As a consequence of the need to tend to several work-related projects, the presence of a looming urge to redesign this blog, a spurt of blogging over at MemeFirst and a rather heavy post on Leopold II last week to come down from, you will now be served a few posts blissfully free of any import or presumption: A roundup of recent Mac software I’ve used and can recommend. Today:
A voice chat application for both PC and Mac that lets you talk to other users for free but also make cheap calls to real phones.Skype: This second beta for the Mac, out since a week ago, now works seamlessly. I actually only use one of Skype’s features, SkypeOut, but what a feature it is: 2-eurocent a minute “voice chat” to real phones in the US, Europe and Australia from anywhere I can plug my PowerBook to the internet — and with the same sound quality as a normal phone call.
This changes everything. Consider my setup: Because I’ve been moving frequently these past few years, I haven’t bothered getting landlines, relying instead on my mobile phone to make calls, even if calling out is expensive, at 1 euro per minute to the US. Today the 10 euro credit I bought on Skype will let me talk 500 minutes, as opposed to the 10 minutes I would have gotten via Telia on my mobile. That’s also far cheaper than using landlines or calling cards.
Friends in New York who are all avid Vonage users have asked me why they should use Skype instead. They shouldn’t. Unlike Vonage, Skype can’t receive calls from real phones. But Vonage, inexplicably for the business they’re in, only takes credit cards with US addresses (trust me, I tried); Skype takes all comers. And since I already have a mobile phone on which I can receive calls for free, I don’t miss Skype’s inability to do so.
If you live in Europe, have broadband and still initiate long distance phone calls using landlines, you are being fleeced. Help kickstart the voice-over-internet-protocol (VoIP) revolution and get Skype. (Did I mention it’s made in Sweden?)
With Vonage, too, you can talk on a normal cordless telephone. With Skype, don’t you need to be more or less physically attached to your computer, with its speakers and microphone? Or can you use a Bluetooth headset or somesuch?
Is there anything similar for PC:s? I don’t have a Mac – yet…
Jenny, it definitely already exists as a PC application. It’s just that the Mac version just came out. With PCs, it’s probably best to have one of those headsets, though.
Felix, you can get bluetooth headsets, but I’ve found that I cn talk with people through the PowerBook’s built-in microphone and through my stereo, just as with iChat audio. Walking around the room sorting my laundry becomes a cinch while talking on Skype.
Please don’t hype Skype.
Prior to Skype we got a standard for voice over the Internet. It’s called SIP, and is actually the second try to get a world standard. This time it’s good, it’s modelled after Internet protocols instead of phone network protocols and is actually quite well designed. (The old one was called H.323 and was the one used by for example old Microsoft product NetMeeting.)
Right. So with this standard we can have free competition. There are hard phones available to buy (all the major companies has one, Cisco has lots, and there cheap ones such as Budgetone). You can choose between several carries, so they can actally compete on price. And they give you a real phone number so you can accept incoming calls just like a regular phone.
Now along comes Skype. Based on the rumor it’s from the guy behind Kazaa who got rich from bundling spyware with it (which caused all sorts of problems for users, from slow OS to crashing apps), they got a lot of mainstream press attention. For a closed proprietary voice chat product! Basically the same thing as MSN or ICQ would offer (I don’t think they even have video support?).
So basically you have two systems: One that is tied to one company only, and offers only what they do which means no hard phones, no incoming calls, and no competition. The second has multiple carriers competing to give you a better price (we have around ten in Sweden, not all are good or in full operation, but still), hard phones are available from lots of companies, and you can switch operators freely keeping your (very real!) phone number. Plus there are pocket pc client software, so if you have a wifi pda you can place calls from it.
I guess I don’t have to tell you which system I’d prefer. I just checked prices with a Swedish SIP operator and to the US it’s 50 öre/min, about 1/4 of Skype.
Which one did you choose? Why?
I might add that it’s the same standard used by Vonage, so whatever works connecting with them works with the Swedish carriers as well. Plus all the American ones that actually will sell it to you.
Thanks, anonymous Jonas, your comment prompted me to go do a lot more research. I was not aware of the SIP open standard, believe it or not. I think you make a lot of interesting points, though I want to disagree with some things as a matter of fact:
Skype using a proprietary system does not ipso facto make it anti-competitive. In fact, the entry and exit barrier to me using Skype is nil. It is a completely pay-as-you-go system, it involves _no_ setting up and has a large free component. Not to mention excellent hype.
If SIP is a better solution to solving the internet telephony challenge, then it should win on its own merits. It certainly has a lot going for it, though there should REALLY be a much better awareness campaign going on.
So indeed, there are Swedish equivalents to Vonage. I signed up for a free trial account with bbtele.se (their pay services don’t start until later this year), downloaded a free “softphone” client by Xten (for PC and Mac, though it has a terrible pretend phone skin — there are fake microphone holes on my screen!), entered the account info (more hoops than Skype here) and made a perfectly fine phonecall to a Swedish 020 free number.
I don’t know what bbtele’s pricing will be yet, but over at Digisip they do have a pricelist. The Kontant Mini, the cheapest option, still requires a $25 set-up fee, and its calls to the US are indeed 49 öre per minute — which, unless I’ve completely lost the plot, is double the cost of Skype’s 2 eurocents per minute, not 1/4 as you write.
So, although the technology is fascinating, and I definitely think everybody should download Xten and play (Vonage users can use it instead of a physical phone on the road with their laptops), I am still waiting on a SIP service provider that can compete on price with Skype, which “just works”. But it’s early days for VOIP in Sweden.
Actually there is no reeson to look only in Sweden. I should check out if companies other than Vonage take Swedish addresses on credit cards.
Also: Jonas, do you know if SIP service providers allow number portability?
Finally, how awesome would it be if iChat AV in OS X 10.4 was SIP compliant? .Mac telephony anyone?
Sorry, my bad. Skype’s prices are pretty good then. But competition will always win in the end, you could just get an account with Free World Dialup (I asked them, they sell to Sweden) or similar provider then. They can’t beat *those* prices.
Swedish phone companies (the larger SIP providers, including RixTelefoni.se and Tele2 are) have number portability, so you can keep your old number. Indeed there is a setup fee for most of these services but that price gives you a real phone number. But I’m starting to understand what people like about Skype.
I also agree Xten has a terrible user interface, but I don’t know much about Mac software so I don’t have anything to recommend. The next version of Apple iChat will have SIP support built-in, but I wouldn’t be surprised if it turned out to be hard to use with phone providers.
I still think Skype is a closed proprietary system and not a free market. If I want to start a competitor, my users can’t call Skype users and the other way around. Neither is there a way for me to sell a voicemail service to Skype users (something that would actually be a good idea). Both these scenarios are not only a possibility but a reality with a standard and a free market.
I think Skype is a bad business idea, and will die out eventually. That’s not what I’m surprised about, bad ideas are everywhere. What surprises me is that people will hype his product only because … it’s him? We’ve had a phone monopoly for some 80 years, everybody knows it’s expensive and bad service, and now they want to have *another* one?
OK, another day, another dose of learning abbout VoIP. Free World Dialup has one of the more aggravating, intimidating websites around. Whoever is building this stuff really isn’t able to put themselves in the position of a “normal user”. I consider myself to be a very fast learner, but even I run when hit with an avalanche of acronymns. PSTN? STUN? DID? Oh, and I should avoid NAT, should I? Score 1 to Skype for realizing most of us don’t know and don’t care.
But if you do persevere, the “free phone calls over the internet” are only to other Free World Dialup account users. And if you do want to call “normal” phones, you first have to sign up with a PSTN provider, for a fee. No list of them around, though. You can also get inbound calls if you sign up with a DID provider (I might be wrong, but my eyes were glazing over), also for a fee. I never did find a price list for making international calls. I gave up.
Rix Telefoni seems to be a PSTN provider (they don’t use the term), but with them a call to the US is 92 öre per minute, or around 10 eurocents. I never checked Tele2.
So Jonas, what I am trying to say is that perhaps the Skype hype is somewhat justified. No configuration, the lowest prices I can find, and no setup fees. Inward calls on my mobile are free anyways — so I have everything I need. Free World Dialup offers what Skype offers — free calls to other online users — but I don’t use Skype for that, I use iChat, often with video, because that’s where all my friends are. The Open SIP protocol is of no use to the average user if it is more work for them to collect the services they want.
Finally, re monopolies. There is a difference between state-imposed monopolies like a phone monopoly and de facto monopolies like Microsoft’s Windows. But Skype is not even a monopoly in the second sense. It is a closed proprietary system, like Apple. This is not bad, this is product differentiation.
i think I am beginning to get Skype’s plan: It goes like this: offer a free zero-configuration firewall-savvy peer-to-peer chat client with excellent voice chat that gains popularity with the hip crowd that rocked with KaZaA. Once you have a critical mass of users, others will join — the network effect. Add a paid feature — SkypeOut — that people are tempted to use because it is already installed.
The only way to combat this with SIP is to offer integrated services wrapped in a zero-config package — download and go — with no startup fees and flat monthly rates or else per minute prices that beat Skype. OK. That’s enough ranting for now.
Hi, I stumbled across your website while searching Google. I have been using Skype for sometime on my mac, and I just got a Bluetooth headset (JABRA FS258) yesterday. While it seems to work fine with everything else (including iChat), I can’t seem to get it to work with the latest Skype OS X client. The Jabra microphone’s sound input seems to work, but not the sound output. Would you happen to know if this is a known bug in the program or is it just me? Thanks.
I had an email from someone who described the exact same problem you are experiencing: SOund out via a bluetooth headset. This would indicate that it’s a problem with the current Mac Skype beta. Personally, I use a sound out to my stereo and talk into my PowerBook’s built-in micriphone — not unlike telelconferencing, which works great.
I’ve started to use Skype and the audio quality is much better on my broadband than a phone line. Sounds like they are next door even on calling a landline in UK on Skype. I’m in Australia calling to the UK so I think thats a good test! . I’ve had a slight echo just once on Skype but I often do on a normal phone call over 14,000 km ! The downside is that it isn’t a standard so finding hardware is difficult up to now. Siemens are just lauching a USB wireless dongle to talk to their “cordless DECT home phones” which is a very clever idea for Skype.Skype is supported. BUT you still need the PC switched on to make or receive a call, and no one without a pc can CALL in to you ( yet ). I found all I wanted to know at http://www.ozvoip.com . i’m not connected with it! I may use a SIP provider as there is a lot of hardware out there that just connects to your broadband connections ethernet port with a standard phone socket at the other end. http://www.zyxel.com/product/category.php?indexFlagvalue=1075687935 as I don’t want to have my pc on 24/7 just to receive a phone call ! The advantages with voice over the internet is that you can use several providers at the same time & have the best of both worlds. Rent a “local” real number in New York, London and Sydney if you really want to , all connected back to your internet link at home or in that nice internet cafe hotspot by the beach ! Your phone calls follow your laptop ( or WiFI PDA …..). I’ll be cancelling my real phoneline in 2005. (I have cable broadband, but its hard to cancel your phone line using ADSL! )
Hello!!
This was an interesting post, as well as an interesting thread.
I think this discussion is really important. See, Skype surely wins on the interface and ease of use part. I am tempted to say its quality is also better than SIP software solutions out there. Its IM-like design makes it easier for users to just click and dial.
Besides that, SIP has so much more features and possibilities that it•s a shame that nobody came out with a friendly design for an application. You can make your own PBX using SIP (Asterisk), sou you can route calls, make extentions, etc. And it all can be integrated! A good example of those possibilities is Free World Dialup, as mentioned. With it, you can even call Vonage users for free, or other users from other VOIP providers.
NuFone has very good rates, and other providers also have similar rates than those using Skype, so I think Skype is not a winner on this side (though the buying credits approach is definetly better than getting committed).
I really wish that SIP were more popular. It•d be good to change everything to VOIP. It•d be good to receive a call from someone and be able to route it, as SIP allows me to do. Skype is good for P2P talking, and, for that matter, it•s no better than iChat (except it offers SkypeOut but, as I said, for calling regular phones, I still think VOIP+SIP are a better solution).
Just my .02
Cheers,
Skype is a closed monopoly. SIP is a free market. It’s that simple. With services such as Babble.net or Telio.no you pay a fixed fee for unlimited calling to western Europe and the USA. The Norwegian company Telio charge 160kr/month for it, they haven’t started in Sweden yet but don’t let that stop you. With the Internet the whole world is your market.
hey i dont know how old this post is but skype now offers things like voicemail and a proper phone number that regular phone users can call and i assume people using other programs based on the SIP open standard, they are called skypein and skypeout, and i dont think they are that expensive, i use skype to ring reland from japan and i think its great, alot of people i know in ireland still have dialup connections, and tthe free skype user to user calls work fine. also i find the chat IM interface handy. just thought id give my opinion
I have never gotten Skype to work with the Powerbook G4 internal mic for computer-to-computer calls. Strangely, “Skype Out” works about half the time.
I was distressed to hear that the Jabra doesn’t work with the new Skype. I guess we’re stuck with the mic-in to line-in adapters. I love my Mac, but it’s stupid that it doesn’t have a line-in port.