Voice Over IP
In late 2000, I did some work for a computer distributor headquartered in Kansas with regional sales offices in Atlanta, L.A., Chicago, Connecticut, and Dallas. In early 2001, the distributor decided to connect its offices with a voice over Internet protocol network, or VoIP for short. It sounded cool, until you tried to watch a video conference or talk on a phone. The thing kept cutting out as the broadband connection dropped packets. Like many cool technical initiatives, it just wasn’t ready for everyday use. Recently, I tried out a VoIP provider at my home. The provider sent me a router that looked just like any other blue four-port router except that it also had a pair of phone jacks on the back. I connected it to another router I was using already, connected a plain old phone to it, and, in a couple of minutes, the phone had a dial tone.I made a few calls to people who are used to participating in my mad experiments. “You’re talking to me on a WHAT?” they’d say. At first I said something like, “A voice over IP connection. Isn’t that cool?” Then I tired of that and just said, “Over the Internet. I’m not using the phone company.” They said it sounded just like any other bothersome phone call. I could hear just fine from my end, too. What a difference in quality in only four years. I’m surprised that no politician has taken credit yet for the visible, um, audible improvements.
People have come to expect the unexpected, and perhaps my friends have been conditioned to it more than most. Anyhow, I not only tried out VoIP, I transferred my phone number and cut the cable, er, phone line. This was not a decision that I took lightly. I love Ma Bell. I want them to put her back together. I lived in Texas for fifty years, and the power goes out during big thunderstorms there, but the phone almost never did. It’s always been a family tradition to call the power company and tell them that the power is off because we heard the transformer blow right behind our house. So despite that tradition, here I am, without a phone line connected to my house. I reasoned that my cell phone works pretty well, if I keep it charged up. If I had a power outage and needed to call someone, I’d try that. So I switched.
What’s All This Noise about VoIP?
Phone carriers have been using digital networks for years. Remember the commercials with Candace Bergen where you could hear a pin drop over a spiffy-cool fiber optic network? What they were doing was taking sound and converting it to an electronic signal the way Al Bell did, but then they converted the electronic signal into a digital signal and sent it through the fiber optic network in packets.Packetizing voice traffic turned out to be a good deal for phone companies—they didn’t have to connect a pair of copper wires from your phone to your mother’s and leave it for the two of you to monopolize until your ear got numb and you made an excuse to get off the phone. Instead, they could put thousands of conversations together for the long haul and then split them apart at the other end. Long distance prices plummeted from a dollar to a dime by 1999 and are essentially gone now.Many cell phones have free long distance. A number of traditional phone providers also offer flat fee, unlimited long distance to residential users. And now most VoIP service providers, including Vonage, Lingo, and AT&T CallVantage, offer free long distance to the United States and Canada. Some packages even include free long distance to parts of Europe and Asia.
What a “Future Shock” that is. I’m old enough to remember when “don’t bother him, he’s on long distance” meant that somebody was spending a lot of money on something that deserved his undivided attention. Try saying that now, and my daughters—the Sharbrough sisters—will roll their eyes the way I taught them to and tell you to get a grip.
What’s the Deal?
Genealogists find, organize, and share information about families. The right VoIP deal could help you find through broadband Internet access. It could also help you share through inexpensive long distance telephone service.To use VoIP, you need broadband service (DSL or cable), which is not included. Vonage, for example, charges $15 a month for 500 minutes outbound and unlimited inbound. For $25, you can have unlimited calling either way. My old phone bill for a single line and plain old service was usually $55. With the annual savings, I could buy a big old Christmas present or, if I’m careful, buy a ticket for the Sharbrough sisters to visit me. So let’s think . . . give the money to the phone company, or give it to a VoIP provider, get the same service, and have the Sharbrough sisters visit?Did I say “get the same service”? I shouldn’t have. Most VoIP providers have cool e-mail and web integration. For example, I get an e-mail telling me that I have a voice mail at home. I can use a browser to view my phone traffic from anywhere—to see who called me and who I called. I can play my phone messages on my laptop. I didn’t get that from my old phone. It’s quite convenient, but I might be a special case. I don’t get many phone calls that aren’t from family or sales people, and neither group leaves many messages.
If you don’t have broadband coming into your home, you might want to think about getting it. If you are using two phone lines—one for Internet/fax and one for voice—you’re paying your dial-up provider and the phone company about the same that you’d pay for DSL and VoIP. And once you leave dialup, you never go back.
There’s Gotta’ Be a Catch
There are some down sides to VoIP. First of all, some VoIP providers have problems with faxes, alarm systems, TiVo, and 911 calls (mine does not). If you have any of these things and rely on them, you’ll want to be sure that you get the same capabilities from VoIP or stick with status quo.VoIP ends when the power goes off unless you use a battery backup. If you connect your router and phone to the backup (and who knows, maybe even a computer), you can still send and receive calls until either the power returns or your backup dies, whichever comes first. In any event, I personally plan to use my cell phone by candlelight when the power goes out here.Also, since calls go out like packets, the same as your e-mail and web browsing, it has some security exposures. If you’re using the phone for something that you’re not saying in e-mail and chat, you might suggest that your bookie, er, colleague, consider a VPN (virtual private network) connection to encrypt your conversations.
Industry pundits estimate that VoIP numbers will grow from 16 million users spending $1 billion in 2004, to 197 million users spending $15 billion by 2008—they’re planning on a big bandwagon. Look, a big crowd can be wrong, but they still get the best customer service.
Talk Is Perfectly Cheap
Whenever I buy something, I want it to be perfect, free, now. I don’t actually get it, but a person needs goals.In the 1980s, genealogists used that expensive pre-Murphy Brown long distance to talk to relatives and colleagues, and spent sparingly on copies, envelopes, and postage to send pictures, group sheets, and transcriptions to each other. It’s nice to get mail, but I don’t miss it.Today, it’s possible to use the Internet to stay in closer contact with more people for less money and to exchange those documents instantly in an electronic form. That’s better, cheaper, faster, and a step closer to the perfect, free, now world that I want to live in.
Beau Sharbrough is an employee of MyFamily.com, Inc. He lives in Provo, Utah, and writes the RootsWorks articles for the Ancestry Daily News.
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