Maxwell Smart (Don Adams) was way ahead of his time when he used "his" version of the "wireless phone" all those years ago. We thought it was funny and kind of cool. These days is doesn't seem so outrageous. We are now living in an age where there is even a Skype "phone" that resides on a very small USB flash memory stick. There are now VoIP providers offering "WiFi" VoIP phones and of course computer-based software phones have been around for awhile. Although, I still have not seen an actual "shoe phone", YET!
VoIP (voice calls over the Internet) is getting lots of attention with eBay now getting their "verb" Skype for something like 2.7 billion. I use Skype daily, but I thought I might tell you what I am up to with GizmoProject and Vonage in my daily digital lifestyle. GizmoProject can be running on your regular analog home phone by just adding an Analog Telephone Adapter (ATA). The upside of this is that your computer does not have anything to do with this and does not have to be on.
Skype utilizes a proprietary peer-to-peer (P2P) network and GizmoProject is based on a standard-based, Session Initiation Protocol (SIP) system. Using Skype, your host machine is used to route calls for other users. This causes your computer to use more processor cycles even when "you" are not in a call. Your machine and bandwidth is being shared among all of Skype's users. This is the nature of P2P networks and Skype works very well. Skype has client software for Windows, Mac OS X, Linux and Pocket PC and I run it on all of them. The downside, unlike GizmoProject, your computer must be on to use Skype. See my post VoIP: Is GizmoProject the “Skype killer� from August.
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