PushingJelly

Voice over IP is part of the next big thing (NBT). It is one of those technologies whch need other things to catch up before it makes it really big. There is a bit of a war going on for our cash between several different camps who want to be the next AT&T or BT.
The main player that everyone has heard of is skype. Skype started out small but through word of mouth has caught on and eventually was bought by ebay (bizzarely), I think in an attempt to get the NBT in their portfolio.
Ebay don’t seem to have done much with it however and the initial guesses of “talking to your buyer online” have not come to fruition.
Meanwhile, stealthily, an organisation called SIPhone (a long time exponent of an open VoIP registry and hardware) have developed a product called Gizmo Project. Its a fully featured phone, directory and best of all its open and free.
Looking into the two products it turns out that there’s a thing or two you need to know about Skype. Firstly the Skype Protocol is propriotory and closed. They could be doing anything with the data running back and forward and no one apart from Ebay (and perhaps the NSA or GCHQ) would know how exactly it works or what they are doing with your conversaions.
Secondly, Skype aparently uses a kind of bandwidth sharing technology which routes data through other Skype users connections, using their bandwidth.
Gizmo, however, does not share your wealth and is altogether better behaved.
Have a look at gizmoproject.com, its a cool thing.