[wellylug] VOIP calling band-width usage

[Rik Wade]

On 18/08/2007, at 10:49 AM, Jethro Carr wrote:
> Skype's a piece of buggy, unstable crap.
>
> I've had it regularly crash, lock up the whole system for a minute and
> found various bugs with it's features.

I have had no problems whatsoever running it on OS X, and I've done  
some video conferencing on MS Windows which seemed quite stable.

You need to consider the small percentage of Skype's market that is  
made up of Linux desktop users. It really isn't worth their time as a  
business to prioritise the Linux release over work that could be done  
on Windows or OS X. It's only in the recent past that the OS X client  
has become more feature-rich and closely tracking the MS Windows  
release schedule.

If I was doing VoIP chat on a Linux desktop, I'd probably look at  
some of the standards-based open source clients that I could use with  
an Internet-based SIP provider. You'll get comparable network  
performance to Skype and the call-out rates won't be much different.  
The client software will probably be much more stable and actively  
developed.

However, as with many other things, unless you really need to use the  
computer for integrated IM, VoIP, PSTN callout, Video etc. then the  
actual rates for calling out to the PSTN are pretty well matched by  
many of the calling cards you can buy from the dairy.

If it's just VoIP chat over the Internet to a few people you know,  
then there's a good selection of open source clients that could be used.
--
r
-------------- next part --------------
A non-text attachment was scrubbed...
Name: PGP.sig
Type: application/pgp-signature
Size: 194 bytes
Desc: This is a digitally signed message part
Url : http://lists.wellylug.org.nz/pipermail/wellylug/attachments/20070818/7bc56339/attachment.pgp