Interesting People mailing list archives
Re: An observation about Apples claims on jamming
From: David Farber <dave () farber net>
Date: Sun, 2 Aug 2009 16:47:53 -0400
Begin forwarded message: From: Jeff Porten <civitan () jeffporten com> Date: August 2, 2009 10:04:58 AM EDT To: dave () farber net Subject: Re: [IP] Re: An observation about Apples claims on jamming On Aug 1, 2009, at 5:14 PM, David Farber wrote:
its perfectly clear if applications that enabled voice communication using the 3g data path were allowed, carriers could loose $100MM or more of revenue.
That's part of what's so unclear about the decision to block Google Voice -- this does *not* prevent VOIP calls.
For those of you without a GV account -- if you initiate a call from within GV, it rings through first on your selected phone, then connects you to the caller. (Essentially, initiating this call on the web creates an incoming call on both sides.) In the absence of a GV application, this can be done just as easily via Safari.
Meanwhile, GV has an option to send incoming calls to a Gizmo Project account (which provides a SIP number for free, and a paid option for a regular phone number). Gizmo in turn has an option to redirect those calls to a Skype account. Ergo, if you want to use GV for all of your calls -- free unlimited service within the US, exceedingly cheap rates elsewhere -- the infrastructure is still there to do this.
I'm not an iPhone owner, so I can't say how well this works in practice, but if the next generation iPod Touch has a built-in microphone (as rumored), I'll be trying this out -- which means that any time I'm in a wifi cloud, I have a cell phone with free service. On my Mac, Gizmo is generally reliable -- calls connect around 95% of the time (and almost always upon redial), with the worst problem being a slight audio lag. Combined with a cellular portable wifi point (i.e., the Mefi from Verizon, or cheaper options from MVNOs), this strikes me as the cheapest and most flexible way of getting most of the iPhone experience, as well as always-on connections for other devices.
Best, Jeff Porten ------------------------------------------- Archives: https://www.listbox.com/member/archive/247/=now RSS Feed: https://www.listbox.com/member/archive/rss/247/ Powered by Listbox: http://www.listbox.com
Current thread:
- Re: An observation about Apples claims on jamming David Farber (Aug 01)
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- Re: An observation about Apples claims on jamming David Farber (Aug 02)
- Re: An observation about Apples claims on jamming David Farber (Aug 02)