I still remember when I 1st came to know about the ability of calling cellphones and landlines through internet, it was probably called Net2phone . I just checked and was amazed that they are still there. Ever since that, I have seen & used innumerable other VOIP services (Yes I didn't even knew what is VOIP when I had heard of net2phone) & I have been amazed by many of them.
I will quickly go through some of the ones that I remember using.... Raketu, Jangl, Jajah, Jaxtr, Gtalk2Voip, Mediaringtalk, Phonegnome, FWD, Poketalk, Tuitalk, Jaduka, Nimbuzz, Globe7, Oovoo, Voxox & many more which I cant remember now of head. If you think I missed out the messengers, yeah I have used all of them. AIM, MSN messenger, Yahoo IM, Google Talk and even Skype. Today the ones I cant imagine my life without are Grandcentral and Gizmo5 and the ones I love and use on and off are Mediaringtalk and Skype. Truphone & Fring are 2 things I am dying to try out and have not been able to because I don't have compatible phones. Oovoo is 1 thing I loved because of amazing voice clarity.
I have seen many great innovations in VOIP and also seen death of some great products. Jangl and more recently Ringbranch died and were amazing things. But nothing impressed me more than Gizmo5 and it keeps impressing me as I discover new ways of using it and how people around the world use it. Skype has been great too and has sustained itself over the years and now that its version 4 boasts of amazing audio and video quality, I guess I will be a regular user of it again. I also discovered recently that Skype allows something which no other VOIP software allows. Calling toll free numbers of various countries including Australia. The VOIP players have to do something thats unique and gives the users value as compared to the competitors in order to survive and sustain growth and most of them who today are popular do exactly that. All I can say is I am happy that I was introduced to VOIP by people & I use some of the most amazing products ever made available. I know I will certainly do something in this space, but I don't know what & when. Till then all I can say is "Wait & Watch" and keep making these amazing services and products people. I love them and I am sure there is a whole lot more interesting stuff brewing in there.
Always excited when it comes to VOIP,
H@rdeep.
