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Lemak Lemang

A walk down the Yellow Brick Road of Malaysia's Corridor of the future

by Jeff Ooi, Malaysia

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Gizmo or Skype?

Jun 22, 2006 10:51

Forget about Vonage. It doesn't have much customer support in this part of the world. So, what's your type of on-Net free phones using computer?

More specifically, do you Skype, or do you use something else for those free calls?

It's getting on my nerves nowadays that despite paying a standard fee on SkypeOut--the discounted rate IP telephony that can terminate on a fixed or mobile number--the call quality is worse than the on-Net free Skype calls. Not only is there irritating echo on either end of the call connection, drop calls are getting more frequent.

A globetrotting photo-journalist friend of mine just recommended Gizmo Project. I am not in the mood to jump out the frying pan into the fire, but I'm certainly looking for an alternative, and if you see one, please let me know.

A search on the Internet tells me that Gizmo Project is also a peer-to-peer VoIP network founded by Michael Robertson (is e-Bay interested in buying it up, too?). I understand its network uses some kind of a proprietary freeware soft phone to make it work.

And Gizmo Project allows call termination to mobile numbers at a pretty low tariff!

Unlike Skype, the Gizmo Project network is based on the Session Initiation Protocol (SIP), and Jabber protocol for text chat. Though Gizmo Project is built on open standards, its client, the software required on the end-user, is a closed source that uses the SIPphone VoIP system.

As Gizmo Project is based on SIP, we can expect that it should interface well with the emerging SIP phones market, and it should interoperate with SIP-based networks directly if such services can beat barriers posed by the incumbents and are rolled out in our market, Southeast Asia speaking, ultimately. The small business should benefit as SIP is supposed to synchronize with popular PBX (Private Branch Exchange) systems that follow international standards.

This will give rise to business opportunities to entrepreneurs to duplicate what Asterisk, Earthlink, and Ekiga have experimented. The mantra, to benefit the mass users, is to avoid the phone system and advocate free-of-charge phone calls layered over broadband, which runs on Internet Protocol.

I have using free services like Skype and the other paranoia is the security in on-Net communications. It is said to be encrypted, with packets of voice data distributed and reassembled much in the same way as emails. But you never know. Because Skype doesn't give a White Paper on this matter and keeps on skirting having to tell the truth. On the other hand, since Gizmo has announced that it also uses encryption, and Gizmo calls works well with the latest Zfone secure addon (thanks, Phil Zimmermann), are we really out of the woods?

I really don't mind switching over to the Gizmo Project if it could give me better voice quality, and its software features something that Skype lacks even if I have to pay slightly more than what I did for SkypeOut. Already, Gizmo Project is touting additional features like built-in recording (great for my podcast interviews), free voicemail, and free PSTN to (later) SIPphone connections.

OK, Gizmo Project is the Editor's Pick for VoIP in Wired December 2005. But, pray tell, are all these true? Do they really work on a commercialized scale?

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About Jeff Ooi

Jeff Ooi is an Internet and e-Business consultant based in Kuala Lumpur who's spent the last four years blogging internationally on the tech scene, on anything and nothing. Which doesn't really explain why most of his own technology is about three years out of date. He doesn't even own a PDA after his Palm V crashed. He's on 3G, though... Lemak Lemang refers to coconut-flavored sticky rice stuffed in a bamboo container.