StarDestroyer.Net BBS

I dunno if this belongs in Gaming & Computers. It probably does. But anyway...



I remember that, once upon a time, it was possible for one to place a phone call anywhere through various specialized internet programs and such, for free. Being away at college and all, this would be a very nice utility to have. Yet, try as I might, every provider seems to have either discontinued service or is now charging for the service.


Whats up with this? Am I missing some obscure group that does have a program allowing free long-distance calls? Cause that would be really really nice right now.

Thanks in advance.

The phone companies probably *very* quickly noticed this threat to their profit margin and likely mobilized to patent the technology and then charge the hell out of it for its use.

Yeah, that was my thought. By all means the service wasn't perfect, the lag made communication not quite natural, but it was fucking free.

Free is somewhat important to me right now.

Voice over IP, or VoIP technology allows for virtually free phone calls overseas and domestically with the right software, but it hasn't spread too widely yet. A lot of big companies are examining the opttions this would grant them, and there is serious research into this by companies such as Cisco and others. I worked for a few months for a company called Wicom Communications which provides a comprehensive set of software that allows switching completely to VoIP based phone systems for call centers, switchboards and company interal phone systems. It works just as well as a normal phone system too, but costs a fraction and is easily modified and you can have as distributed a system as you want. One of their clients had offices in Paris, Amsterdam, Frankfurt and someplace else in Central Europe, and all company internal calls were free of charge because they went as VoIP over their intranet which uses VPN on fixed leased bandwidth when communicating between the other offices.

Wicom has already been slaughtering the local phone companies on the VoIP front and grabbing corporate customers left and right here, and they've expanded quite a bit overseas through partnerships with big firms. They're also well ahead of everyone else in the VoIP software game because they started early and the guys who founded the company were really visionary. The best part is that the concept they work from was so bloody simple it's brilliant, and they've certainly done their best to get the most mileage out of it. It used to be that their system was tied to a Windows environment, but they've also expanded to Linux-based systems lately, which is a smart move and prevents them from being vulnerable to strangulation by Microsoft.

Edi

Dalton, forgot to say this, but they can't patent the technology, since it's already been developed and most of the development is done according to open standards. The phone companies are already out of the game.

Edi

Edi wrote:Dalton, forgot to say this, but they can't patent the technology, since it's already been developed and most of the development is done according to open standards. The phone companies are already out of the game.

My cynicism concedes to your experience

Most of the free VoIP companies died when they couldn't support their bandwidth.

So there are no more free ones?

AIM Voice Direct Connections...

Tell me more.

Download AIM, find the person you want to talk to, press the button labeled "Talk!" on the IM. Proceed to scream into microphone, hoping they have their own to scream back!

AIM is not a phone. I wish to place phone calls.

Sorry man, but all the services now cost money if you want VoIP.

phongn wrote:Sorry man, but all the services now cost money if you want VoIP.

But aren't they cheaper than phone calls?

Yes.