Practical Internet Telephony Available? 9
Rude Turnip asks: "I've become involved in a long distance relationship (northeast-midwest). My girlfriend and I like to chat on ICQ via text for a while and then head on over to the telephone for sometimes about two hours....This is on literally a daily basis. Needless to say, the long distance charges (even at a dime-a-minute) tend to run high. I'm considering buying blocks of prepaid LD time from www.bigzoo.com which would only cost me 3.9 cents/minute and going for Sprint's 1000 weekend minutes plan for $25/month. However, I'd like to try talking for free over the net. My experience with voice-over-IP (voip) software like Webphone and Netmeeting has been less than pleasant. I'd like to be able to use a device (like the AplioPhone) that lets me and my girlfriend talk over the internet without too much lag and without too much loss in sound quality. Anybody care to share their experiences with voice-over-IP devices?"
Try Speakfreely (Score:3)
MediaRing? (Score:1)
The Internet PhoneJACK from Quicknet (Score:1)
They're relatively inexpensive, integrate with all the popular software like ICQ, Net2Phone, Netmeeting, Internet Phone etc. and they have an alpha-release of linux drivers as well.
Check them out at www.quicknet.net. You can jump straight to the reviews at: http://www.quicknet.net/news_events/news_articles
PGPfone (Score:1)
I'm not going to bother using *any* internet phone proggie until I get my adsl line in (sorry, I simply do NOT buy that decent voice will go over POTS analog connections) but good encryption combined with a net phone sounds like a lot of fun.
Anonymous Coward, get it?
Re:PGPfone (Score:1)
If you take a look at the docos for SpeakFreely, you'll see that the current state of the art in toll-quality vocoders, or at least communications quality, can stuff voice down into 2Kbps.
That will fit down your phone line, believe me.
Cheers,