AOL Allows SIP Clients To Make Calls. This Is News?
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So let me get this straight. AOL is “opening” their telephony platform to allow SIP clients to connect in and make calls. So now instead of paying a penny a minute–or less–I can give more money to AOL. Yawn.
To give the contrarian point of view, David Beckemeyer calls this a great thing because “we now have a household brand not referring just to “VoIP” but referring to “SIP” - the standards-based protocol for VoIP, something neither Skype nor Vonage has done.”
The reason that Skype and Vonage haven’t promoted SIP is that end users don’t give a rats ass if it’s SIP or some sufficiently advanced technology that is indistinguishable from magic. They just care if it works and works well. Skype and Vonage both know this.
I’m trying to figure out what the hell AOL is trying to do with telephony. I know they tried doing something a couple years back, but what became of it? Nothing. What’s going to become of this? Nothing again.
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Tags: AIM Call Out, aol, skype, voip, vonage Fnord
Comment by David Beckemeyer
For the record, I never said it was “great” - I simply aid it was less than insignificant
You’re kind of missing my point with the reference to SIP. Of course end-users don’t care about specific technologies - but they do care about usability that derives from interoperability and, when it comes to VoIP, that interoperability derives from SIP. Therefore promoting SIP (not necessarily to end-users, but to the industry/community/developers/partners) is a big deal, and generally a good thing for the ecosystem and ultimately for end-users.
Comment by PhoneBoy
It’s funny. Telephony was built on interoperability. I’ve watched some old Bell System videos from the early part of the 20th Century on YouTube and am amazed it was possible to call ’round the world’ early into the 20th Century. The only way that could happen was connectivity and an adherence to standards on some level.
Now as the industry tries and recreates the system that Ma Bell so lovingly created, the industry loses sight of one of the most basic elements of that system: interoperability and an adherence to
standards.
While I applaud AOL for opening up on some level, I don’t think they are the 800 pound gorilla the industry needs to really start rallying around SIP.
Comment by David Beckemeyer
True. AOL is not the 800 pound gorilla anymore for sure. But it’s a step, and AOL is still the most well-known brand to take such a step yet, so I have to give it something.
Skype could have offered a SIP interface to SkypeOut years ago, and yet they still haven’t done it. Dumb. They could have been taking my money all this time at essentially no cost to them - it’s essentially “free money” they are leaving on the table.
Comment by spg
@David. i have often wondered with skype(and other discount VOIP services) if there pricing model would fall apart with SIP. the question that comes up in my mind is that having SIP outbound would cause a whole lot of their so called ‘unlimited’ plans to be used a whole lot more each month. they certainly do not want a lot of the accounts hitting the FUP limits. keeping the service ’softphone(and reverse engineered workaround) only’ may be acting as a throttle that keeps profit margins up.
Comment by PhoneBoy
I have to agree with @spg, I don’t know too many VoIP providers that have both unlimited calling and permit you to connect with a random SIP client.
Comment by David Beckemeyer
@spg - right. and what does that say about Skpye and using PC’s to make calls? If using Skype creates a natural “throttle” then that says people may still prefer telephones over PCs for making phone calls.
There are a few services that provide SIP credentials with an “unlimited” account but they usually have AUP limitations of some sort - Skype could simply have their policy be that they always charge the per minute rates for calls placed via SIP.
Comment by spg
the issue is with IP PBXes, least cost routing, and small calling card operation. they would all be offloading exactly the FUP limit of traffic onto multiple accounts. try to stop that(through limiting calls from IP address or any other way) and you end up with a reputation similar to the betamax companies where everyone calls you a rip off. i think the two really big attractions of skype are #1 super easy configuration - SIP would definatly complicate that. the other attraction is $3/month for 10, 000 minutes of calls. that is way above the FUP of similar priced SIP offers(at least that i am aware of) sure skype could offer per minute pricing for SIP users; but skypes current per minute pricing is really not very attractive. i use skypeout but only for the included free calls and never for pay as you go. i have much cheaper options for that.
Comment by PhoneBoy
Skype could do all kinds of things if they wanted. Clearly they like the walled garden approach.
Comment by David Beckemeyer
@spg the “IP PBXes, least cost routing, and small calling card operations” you mention, along with other kinds of fraud, and credit card fraud at large, is probably the single biggest thing that is killing VoIP as a landscape for innovation in new services. When it’s almost impossible to safely take your customer’s money, it’s pretty hard to make a business work. But now we are really getting off-topic
Comment by PhoneBoy
Yeah if you can’t get paid to provide a service, particularly when the margins on that service are razor thin to begin with, you’re not going to want to take any serious risks or try something “too” new.
Comment by Skip
You can use AIM callout with flashphone.ru webservice, read the following articles: http://blog.flashphone.ru/index.php/2008/07/02/flashphone_supports_aol_aim/ and http://journals.aol.com/opensip/aol-open-voice-platform/#Entry2519