October 13th, 2007
Should Skype and Vonage adapt or die?
Network World columnist Mark Gibbs expresses his wish that Internet telephony providers Skype and Vonage “die.”
Gibbs expresses this rather inelegant wish in large measure because both services are not standards-based, are closed, and, as he puts it, “support business models that are not in line with 21st century wants and needs. They have to go!”
Although Gibbs says he’s been a user of both services for some time, he’s critical of Vonage’s call quality, and “occasional weird sound-quality problems.” He wonders aloud about how Vonage users without the technical know-how he has manage to deal with these issues.
Gibbs sounds measurably more tolerant of Skype, but still wonders why calls between Skype and other IP telephony-based services (including Vonage) need to go through the Public Switched Telephone Network. He say such requirements “lock users in,” “limit connectivity and suppress innovation.”
“The great opportunity and challenge for vendors is how to integrate these services and give the 21st century market what we want and need: open communications,” Gibbs concludes. “For the greater good, these closed services will have to either evolve or die.”
Well, that sounds like an overly harsh judgment. I have no problems with the IP telephony services I use traveling over PSTN. I get around this by using all the IP Tel services I can, and then using the free user-to-user feature many of them have.
What do you think? Should Skype and/or Vonage “die/”
Russell Shaw is an enterprise computing journalist, analyst and author based in Portland, Oregon. See his full profile and disclosure of his industry affiliations.
