want to
] send one kind of data I have a nice flat rate reasonable
] quality system in my house, and then when I want to talk voice
] I moved to a metered rate high quality system, which I pay for
] in addition to the flat rate I already pay.

The issue there is that metered is superior and ultimately, the way things will go. There's very little metered data services right now (and certainly almost no IP based services) because it's very expensive to put in the accounting systems necessary to do this. ISP's can barely stay alive with what they have. It's almost impossible for them to implement metered billing into their networks. Besides, all their customers will leave to unmetered nets.

I'm not a big fan of metered based data services. I think it's not the way to go. But it'll have to be purely from an economic standpoint. People who utilize the service more should pay more.

So what I'm saying is enjoy it while you can. At some point, every byte will cost ya.

RE: Why don't I have VoIP?