Speak Freely: Voice-Over-IP Taking Root
Skype Product Review
by Trevor Bauknight

Years ago, I tried to convince my parents, who lived about three hours away from me, to install a program called PGPfone on their computer so they could call me online for free (as a bonus, it was encrypted, so nobody could eavesdrop on their lecturing me about school and work!); but this was in the days of dialup access, and it was too complicated or something.

But it did allow me to look a decade or so into the future and see the Internet merging with and taking over traditional technologies like phone service. That's finally starting to happen, now that broadband for the masses is a reality, and one little company stands poised to make it huge.

In 2003, Niklas Zennstrom and Janus Friis, better known as the founders of the wildly-popular peer-to-peer file sharing system called KaZaA, created Skype, the Global Internet Telephone Company. Based in Luxembourg, the Skype Group's website (http://www.skype.com) states that their client program has been downloaded over 100 million times and the company's website ticks the number of minutes served -- over 8 BILLION and counting.

How Does It Work?

At the most basic level, you download the free Skype program, which most resembles a chat program like iChat or AIM. You can even use it to type back and forth if that's your thing. You set up an account at the Skype website where you can maintain profile information, preferences and contact lists. It even stores your chat transcripts in your account online so that you can access that important website link your boss sent you while you were home when you get to the office the next day. Yahoo! could take a lesson.

The real beauty of Skype is when you connect with another Skype user and talk with them as if they were sitting next to you. I was blown away by the quality and ease of use the first time I used it here at Cafe ID (http://www.cafeid.com) to talk to one of our programmers in Eastern Europe. You set up contact lists and making calls is as simple as initiating a chat in a lesser program.

You can also use your Skype program to call normal phones anywhere in the world simply by depositing money into an account and dialing the numbers. SkypeOut Calls are billed based on their destination. For example, if you're in China, and you want to call the U.S., you pay the low U.S. rate, but if you're in South Carolina and you want to call China, you pay a higher rate. Skype has blessed large portions of the globe -- the continental U.S. and Canada, Western Europe and Australia -- with a low (roughly $.02/minute) Global Rate. Other destinations are more expensive, as is calling mobile telephones. The most expensive rate is $1.17/minute to -- you guessed it! East Timor.

Two new features are in the works, as well. SkypeIn is a service that allows you to set yourself up with a Skype phone number where the technological laggards can reach you. It doesn't matter where you are, as long as you're logged into Skype, you're at your phone number. This is an invaluable service for business travelers who go places in which their cell phones don't know they're in the world. The other new service is Skype Voicemail. It, of course, works like your traditional voicemail system, but stores your messages online where you can retrieve them at any point.

What Do You Need?

Not much. It doesn't take broadband to carry decent-sounding voice traffic -- a 33.6 Kbps dialup connection is fast enough. The Skype site states that you need a PC running Windows 2000 or XP, at least a 400 MHz processor and 128 MB RAM, 15 MB free disk space on your hard drive, a Sound Card, speakers and microphone. The Skype program is free, and is available for Windows, Mac OS X, Linux and even PocketPC devices. To use Skype to call normal phones, you'll have to put money in your account.

If you have those things, you're set. A good speaker and microphone combination goes a long way toward making your Skype experience more enjoyable. Better still is a nice comfortable headset with a boom mic. It doesn't take much tinkering to get your setup performing well, and once you do, the conversations are crisp and clear, with a presence you really don't find in a normal phone call.

Are There Drawbacks?

Not really. I'm sure some of you groaned when I mentioned that the company was started by the founders of KaZaA, the notorious peer-to-peer file sharing program that relied on advertising for its revenue and became an enemy of the anti-spyware effort. But Skype is different. Skype plans to earn money through services like SkypeOut and by offering value-added services to businesses. According to its founder, viral marketing drives awareness of the product. Zennstrom points out that "If we had adware in Skype, it would kind of be counterproductive to our business model."

For viral marketing to work, he continued, "you need to gain trust of end users... If there is a bunch of adware in the software, you probably don't recommend it to friends and family."

As a practical example, we're super-paranoid about spyware and adware at our office. We've had Skype installed on our machines for months, and haven't seen anything out of order yet. Skype is going out of its way to appeal to business users, and the company seems intent on doing things the right way with regard to privacy and security. Calls are digitally encrypted and Skype has a stout privacy policy. Three cheers for that bit of news.

What Next?

Who can say? Zennstrom and Friis both seem proud to be purveyors of what they have termed "disruptive technology." That sounds like it could be a bad thing; but in reality, what's being disrupted is a stale status quo in desperate need of disrupting. Most local phone companies are a monopoly in the regions they serve and are only now beginning to face competition. Cable companies like Time-Warner want a piece of the VoIP action, and deals are popping up everywhere.

We're pulling for the friendly little Luxembourg company, however, to change the face of not just Internet telephony, but of all sorts of person-to-person direct communication. They want you to tell your friends, family and coworkers to treat themselves to Skype and spread the word by cheerful praise. It seems far-fetched to talk about talk about that in the same sentence with your telephone service provider; but that's the point here. Once in a while a company comes along with an idea that changes the world, and I wouldn't be a bit surprised if this wasn't one of those times.

Trevor Bauknight is a web designer and writer with over 15 years of experience on the Internet. He specializes in the creation and maintenance of business and personal identity online and can be reached at trevor@tryid.com. Stop by http://www.cafeid.com for a free tryout of the revolutionary SiteBuildingSystem and check out our Flash-based website and IMAP e-mail hosting solutions, complete with live support.