On Sun, Jan 01, 2006 at 03:22:13AM +0200, Hetz Ben Hamo wrote:
> I was wondering if anyone have heard about a router box that also has
> skype capabilities (I'm not talking about a router which can forward
> traffic).

A while ago I posted a comment to this list about a box which was "made"
by a company called CIDAV that had a USB connection to a computer
and Skype drivers for windows.

They never answered my email about Linux drivers. The device it turns out
is made in China and sold on the internet under at least a dozen names
all over the world. None of the dealers nor the manufacturer had linux
drivers for it.

If it truely is a router, then it does not matter what operating system you
use as long as it not configured using a closed source tool. One would hope
that it configured using a web browser, but check.

Make sure that the firmware update funcions can be done from the web
broswer. Skype changes their code fairly often (at least on X86 processors)
and I doubt the unit will function in a year without an upgrade.


> If not, has anyone tried Skype for Linux under a really low end
> hardware? what are the results?

Is Skype necessary? There are several free SIP (open standard) proxies
on the web, the best known is Jeff Pulver's Free World Dialup, there
is also a busy one in the San Francisco bay area. 

They work with any "softphone" some of which are open source. If you
want an incoming landline or connections to "the real world", there are 
MANY services out there now. In the last few weeks there has been a
"race to the bottom" for outgoing call rates. 

There are lots of things that bother me about Skype which are not
germain to this list, however there is one that really needs to be
considered. Skype functions as if it were a peer-to-peer application
(or so they claim, it's closed source with no public design documentation),
so many people carry your traffic and you carry others. 

I've never been able to find out, or figure out who much of my net 
traffic is Skype, even when I'm not using it and it sits idle.

I expect that since Skype runs on a NAT'ed machine behind a firewall, not
much, but a router would not be.

Geoff.

-- 
Geoffrey S. Mendelson, Jerusalem, Israel [EMAIL PROTECTED]  N3OWJ/4X1GM
IL Voice: (07)-7424-1667  IL Fax: 972-2-648-1443 U.S. Voice: 1-215-821-1838 
The trouble with being a futurist is that when people get around to believing
you, it's too late. We lost. Google 2,000,000:Hams 0. 

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