Feature
Issue No. 20 - December/January 2005
Sea change - Is VoIP a viable option
by Isabel Tehel
Voice over Internet Protocol: VoIP (VOY-P). You’re going to hear a lot about it over the next few months.
What you will be promised is cheap or even free phone calls using your broadband Internet connection. Until now the domain of businesses, Internet telephony is now being promoted for residential use by both ISPs and dedicated broadband phone companies.
But for a while at least, the reality may fall short of the plain old telephone system we know and love – the ability to pick up a handset, dial a few numbers, and hear a clearly audible voice at the other end.
The limitations of bandwidth – that is, the speed and capacity -- of most residential Internet connections will have an impact on the quality of voice calls for some time to come.
However, if you already have a stable, high-speed broadband connection, you may be able to enjoy the benefits of cheaper calls right now.
As we know there is no such thing as a fee lunch, and in this case the cost of your calls will depend on the availability of cheap broadband.
In South Australia, Chariot, Adam Internet, Internode, iPrimus and Telstra have all announced plans to enter the VoIP market over the next few months.
Adam Internet seems to have a jump on the market by providing an initial rollout of AdamTalk to its own subscribers and the 16 other ISPs to whom it wholesales.
You are not locked into buying local, however. Internet voice services can be offered by any provider, anywhere. Services such as BroadbandPhone, Freshtel, Net2Phone and Curl have all kicked off in the past few months.
Freshtel CEO Michael Carew believes that over the next year the market will settle on three or four players.
"That will depend initially on pricing and quality of service," he says. "What will take over will be features."
Some readers will be familiar with the Skype service, started by the owners of the Kazaa file sharing system. Skype offers free serv...
