I missed this the first time around, but Jason Groshart, an engineer at Gold Systems wrote a good post on VoIP, VoiceXML/SALT, NLSR converging to make better voice applications.
We first started experimenting with VoIP (Voice over IP) in 1997, and even got a letter of intent from AT&T for $1,000,000 to invest in the spin-off company that we called Click-n-Call. It never happened of course, but that’s another post. We did get our product working though and got a couple of Fortune 500 companies to trial it. I just noticed that the Internet Archive has record of our first ugly Click-n-Call webpage! Don’t bother trying to make a call – the gateways have been gone for years.
Anyway, VoIP is real now and here to stay. In a future post I’ll write about the lessons learned from dealing with a bleeding edge technology and a gigantic company like AT&T.
I don’t know a lot about VOIP and havn’t tried Vonage and the other phone to phone companies, but I’ve been playing with Skype lately and loooove it. Yesterday I called a friend of mine in New Zealand. Sound quality was perfect. Since we both have stereo speakers, it sounded more like a radio show than a tinny phone call. Very cool.