by Karelle Scharff

I have to preface this column with a disclaimer: Among the services I will talk about, the only solution I personally have used is Skype. However, I have helped clients set up many if not most of the solutions I talk about below. Additionally, my daughter, who finishes her undergraduate education this December, is contemplating a volunteer opportunity in Brazil. I want to ensure that we can stay in touch without breaking an already strained bank.

That said, the world has moved on from the telephone services of the 1950s. Not just the variety of shapes of phones but the array of services offered has exploded, with voice mail, 3-way calling, call forwarding, cell phones, DSL, and all of the attendant capabilities.

In the last few years, among all the telephony fairy tales that have come true, is a technology called VoIP, or Voice over Internet Protocol. This is a collection of technologies protocols, which allow a digital network – the Internet, and your connection to it – to carry an analog signal – the sound of your voice. There are several ways to go about this: soft phones, standard analog phones connected to VoIP adapters, specially designed phones that incorporate the adapter into the phone itself and SIP (session initiated protocol) phones accessing the Internet over wireless routers, both at home and in wireless hotspots.

The most common example of a soft phone, a phone that requires a computer and software to make and receive phone calls, is Skype. Though developed by entrepreneurs in Tallinn, Estonia, Skype was bought by eBay in 2005. Skype can be used from Skype-loaded computer to Skype-loaded computer, a free service that includes voice, video, file transfer, and IM; or it can be used to call from a computer with Skype to a landline or mobile phone (SkypeOut—around $.02/min in the US). Conversely, SkypeIn allows regular telephone users to call to a local Skype number, even if the owner of the number is in another country altogether. Numbers are available for a number of countries, including the US. Calls are clear, and several of my clients, grandparents whose children are far away, regard it as the best thing since the telephone. However, there have been complaints about their customer service, or lack thereof.

The more recent buzz is about a product called Magic Jack: a USB adapter that attaches to your computer and software that is installed. You plug the phone into the adapter, register and pay your $19.95 for the year, choose a phone number and away you go. Caveat emptor—there is no phone-based customer service, all issues go through their Web chat and there is no shortage of angry, former Magic Jack users on the Internet telling their stories. But there are also plenty of satisfied users to counter them. They do offer a 30-day free trial.

All of the other kinds of VoIP are hardware solutions that don’t require a computer to use the phone. They do share some concerns, mostly about emergencies: their very nature, both mobility and portability, makes 911 calls problematic, and the fact that they are dependent on electricity makes relying on them in areas subject to frequent or prolonged power outages a crap shoot, unless they are plugged into a UPS, (uniteruptable power supply). Subscribers are expected to keep their address information current with the provider in order to make emergency calls apply to the right location.

Digital Voice is Comcast’s VoIP service in which the cable modem has a jack for the phone to plug directly into the modem. You can plug your whole houseful of phones into the cable modem via the wall jacks. The Comcast cable modem also has a built-in UPS to take care of short-term power outages. I’ve heard few complaints about their service.

Vonage offers several different varieties of phone and service plans and allows its customers to select a phone number from any area code in the U.S. and for a charge to add “virtual phones,” secondary phone numbers for your primary Vonage phone. If you have a business with a presence in New York, Boulder, Boca Raton and Alaska or tight-knit but far-flung family, this could be a money saver.
Though you must be careful about potential security and 911 issues, these services offer an increasingly popular alternative to expensive and limited POTS, (plain old telephone service).

www.vonage-faq.com/voip-faq.html
www.fcc.gov/cgb/consumerfacts/voip.html
www.fcc.gov/cgb/consumerfacts/voip911.html
http://testyourvoip.com/results.html?id=I3XAZA
www.skype.com
www.comcast.com/comcastdigitalvoice/
www.magicjack.com

Karelle Scharff, information technologist and the owner of Best MacSolutions is an Apple certified help desk specialist and a member of Apple Consultants Network (www.bestmacsolutions.com), based in Ward. She provides training, service and support to small businesses, home-based business and individuals. Karelle teaches beginning Mac OS X classes in at the Longmont Free University (check their schedules at www.longmontfreeu.org). Questions about classes or Macs? Call her at (303) 459-3363.