A few days ago, I had the priviledge of speaking with Ron Shank via Skype. I have been a Skype user for some time. As a member of a few forums, I often chat with others on the same forums, from all over the world, via Skype. It is quite a cool tool. I’ve spoken with people as close as 20 miles away and as far away as Australia and the UK. Calls are usually clearer than any phone I have ever spoken on.
I have also had quite a blast playing around with Asterisk, a full-featured, open source PBX system. This thing can do anything that a professional phone system, like the ones in most offices, can do. I have it set up for voicemail, as well as automated answering. My wife and I often go to bed around 9:00, and sometimes are awoken at 10:00 by a friend or family member calling to chat. I now have my Asterisk system set up so that from 9:00 PM to 6:00 AM, the computer will answer and play back a message saying that we are sleeping; to leave a message, press 1, or if it is an emergency, press 5 and the phones will ring (waking us).
Asterisk is also compliant with all the standard VoIP protocols, and interfaces with many VoIP services. I have several accounts with Free World Dialup, allowing me to do some pretty cool things (I bait internet scammers, and can have some real fun with them.) I have phone numbers set up through IPKall.com that will forward calls to the various FWD accounts I have. I also have a couple UK numbers set up as well.
Another cool feature I got going was a direct internet connection with a friend in Arizona. We both have Sipura-3000’s connected to our Asterisk servers, allowing us to interface with our home phone systems. I can pick up any phone in my house, dial *200, and it will ring his phones just the same as if I had dialed his phone number. However, the call goes through the internet, free of charge, and is clearer than the phone system.
Asterisk is a bit more than most people care to set up, but services like Skype work well for verbal communication through the internet. I know there are phones you can buy that work through a Skype account, so you can talk without being constrained to your computer.
Another service, similar to Skype, that I really like is the Gizmo Project. Though, it is not all that popular (so I don’t even have any contacts yet), it is fully SIP compliant (a standard VoIP protocol), so you can use it to call anyone on any SIP-compliant network, and aren’t limited to in-network calls like Skype is. In fact, If I gave out one of my FWD account numbers, anyone on Gizmo could ring my home phones through the internet for free 🙂
Dang. The stuff I miss when I’m doing other stuff sometimes amazes me!