VoIP - not ready yet

VoIP is good - but not good enough to replace existing landlines.

That’s the conclusion of Which? magazine, the publication of the Consumers Association.

It tested 6 of the major VoIP suppliers - Skype, Yahoo!, Google, Babble, Sipgate, and MSN.

It rated Skype as one of the easiest to install and use, and also rated it best for quality of the connection.

Yahoo!, Google Talk, and Sipgate were also well rated on quality, but independent Babble was slated for poor help documentation, as well as poor quality connection.

The VoIP application with MSN Messenger was also found to be of variable quality, and along with Google Talk, is unable to call landlines.

Overall, the Which? study highlighted that VoIP cannot be used to replace landlines at present, not least because emergency services phone calls are not available via VoIP.

Additionally, recent moves in the US to bill against so-called “Net Neutrality” may prevent companies such as Google, Yahoo!, and Microsoft, from offering side-stepping telecom suppliers to capture users for free services.

This may lead to the big ISPs having to charge for VoIP on subscription in future, if the telecoms companies are able to prevent their own services because abused in this way.

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