April 29, 2008

Yahoo vs. Skype vs. SIP

It's not news (anymore) that Yahoo's outsoucing their Yahoo Voice service to JaJah. What's news (to me) is that their dial-out service costs $0.01/minute for calls to the US and just under $30 for a dial-in number on an annual subscription ($2.49/month). Sounds like a good deal, right?

Skype's pay-as-you-go rate for calls to US numbers is $0.021/minute and $30/year for a dial-in number on an annual subscription.

Yahoo's USA per-minute rate is less than HALF what Skype charges on a per-minute basis. No-brainer, right? Wrong! Skype offers a monthly rate for unlimited calls to US numbers: $2.95. Yahoo doesn't offer an unlimited plan ... at least not that I could find.

I'm still paying less than that for my VoicePulse Connect service. If Skype opened their service to SIP without the need for translators and bridges like HipSip and Voxeo (see an explanation of how to make this work here), I'd jump.

Posted by tony at 08:05 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack

April 28, 2008

Wireless VoIP phones

No, not 802.11 -- apparently those aren't all they're cracked up to be. No, I'm talking about DECT wireless VoIP phones.

Currently I've got a run-of-the-mill POTS phone plugged in to my Linksys SPA3102. That particular device can accept a PSTN line so I've got my landline plugged into it, too, allowing me to take and make VoIP calls and PSTN calls over my analog handset. This setup, while cheap, loses a lot of the advanced functionality afforded by VoIP.

Enter wireless VoIP handsets. Thanks to a few friends over at Twitter (@GarrettSmith and @VoIPSupply), I've found a couple that look promising. The snom m3 is my favorite but I'm hoping that Siemens will bring their C470 IP over to the United States soon. I'm looking for more information about the Polycom IP200W but, so far, nothing concrete has materialized.

Posted by tony at 10:17 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack

Kindle's back in stock

Amazon's Kindle is back in stock and has been for a week or so. A nice personal-type of unboxing is available here (complete with wife and baby) at Josh Bancroft's Tiny Screenfuls.

I have a hard time laying out $400 for a grey-scale device but I think that's just a rationalization on my part. For $400 you get portable reading of LOTS of titles that are stored in the device or (pretty much) immediately downloadable from Amazon. Books and publications are relatively cheap so, all in all, if you're a reader, it's probably worth it.

Posted by tony at 09:46 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack