I agree with earlier praise for Skype. I have been using Skype almost from the time it became available and am satisfied with it as a replacement for regular telephone over long distances.
Before Skype I have been using SpeakFreely, MSN, Eyeball and a number of others. Skype has up till now been my favorite. One of the reasons is, it circumvents firewalls much better than the ones herefor mentioned. Using a combination of a headphone/microphone, preferably a one-ear headphone with mice attached to it, gives good quality sound without environmental noise. One drawback is, that when not using Skype-out you will have to be both at your PC to know a conversation is wanted and to start a conversation. Met vriendelijke groet, Eppo R. Kooi. -----Oorspronkelijk bericht----- Van: Windows Home/SOHO [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] Namens Dave Jackson Verzonden: dinsdag 29 maart 2005 10:31 On Tue, 29 Mar 2005 08:39:50 +0100, Hugh Gundersen <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: > On Tue, 29 Mar 2005 11:37:35 +1000, you wrote: > > >Wondering if anyone on the list has any experience with Internet Telephony. > >Suggested hardware or vendor products such as http://www.ipconnect.biz > > SNIP Skype seems to be the best on offer for the non-corporate user ATM. Conference (free of telephony charges) calls between broadband users are usually of reasonable quality - up to 5 users at a time IIRC although the need for some agreed for of mediation quickly becomes apparent! On a one to one basis the quality is usually far better than conventional telephony - the use of a good cardioid microphone and multimedia speakers helps to achieve this. So called "Skype out" calls to landline telephones offer calls from the UK to N America, Australia and Europe cost â0.17 per minute and are financed by the online purchase of â10.00 blocks - these blocks are valid for 6 months IIRC. The only time I have experienced Hugh's problem of seeming to be talking in a "dancehall" was brought about by my fellow caller being on a dialup connection - something to do with the microphone muting on an imperfect full duplex setup - or some such tech issue. The placement of speakers is also instrumental in minimising feedback. I suppose a high quality headset will be OK. Dave Jackson -- ---------------------------------------- The WIN-HOME list is hosted on a Windows 2000(TM) machine running L-Soft international's LISTSERV(R) software. To unsubscribe, write to [EMAIL PROTECTED] If you have questions about the list, write to [EMAIL PROTECTED]
