Friday, February 18, 2005 10:40 AM
It looks like neat things are on the horizon for Skype! I've been an (informal) evangelist of them for awhile now and recently got a USB box to connect a regular cordless phone into my PC (thanks, Patrick!). Calls to real phones are 2-3c/minute, and to other computers running Skype are free. The quality is just amazing and NAT/firewall traversal is unreal. Phones like this being able to work between networks will be incredible. I'm not sure if agreements like this are the best in general though. Why not cell/VoIP phones, rather than cell/Skype? The thing is, H.323 and SIP are open protocols, and Skype went proprietary/closed instead. Buying a phone that locks you into one carrier is always a little "ishy" to me. On the other hand, if you buy a cell phone from any vendor, it's locked to that vendor and people don't even think about that. A Verizon phone can't (reasonably) be activated with Sprint, et al. So being tied to Skype is only weird in that it's an online service where we just tend to expect full portability. For the length of a two-year contract we trust that our cell phone carrier will stick around to fulfill committments, and I would imagine Skype will last too!
It will be interesting to see how these devices work. Will they be offered alongside the other cell phones with rebates and special deals? As for connecting out and about, I just read that Panera's is the leading provider of free Wi-Fi in the country. Unfortunately it's not that easy to get Wi-Fi in most places. If nothing else, it will be nice at home. It's just a matter of waiting for it to be released, then for prices to get reasonable!