VoIP – A Tower Of Babel?
from the fixing-the-mess dept
About a year ago, Jeff Pulver demonstrated Free World Dialup to me at his office. The call was crisp sounding, and it certainly was impressive. The problem, in my mind, was that you could only call other FWD users. That seemed pretty limiting. While there was a rapidly growing number of FWD subscribers, the last thing I needed was yet another ID for yet another communications medium. It appears that Jeff has come to the same conclusion. Admitting that he’s helped to create a “VoIP Tower of Babel” he’s now working to get the various VoIP providers to talk to one another. Of course, with the various systems in place, and widely varying policies, it’s unclear if this will do any good. People are running to Vonage because it’s a very clear phone replacement. FWD is not. It’s a different beast altogether, and it takes a bit more explaining to understand why it might be useful.
Comments on “VoIP – A Tower Of Babel?”
Vonage
My Vonage phone arived yesterday. Despite a setup issue it is working great, you would not know it was VOIP except by looking at the price.
Rebuttal + FWD Now offers Toll Free Dialing to: US
I think many people missed the point of the story including the writer. I’ve posted a clarification at:
Connecting the Dots and Service Providers.
Just so you know, as of yesterday, July 30th, FWD has reached 40,000 subscribers in over 150+ countries. This week we introduced the ability to place toll free calls (for free) to: the US, United Kingdom and the Netherlands. Details regarding the re-introduction of a free phone call can be found:
here.
Hope to see you at Fall VON in Boston!