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Skype for Cats? Phil Wolff had given his list of 37 predictions on what will hspen with the world of Skype on 2008. Here are some of them.

1. Skype will try its best, but it will not be able to deliver a scalable open web client.
2. Adobe’s new realtime communication stack, Pacifica, will allow their flash designers, who by now count a million, to create their own Skype-like clients in a day. Soon, Braintalk Sudios, a flash creative, will turn into conference calls banner ads. The biggest evangelist in VoIM in flash of Adobe will be Ribbit.
3. Jaduka will not be bought by Skype.
4. 2008 will be another year without mails integrated by Skype.
5. Failing to execute on identity interop architectures (i.e., OpenSocial, OpenID, OAuth) is Talinn, which will remain a walled garden.

If you haven’t received a Skype call from any of your personal or business contacts from the Middle East or India, you may need to reschedule that call again. The reason being that they have been disconnected from the World Wide Web; it’s not because of some strict government crackdown or terrorist activity, but rather because of two damaged undersea cables in the Mediterranean.

There was disruption to 70% of the nationwide network in Egypt, and India suffered up to 60% disruption.
UK firms such as British Airways have told the BBC that call centres have been affected by the outage.
Industry experts said it could take up to one week to repair the damaged cables and resume full service.
International telephone calls, which have also been affected, are being rerouted to work around the problem.

Don’t worry, you’ll hear from them again once the repairs are done, hopefully, within the week.

Source

Look for the following features:

- Voice quality is good and loud enough; no echoes
- Speaker phone capabilities; again no echoes
- 3 way conference call capability
- Speed dial – that works well!
- Readable LED display
- Documentation should be easy to read and understand
- Efficient operation (i.e. not slow)
- User-unfriendly web page
- Fair price for value
- Good looks for good quality phone (i.e. no poorly-built, cheap buttons that you need to hit with hammer to activate)
- Equipment works with firewall intact
- Good configuration, functionality, stability, and codec support (for example, it shouldn’t need constant rebooting or maintenance)

This is from a website known as Free VoIP Tips.

Some regular lines with a monthly fixed payment have separate charges for other features. Additional payment is needed to have unlimited long distance. Others don’t come with free voicemail. Caller id, call waiting and call forwarding have different charges as well. This depends on the plan that is subscribed.

VoIP have a fixed monthly charge which includes the features. And because it will be using your internet, it does not have the line rental. Local and long distance are both unlimited. Some providers can give you unlimited call to Canada. There are a variety of plans to choose from.

Whichvoip.com can give you more information on the service and has a breakdown of the comparison.

Source: whichvoip.com

A few of the basic features are caller id, voicemail, call waiting, 3 way calling. Just about the same as the regular phone line.
The advance features are the best such as PC to Phone. This allows you to use your computer in making calls instead of your phone. You need special software for the feature.

Another one is that you can travel with it globally. You have the convenience of bringing it anywhere. You can bring the VoIP set up and have the high speed internet. You’ll be able to use the service. Have the convenience of calling your friends and family at home without the roaming charges and they can call you back as a local call. It does beat the service of the regular phone.

This technology cuts down your phone bills. To get the best out of it, you choose a service provider that will give you the lowest rates without sacrificing the quality. Regarding phone number transfers these concerns are known by the carriers and have been addressed by the Federal Communications Commission.

For the voice quality, it does not depend on the VoIP provider alone. Check your broadband connection for the speed. Voice quality also depends on the speed f your connection. You can check your broadband speed test and VoIP at myspeed.com. They are able to generate a report. It is easy enough to understand without using much of technical terms.

In VOIP, each new year brings with it vulnerabilities and worries, attacks and similar events. 2008 is no different than the past years, whether it pertains to IT, VoIP, or just your email account. The worries will be there, so it will be anyone’s guess on what will happen. The people at Network World have some good pieces on what people can expect in VoIP related activities. The bad news will always b there–the vulnerabilities, threats and attacks. But there is also good news–from the vantage point of view, the situation has not become critical at all.

The Federal Communications Commission has expanded local number portability (LNP) to VoIP. LNP is a feature of a phone number to be transferred from one phone carrier to another. No need to change your number.
This is a big deal because this has been a major issue. It’s one thing that you are transferring your service. With the transfer comes along the features on your old service, plus from a regular phone line to a digital. To make it simple your number is transferred and converted.

It is good that FCC has taken its part and says that the phone numbers should be ported within 48 hours from your request when you are going to a new provider.

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