Everyone seems to want to be a part of the voice-over IP
trend, and with good reason. If you're already paying for an Internet
connection and a phone connection, wouldn't it be great if you could
simply drop one?
That's what VoIP promises. You can use your
Internet connection to make phone calls, And seemingly free phone
calls-- Internet connections typically cost a flat fee every month,
whether you use the connection or not. While there are some bandwidth
limitations, these limitations don't effect most people. Furthermore,
long distance costs don't matter when you're sending data over the
Internet.
With the right hardware, almost anyone can connect. Most
PCs come with speakers and many include microphones. Add your Internet
connection and you could, in theory, make phone calls.
The only
real problem is that the Internet doesn't look much like a phone.
Furthermore, you would only be able to call other Internet users with
compatible software. That's where services like Vonage and Skype come in. These
services allow you to connect to the ordinary phone system, so that you
can order a pizza, call Grandma, or a dial-a-joke service. These
services cost money, obviously. You can often get a phone adapter to
allow you to use your existing phones, and bypass the computer. The
phone adapter connects your phone wiring to your Internet connection.
Skype provides a Linux version of its software.
That's why a new
project is so appealing. The Gizmo project, at www.gizmoproject.com,
provides a software application with versions for Windows, Mac OS X, and
of course, Linux. This Gizmo software provides a sort of combination
Instant Messenger, or IM, application and Internet phone.
Like IM
clients, Gizmo shows you a list of your contacts, which Gizmo also calls
a quick dial list. While these terms make Gizmo appear more phone-like,
you can't help but see the contact list as an IM buddy list. Gizmo tells
you the status of each contact, such as available, busy, and so on. In
addition, you can choose the status you want Gizmo to display to others
describing whether you are available.
In addition, when you
initiate a call, you type in a subject line, similar to the line used
for email messages. And, if the person you are calling is a member of
the Gizmo service, you can get a map showing the location of you can the
person you are calling, using the Google map service. To make a call,
you enter either a normal phone number or the Gizmo ID of another
person.
The best part is that communicating with other Gizmo users
is free. If you want to make phone calls to actual phones, though, you
need to sign up for a service that requires a monthly fee. Since the
Gizmo software runs on Windows, Mac OS X, and Linux, you could get
Grandma on the system and make free long-distance calls. All she needs
is a computer and an Internet connection, and chances are she has
both.
In this respect, Gizmo is very similar to Skype, which is
also free for calling other Skype users. To call in or out of the Skype
network, you need to sign up for a fee-based service, similar to that
provided by Gizmo. Gizmo goes further, though, in allowing
network-to-network connections. This allows you to call in from other
VoIP services, as well as call from Gizmo to other VoIP users. --Eric
Foster-Johnson
