Voip Applications Is Internet Phone Service Right for You?
OUTSTANDING: mmmmm VERY GOOD: mmmm GOOD: mmm Reviews FLAWED: mm UNACCEPTABLE: m VoIP Applications Is Internet Phone Service Right for You? BY TED WALLINGFORD Voice over IP, or VoIP, is an emerging person using technology that allows you to use your traditional broadband Internet connection to place and standard phone receive voice and videophone calls. Internet- high-speed phone line server phone line based calls are less expensive than tradi- (operated by the tional calls (sometimes they’re even free), VoIP service) phone and many VoIP-based communication ser- company vices are compatible with the old-fashioned global phone network, so you can use these new VoIP tools to place calls to and receive them from traditional phone numbers. By adding some desktop VoIP software tools to your Mac, you, too, can take advantage of Internet Internet calling. We’ve reviewed four Mac-compatible desktop VoIP applications: Apple’s iChat AV 3.1.4, SIPPhone’s Gizmo Project 1.3.2, SightSpeed 4.5, and Skype 1.4. We also computer-to- checked out a unique product called Wengo- computer-to- phone call Phone; still in beta for the Mac, this VoIP computer call plug-in for Mozilla Firefox lets you make and receive calls via the browser. While each program has strengths and weaknesses, they all do basically the same computer-to-computer thing: they present you with a buddy list like conference call the one in an instant-messaging (IM) pro- gram, and they allow you to communicate by voice (and sometimes video) with the folks in that list.
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