Mark Kent wrote:
> Roy Schestowitz <newsgroups@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx> espoused:
>> Linux device offers free phone calls for life
>>
>> ,----[ Quote ]
>>| A startup is readying an interesting new Linux-based device promising to
>>| deliver free domestic calls (in the U.S.) for life, with no ongoing
>>| charges. Ooma's hub uses P2P networking, with each user's landline
>>| serving as a potential local termination point for all other users.
>> `----
>>
>> http://www.linuxdevices.com/news/NS4897744650.html
>
> That's free so long as you pay for the net access and buy the device, of
> course. Without 3-mode networking, these methods will never produce
> truly reliable calls, though, but once it, it will be able to.
>
> If existing landlines are going to be used for terminating the calls,
> then the network operators might well have to review their line rental
> charges, if they're retaining equipment which /never/ has any revenue,
> it must be paid for somehow.
>
I know people grumble about Skype, and much of that I would once agree with
such as it used to be poor or broken voice, occasionally cut off and so on.
But it is a long time since I had problems with it.
Even landline calls are reasonable, if you take into account that you pay
only for that call, you don't pay any sort of advance in rental form for
the right to make a call. For heavy users that might be more expensive than
BT or NTL, but for me it is very cheap.
I buy skype credits, at first I was buying £20 worth. But it lasts a very
long time, with calls to landlines at about one penny per minute. Even long
calls to my sister's landline (UK to Salt lake city in the USA) were only
bout one penny per minute, then she got Skype too so its free now.
The dual pst/skype phones. you have to keep your computer on. But as many of
us Linux folk have a server or server/client on all of the time anyway,
then we can just set it off and then forget about it. Which is exactly what
does happen, because when I took my server to work to reform a mirror
(faster than VPN), I left it at work over night to update and didn't
realise until I got home that I didn't have a phone anymore :) Oh well, who
would want to talk to me anyway.
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