June 28th, 2004

Filed under:
Technology
5 Comments »

I’m Fully Skype-Enabled

Skype is a paradigm-changing, VOiP client that enables you to have a conversation over your PC for free, anywhere in the world. All you need is a computer with speakers (or headphones), a microphone and a broadband connection.

I just tried Skype this morning for the first time, and after some technical difficulty with my rarely-used microphone, I had a conversation with our friends in Dublin. The clarity was excellent, definitely equal to that of a long-distance phone call and with no latency. There was occasionally a slight bit of interference, but otherwise I was really impressed by the service.

At the moment, both parties have to have Skype running on their PCs to talk. In the near future, Skype is launching a service that enables a Skype user to call somebody who has a regular phone.

Comments: 5 Responses so far

vio
June 28th, 2004
11:50 am

ooohohoh i use this :)
it’s great.. and if you use msn you can chat and use webcam and talk all at the same time
*cringes*
signed,
super geek vio

[Reply]

Richard
June 28th, 2004
11:53 am

What makes hypey Skype any better than Net2Phone, or any of the various flavours of messenger and audio/video conferencing clients? There are dozens of established competing products.

[Reply]

Darren
June 28th, 2004
12:20 pm

Richard: I know very little about VOiP, so aside from user experience, I don’t even know what the differentiators are. Skype clearly has the most marketing oomph, so that’s what makes them more popular. That doesn’t necessarily mean better, but as history has taught us, better doesn’t necessarily mean more popular.

[Reply]

Martin
June 28th, 2004
10:54 pm

Hey, that’s VoIP, not VOiP!

[Reply]

donna
June 29th, 2004
10:29 am

my dad uses Skype. He likes it — it works well for when he plays Battlefield online, he can be talking to the other people playing. Which says a lot for it that you can be playing an intensive online game, and still talk online without any loss of performance. woot.

[Reply]

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