VoIP Revisited

Matt Revell posts about Vonage’s entry into the UK VoIP market and more interestingly why these services may ultimately kill themselves.

I’ve written about VoIP before and although I’m a big fan of Skype I tend not to use it extensively because none of my contacts seem to use it… Catch 22.

I’ve not played with SkypeOut – their solution for ringing landlines from Skype – yet, but the rates look attractive.

A big downside to Skype (for me) is the (current) lack of a ‘SkypeIn’ solution. I need the ability to receive incoming calls from landlines.

Until Skype offer such a service, I’ve signed up with Nildram’s (my ISP) VoIP service (currently in trials) as they provide an incoming number, voicemail, and free calls to UK freephone numbers (Skype charges for these). So far it seems pretty good – although I have had a few problems with echo so now I’m looking into standalone hardware units.