2009/5/25 Simon Roberts <[email protected]>: > Can I dial ordinary phones using Ekiga? What does it cost, and whom do I pay? > Does Ekiga connect to skype users (most of my contacts are already there and > won't be moving).
Yes, Ekiga uses real voip protocols, used by all normal telephony service providers in all countries. Skype, on the other hand, cannot be used by real telephony service providers. Using normal VoIP instead of Skype, means competition, which means lower prices and higher availability. You can also purchase VoIP hardware that works with SIP and H.323, like Ekiga uses. There are many telephony service providers around the world and it's quite common for businesses to have their own telephony service. You can use Ekiga with that, but you cannot use Skype, since it doesn't use real VoIP protocols, but something proprietary to Skype only. However, if you use Ekiga, you're not depending on Ekiga in any way. All compliant VoIP solutions can work with public protocols. There are many, many different softphone solutions for Windows, almost all of which are compatible with Ekiga. There are also many manufacturers of compliant hardware phones, like Cisco, Nokia, Sony Ericsson, Motorola and Siemens (of the top of my head). All major manufaturers support SIP. Would you buy a phone from Nokia if you could only call other Nokia phone owners? _______________________________________________ Evolution-list mailing list [email protected] http://mail.gnome.org/mailman/listinfo/evolution-list
