Twelve Black Code Monkeys

Last week I wrote about Voice Over IP (VOIP) and Skype on cell phones. I’ve had VOIP service for over a year now, but as I’ve mentioned, the quality just hasn’t been there. What’s more, sometimes the phone just doesn’t ring when it should. My wife and I have been talking recently about looking for other options, but instead of just going with another VOIP provider, I thought I’d take a look at Skype to see what all the fuss is about. Skype is somewhat similar to VOIP in that it runs via the internet, but it has some big differences as well. I’m already familiar with standard phone lines, of course, and I’ve been a cell phone user for about ten years now. I thought it might be a good exercise to go through some of the plusses and minuses of these various forms of voice communication. Of course what makes sense for one person isn’t going to for another, but at least this will lay things out as far as the offerings exist right at the moment – something that’s sure to change fairly quickly after I write this! Just a quick disclaimer that this is written in the perspective of a consumer in the U.S. Other countries or parts of the world, of course, will have very different landscapes!

Pricing

Mobile Phone: big range of price plans depending on the carrier and what type of plan. Few all-you-can-eat plans, but what you get in terms of free monthly minutes has gone up significantly over the last ten years. Generally you can expect to pay about $40 per month for a middle-of-the-road plan with 500-1000 free minutes per month, plus free night and weekend calling. Incoming calls still count the same way outgoing calls do here in the U.S. International calls usually are extra although within the U.S. most carriers have at least some plans that make additional roaming charges a thing of the past.

Skype: free for computer-to-computer communications, $3-5/month for an incoming phone line (you don’t pay for calls you receive), and outgoing calls priced at $.01-.05 per minute depending on the country you are calling (no matter where you call from), and the exchange rate between the Dollar and the Euro. Currently calling to the U.S. is 2.3 cents per minute.

VOIP: ranges depending on the carrier. There are different types of plans but most VOIP providers have an unlimited plan that costs between about $20 and $40 per month where you can call anywhere in the U.S, sometimes Canada, and sometimes even a bunch of other countries around the world without incurring extra fees.

Standard Telco Service: also varies tremendously based on which Telco, but they are responding more and more to the competition with VOIP and many are starting to offer their own VOIP solutions. Many are now also offering some unlimited local & long distance plans at fairly reasonable rates. For example, Verizon services our neck of the woods and has an unlimited plan for $51.

Portability

Mobile Phone: ultimate. Mobile networks are fairly ubiquitous now, although certainly there are areas that are still too remote to have service. All you need to take with you is the phone itself, and the mobile phone’s footprint has gotten very small indeed.

Skype: significant. You can install Skype on most computer platforms. Other than a high-speed connection, you need a microphone, but that’s about it. Third party adapters allow you to use a regular telephone, so for example you don’t have to be chained to the computer itself. If a laptop isn’t portable enough, you can use a Windows Mobile device with Skype, but you still need a Wifi connection, so don’t expect to use Skype while driving around in your car – not yet anyway! You can also just install Skype on a computer if you have access to do that, or alternately you can run Skype off of a USB flash drive that is smaller than any cell phone.

VOIP: significant. In some ways VOIP is a little more portable than Skype, mainly because you don’t need a computer, only a VOIP adapter or a VOIP Wifi phone, both of which are pretty small. You take these and plug them into any available high-speed network (e.g. cyber café or hotel room Ethernet port). VOIP is designed to use standard telephones as the device to talk through so unless you have a VOIP Wifi phone, you will also need to bring along a standard telephone, which makes it a little less portable, but still better than lugging a laptop. Where VOIP loses slightly to Skype as far as portability is that you must bring equipment with you to use it.

Standard Telco Service: limited. Your line goes into your house, and other than using a wireless phone to roam around your house, that’s about it. You can optionally forward your phone to another number, say your cell phone, but then this would probably incur extra charges, perhaps from both your cell and your landline provider.

Features

Mobile Phone: many. Voicemail, call-waiting, call-transfer, conference-calling, etc., are all part of the plan. Although a few features may incur some extra charges on some carriers, most are free.

Skype: some. Unlike VOIP, Skype does not have a huge array of features. There are things you can do with Skype that you can’t with other providers, like text chatting and file transfers, but this is only when both parties are using Skype. Voicemail is an extra charge, although it comes free when you pay the relatively low price for an incoming phone number. You cannot, at this point, access your voicemail unless you are at a computer with Skype installed (or perhaps using it via USB flash drive). Skype also cannot call emergency services. Skype doesn’t transmit your number when you call a regular phone, which may be useful for privacy issues, but may also prevent your call from being answered if the person on the other end doesn’t recognize your number on his caller ID. You currently can’t forward your Skype calls to another number.

VOIP: Many. Not only do you have access to most of the features you could think of, but many that you simply can’t find elsewhere. For example, many VOIP services give you the option of being notified by email when you’ve gotten a call or voicemail, or even send you a sound file of that voicemail. You can also change forwarding options, listen to voicemail, turn on and off various features all by just logging into your account from any computer connected to the internet or by calling your number from a standard phone and navigating menus. Many VOIP providers still aren’t fully compatible with emergency services – they end up forwarding you to a non-emergency number and there’s no locational information transferred. However, recently the FCC mandated that VOIP service must become fully compliant with 911 Services within the next four months. So this should not be an issue for long.

Standard Telco Service: some. While many services are available, traditionally they almost have all incurred additional cost. This seems to be changing with some of the unlimited plans as the Telcos try to compete with VOIP – even with their own VOIP offerings. Some of these unlimited packages now contain a core set of additional features (like voicemail, caller ID, call waiting, and conference calling) for no additional cost. Generally these features are not as easily changed by the consumer as with VOIP, but they still amount to a better collection features than, say, Skype.

Voice Quality

Mobile Phone: D to B- (on a standard grading scale). Some mobile phones and networks get excellent reception, some do not. There are many variables here including the type of technology being used (CDMA vs. GSM), how many cell towers a carrier has in your area, and even the model phone you’re using. Dead spots and other anomalies can caused dropped calls and other annoyances, and even at it’s best, the voice quality will seldom even equal that of a standard landline call.

Skype: D to A+. Skype has a big advantage here when both parties are using Skype on a computer (or Windows Mobile Device). Skype can produce sound that is worlds better than even standard telephone service. The dynamic range is more equivalent to that of FM radio perhaps even a little better. Unfortunately, when the person on the other end is on a regular phone line (or a mobile phone), the quality goes down to whatever is on the other end. Likewise for the person you are talking to, who will hear you only at the voice quality that there phone can handle. Because Skype is a new technology, there are still lots of glitches for some people. Instances when one of the parties can’t hear the other, or excessive static or other problems all happen from time to time.

VOIP: D to B. Because VOIP uses standard telephones as the device you talk with, voice quality will never be better then that. Again, because VOIP is new and because of inherent issues with internet transmission of data, there can be problems with voice quality, such as stuttering, static, etc. Personally when I’ve used it the reception on my end is perfectly fine, but the other has problems hearing me – my voice is to soft or it gets clipped here and there making it hard to follow. This of course will be different for different providers, it will depend on your internet connection, and probably other variables as well.

Standard Telco Service: B. This has been the standard bearer of voice communications for over 100 years. Voice quality is somewhat akin to AM radio, maybe a bit less, but since it has been around so long, all the bugs have been worked out and any reception issues are rare, or are due to faulty equipment on the part of the customer (e.g. an individual’s wireless phone which does not have good transmission quality, some frayed wiring, etc).

Although some purists like the idea of only using one type of service, this isn’t usually the best strategy in the realm of voice communications, at least not at this stage. Most people these days have a cell phone, but only a small percentage of those people have given up their landline phone as well. Of course if you are more likely to be away from home than you are to be at home, it does make sense to ditch the landline. While VOIP can provide a great number of features, it’s still a new technology and so not always that reliable. Just as with cell phones, reception issues on VOIP can sometimes be exasperating and so if its important that your phone be as close to 100% reliable as possible, neither VOIP nor Skype may be good options for you. If having Emergency services available to you is critical, there’s still nothing as reliable as a standard telephone line.

Currently I actually have all four of these different services. This is partly because I like to play with new technology, and partly because no one service does everything, at least not for a reasonable price. I’m not committed to any one of these yet, and really how can you be? As I said, this is a constantly changing landscape. Soon VOIP will need to comply with the FCC’s ruling and provide 911 services, but this may also increase their prices to where they are not nearly as good a deal as they are today. Likewise Skype is petitioning the FCC to be excluded from this mandate, but who knows what the result will be. Skype continues to add new features and functionality, but so do many VOIP providers and the offerings from the regular Telcos will certainly try to keep pace as much as possible. As the telecom infrastructure becomes more hearty with fiber optic to the home and higher and higher speed cellular data networks, ubiquitous Wifi or Wimax, this landscape will continue to change, some services merging with others, and perhaps some even dying, or at least becoming used only rarely as failsafe backup systems. It’s enough to make you want to just stick with the plain old telephone line and wait for a few years until all the battles are over! But the problem is that the battles will never be over. Newer types of services will come around that we simply don’t know about today, as technology progresses and new possibilities can be imagined. At least for some of us, it’s fun to play with the newest technology in this area. While we may pay the price in that we have to deal with the rough edges of a new technology, unlike in other areas where being an early adopter means also paying much more, at least in this realm so far many of the cutting edge technologies have been able to attract customers by their progressive pricing structures.

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