VOIP, SIP and the Neverending Sadness

For about four days now, I have been trying to bring myself to write, with some relative authority, on VoIP (Voice over Internet Protocol) softphones, and I wanted to write from a consumer's perspective, leaving out all the geeky alphabet soup of Speekx, SIP, STUN or H.323. My hope was to come up with possible alternatives to Skype and give something simple to swallow. Right?

Not so fast, mister.

At some point in the last couple of years, while I wasn't looking, the heavens opened up and puked softphone software on the world. I offer exhibit A: the Wikipedia article Comparison of VoIP software - the over abundance of VOIP softphones.

Now, let's say for argument's sake, I am a normal person (just try, please). I get a notion in my craw that I want to be able to talk to Grandma for cheap or free. If I can get Grandma to install the same software on her BlueHair 2010 computer, I can talk to her for free. Or, if that is too painful, I can at least call her for about 2 cents per minute.

Now, only for argument's sake again, I have become anti-Skype because I was the 7th caller to a local Morning Zoo contest and I won 2 tickets to the Lion's Club spaghetti dinner, but, as I was giving my address to "Crazy Jim," Skype gave out on me. And, now, I am flipping angry. No spaghetti for me.

Which one do I pick?

There are A) literally too many choices, B) they don't sound quite as good as Skype, and C) there is no great differentiation between all these softphones. Though most are semi-workable solutions and, I expect as most software goes, they will improve with time.

But, they all pretty much use the same model:

1. Your account is free
   
2. Computer to computer calls are free.
3. Incoming phone numbers, if available, cost money.
4. Outgoing calls are pre-paid and are levied with a per-minute charge.

No differentiation, as I said, between most VoIP services. Sad, really. Being just like Skype, with slightly less sound quality, will not beat the juggernaut that is Skype.

There were two stand-outs in the pack I will talk about, but this burgeoning industry needs to work harder at making a presence, not just depend on word of mouth, to get alternatives on people's machines.

One pleasant surprise I did have was that some of these phones are inter-operable. To my shock and surprise, since many VoIP (not all) phones use open standards, I was, at least, able to use one softphhone on another's network and vice-versa. This is partially a choice on the the softphone creators' network (open or closed) and partially because some software allows this. So you can pick the best network and the best software, if you are so inclined and if you have the time. I found a very eloquent explanation of how this openness is good here.

But, as much as I like open standards and open source, Skype is still winning (even though eBay, the owner of Skype, does not think so). Still, why is Skype so pervasive? I think it is because they had a head start - back in 2003, started post dot.com boom (read: when folks were dying for something for free) by Niklas Zennström and Janus Friis. They were the guys who gave us, and sold off, the Napster like Kazza network, so they know "free." And in Skype's creation, they gave us a "free," though closed, system. Though Skype has had its ups and downs, the engineering, quality, and ease of use for the end user still pushes it ahead of the the pack of possible VOIP solutions.

That said, here are my -rolls eyes- Skype killers.

Gizmo - this program was introduced to me from Grand Central and has been around for some time. Since Grand Central works with it Gizmo directly, Grand Central gently pushes it. And Gizmo is pretty good. In as far as "free", they have the usual computer to computer, but they also have this convoluted "all calls free" program in which once you have any mutual contacts, you can call all your contacts on their mobile phones, landlines, or Gizmo for free. So it is not really "all calls." Read that again. Or go here. It does make sense when you see it working, but, how do you sell that to mortals? Still, it is a sincerely good program. And I expect it will get even better with time.

Ekiga - If you have ever installed Ubuntu Desktop, you have Ekiga; a very interesting program that is also available in beta for Windows. Works like most softphone clients, but, and this is a big but, it is completely open source. Ekiga is what was "Gnome Meeting" and is pretty slick in that I can put in a cadre of all your SIP network logins, getting rid of the need for having more than one client running on your system at a time. Pretty slick. The only downer is the is no encryption enabled in this guy, yet.

Finally, uninstall or never install VoipStunt or VoipBuster - bad juju, bad karma and bad mojo. Just say no.