Speak Freely - Voice-Over-IP Taking Root

Trevor Bauknight Years ago, I tried to convince my parents, who lived about three hours
away from me, to install a program called PGPfone on their computer so
they could call me online for free (as a bonus, it was encrypted, so
nobody could eavesdrop on their lecturing me about school and work!);
but this was in the days of dialup access, and it was too complicated
or something.

But it did allow me to look a decade or so into the future and see the
Internet merging with and taking over traditional technologies like
phone service. That's finally starting to happen, now that broadband
for the masses is a reality, and one little company stands poised to
make it huge.

In 2003, Niklas Zennstrom and Janus Friis, better known as the
founders of the wildly-popular peer-to-peer file sharing system called
KaZaA, created Skype, the Global Internet Telephone Company. Based in
Luxembourg, the Skype Group's website (http://www.skype.com) states
that their client program has been downloaded over 100 million times
and the company's website ticks the number of minutes served -- over 8
BILLION and counting.

How Does It Work?

At the most basic level, you download the free Skype program, which
most resembles a chat program like iChat or AIM. You can even use it
to type back and forth if that's your thing. You set up an account at
the Skype website where you can maintain profile information,
preferences and contact lists. It even stores your chat transcripts
in your account online so that you can access that important website
link your boss sent you while you were home when you get to the office
the next day. Yahoo! could take a lesson.

The real beauty of Skype is when you connect with another Skype user
and talk with them as if they were sitting next to you. I was blown
away by the quality and ease of use the first time I used it here at
Cafe ID (http://www.cafeid.com) to talk to one of our programmers in
Eastern Europe. You set up contact lists and making calls is as
simple as initiating a chat in a lesser program.

You can also use your Skype program to call normal phones anywhere in
the world simply by depositing money into an account and dialing the
numbers. SkypeOut Calls are billed based on their destination. For
example, if you're in China, and you want to call the U.S., you pay
the low U.S. rate, but if you're in South Carolina and you want to
call China, you pay a higher rate. Skype has blessed large portions
of the globe -- the continental U.S. and Canada, Western Europe and
Australia -- with a low (roughly $.02/minute) Global Rate. Other
destinations are more expensive, as is calling mobile telephones. The
most expensive rate is $1.17/minute to -- you guessed it! East Timor.

Two new features are in the works, as well. SkypeIn is a service that
allows you to set yourself up with a Skype phone number where the
technological laggards can reach you. It doesn't matter where you
are, as long as you're logged into Skype, you're at your phone number.
This is an invaluable service for business travelers who go places
in which their cellphones don't know they're in the world. The other
new service is Skype Voicemail. It, of course, works like your
traditional voicemail system, but stores your messages online where
you can retrieve them at any point.

What Do You Need?

Not much. It doesn't take broadband to carry decent-sounding voice
traffic -- a 33.6 Kbps dialup connection is fast enough. The Skype
site states that you need a PC running Windows 2000 or XP, at least a
400 MHz processor and 128 MB RAM, 15 MB free disk space on your hard
drive, a Sound Card, speakers and microphone. The Skype program is
free, and is available for Windows, Mac OS X, Linux and even PocketPC
devices. To use Skype to call normal phones, you'll have to put money
in your account.

If you have those things, you're set. A good speaker and microphone
combination goes a long way toward making your Skype experience more
enjoyable. Better still is a nice comfortable headset with a boom
mic. It doesn't take much tinkering to get your setup performing
well, and once you do, the conversations are crisp and clear, with a
presence you really don't find in a normal phone call.

Are There Drawbacks?

Not really. I'm sure some of you groaned when I mentioned that the
company was started by the founders of KaZaA, the notorious
peer-to-peer file sharing program that relied on advertising for its
revenue and became an enemy of the anti-spyware effort. But Skype is
different. Skype plans to earn money through services like SkypeOut
and by offering value-added services to businesses. According to its
founder, viral marketing drives awareness of the product. Zennstrom
points out that "If we had adware in Skype, it would kind of be
counterproductive to our business model."

For viral marketing to work, he continued, "you need to gain trust of
end users... If there is a bunch of adware in the software, you
probably don't recommend it to friends and family."

As a practical example, we're super-paranoid about spyware and adware
at our office. We've had Skype installed on our machines for months,
and haven't seen anything out of order yet. Skype is going out of its
way to appeal to business users, and the company seems intent on doing
things the right way with regard to privacy and security. Calls are
digitally encrypted and Skype has a stout privacy policy. Three
cheers for that bit of news.

What Next?

Who can say? Zennstrom and Friis both seem proud to be purveyors of
what they have termed "disruptive technology." That sounds like it
could be a bad thing; but in reality, what's being disrupted is a
stale status quo in desperate need of disrupting. Most local phone
companies are a monopoly in the regions they serve and are only now
beginning to face competition. Cable companies like Time-Warner want
a piece of the VoIP action, and deals are popping up everywhere.

We're pulling for the friendly little Luxembourg company, however, to
change the face of not just Internet telephony, but of all sorts of
person-to-person direct communication. They want you to tell your
friends, family and coworkers to treat themselves to Skype and spread
the word by cheerful praise. It seems far-fetched to talk about talk
about that in the same sentence with your telephone service provider;
but that's the point here. Once in a while a company comes along with
an idea that changes the world, and I wouldn't be a bit surprised if
this wasn't one of those times.

About the Author

Trevor Bauknight is a web designer and writer with over 15 years of
experience on the Internet. He specializes in the creation and
maintenance of business and personal identity online and can be
reached at trevor@tryid.com. Stop by CafeID.com for a free tryout of the revolutionary SiteBuildingSystem and check out our
Flash-based website and IMAP e-mail hosting solutions, complete with live support.