Section 2.2. Computer-Centric Providers | Talk is Not Cheap!: Saving the High Costs of Misunderstandings at Work and Home

2.2. Computer-Centric Providers

Every computer attached to the Internet (with the right software) can communicate with any other computer attached to the Internet. We saw in Chapter 1 that every computer sold for the last decade has the horsepower necessary to turn voice into digital data streams. Put those two facts together and you get a revolutionary jump in communications technology: any computer can send and receive voice streams to any other computer across the Internet.

Peer-to-peer just means that two devices connect directly to each other without a server managing the transaction (and that's ignoring all the routers and other Internet servers handling data traffic). When you physically talk to a person in the same room, it's peer-to-peer. When you mail that person a letter, the Post Office acts as a server in the middle, so it's not peer-to-peer. When you call that person on the phone, the telephone company and central office switches get in the middle, so it's not peer-to-peer.

The most used peer-to-peer connections today are web clients to web servers. When you user your browser to view a web site, the systems connect directly to each other without any server in the middle handling the transaction.

Some type of directory service must be available to help users connect to each other. Every device that can be seen publicly on the Internet has a unique sequence of numbers called an IP (Internet Protocol) address. Multiple types of directory services help decipher a long number (such as 65.254.50.98) to an easily remembered web site name (www.gaskin.com).

Note: Brick Up That WallEven computers that aren't publicly accessible, such as your home or office computers (which should be sitting behind a protective firewall), have IP addresses. The difference is that those IP addresses are not unique (the computers in many other offices probably use the same addresses). What is unique is the IP address of your broadband router, and it's capable of performing a number of tricks that make it possible for computers to talk to one another through the firewall.

Notice what is missing: the web page equivalent of the telephone company's central office switches. A directory service is a software database and is optional. After all, if you know the phone number you want to call on your cell phone, you don't need a telephone directory, do you? Directories help peer-to-peer users find each other, and are not mandatory. But they are very handy.

2.2.1. Skype

Enter Skype, developed by the two programmers who founded the file-sharing program KaZaA (Niklas Zennström and Janus Friis); Skype hopes to connect everyone via their high quality and free software and telephony service.

The two Skype founders have since sold KaZaA, so don't yell at them if you believe sharing music files is illegal or if you feel music should be free. But they learned many things from KaZaA that they applied to Skype, including how to create a free program so exciting that people spread the word around the world on their behalf. Experts call this viral marketing, since it spreads like a virus from person to person. (That's a compliment, really, although if you think about it too long, it sounds disgusting.) Just remember that in marketing, brand awareness wins, and having every user of your product (or free Skype software in this case) demand that all their friends get the product is a wonderful thing and much desired by marketing people.

Note: Name from Air"Skype" is a made-up word picked because it had an available web address, the ability to act as a noun and a verb, and no meaning in any language.

Peer-to-peer technologies that were developed for KaZaA and improved for Skype allow the two founders to claim that Skype is the third generation of peer-to-peer technology. That makes sense, and explains why Skype has an advantage over many of their competitors: they've been doing it longer and learning as they go.

Starting August 29, 2003, Skype software rolled quickly across the Internet. People were so excited that they gladly suffered through the early growing pains. Of course, a cult-like following was all they had, because Skype users could only talk to other Skype users, and only when they were both on their computers and logged into the Skype service.

The word spread, and by early 2005, the Skype software was downloaded well over 75,000,000 times, and 1.3 to 2.1 million users were online at any time of the day. 10,000 new users register per day, adding up to over 21 million unique usernames listed in the Skype directory service. It appears that viral marketing worked well in this case.

Skype folks are quick to say there is no central server running the service, exactly what you would imagine for a peer-to-peer network system. But they do have plenty of servers in place to run their SkypeOut service, which connects a Skype user to the POTS (Plain Old Telephone System) to reach non-Skype users.

There's more about SkypeOut and all other things Skype in Chapter 6. You'll also learn how a company giving away free software hopes to make money, even when people use the product for free over the Internet.

2.2.2. Other Peer-to-Peer Telephone Providers

Startup costs for a peer-to-peer telephone "company" are pretty low: software. In fact, you can get open source software free for the downloading (www.sipfoundry.org) that offers a complete softphone. Pay a programmer to customize the look and put your name on the softphone, or do it yourself, and you're in "business" as a provider of Internet Telephony.

Note: Soft, Not RealA softphone is software used to emulate a real telephone through computer software. You will need a headset plugged into your computer to use a softphone successfully.

Whenever you see a company offering software to download to use Internet Telephony, as Skype does, you will probably get a softphone. Xten (www.xten.com) has a polished commercial version of a softphone, as well as a "lite" version available for free. Figure 2-1 shows their softphone being used by an Earthlink customer.

You can see the number pad, the volume settings for both microphone (left) and speaker (right). The on and off hook icons are on the left and right as well.

What you don't see is the computer running this application and the headset plugged into that computer. I do like the way Xten put their little marks at the top (speaker) and bottom (microphone) of the softphone to make it look like a fat cell phone. Notice the little circle on the bottom right? Looks like the earpiece plug on your cell phone, doesn't it? An excellent way to bridge the gap from the familiar (cordless or cell phone handset) to the new (softphone), isn't it?

Figure 2-1. A free softphone from Xten.com

Note: By Any Other NameVonage offers a softphone option with their service. If you go to their web site, you'll see this same Xten softphone with Vonage's name on it. But their photo wasn't as good as this one, which I got directly from the Xten folks.

Free World Dialup (www.freeworlddialup.com) is a peer-to-peer software telephone company that actually appeared before Skype. They have a softphone background, but are moving beyond that, as has Skype.

There are dozens of other softphone peer-to-peer telephone companies available across the Internet. Your Internet Service Provider may offer this service.

Many businesses use these types of phones to communicate between offices and individuals, especially in the technical fields. After all, if your computer is always on when you're working, it can work just as well as a "normal" telephone. And because peer-to-peer telephone calls across the Internet are free from every peer-to-peer service, those wanting to avoid long distance charges can do so easily. Just remember that Internet-only telephone companies have a severe limitation: talking to the non-Internet telephone user.

2.2.3. Peer-to-Peer to Public Telephone Network Connections

Unfortunately for even the hardcore technogeek, we all have friends who have yet to jump on the Internet phone bandwagon. Therefore, even the free-est of free Internet telephone services must have some way to connect to the rest of the world.

Note: Yo, MamaEven geeks must call their mothers.

Chapter 6 will explain Skype's SkypeOut service in detail. That optional feature connects Skype and public telephone world. Every other peer-to-peer service (with a few hardcore Internet phone exceptions) also offers this option.

You will see a variety of names used to describe this service. SkypeOut is nicely descriptive and gives the idea succinctly. "PSTN to VoIP Gateways" clangs and adds another reason to never let engineers do marketing. Yes, you now know that clunky slogan means Public Switched Telephone Network to Voice over Internet Protocol Gateway, but that's not nearly as cute as SkypeOut. Besides, it should be called VoIP to PSTN, since these gateways support calls out from peer-to-peer telephone services over the Internet to the public phone network.

Many peer-to-peer companies have configured outbound gateways for users to reach the public telephone network. Most of these cost money because they require hardware servers and lines from local phone companies connected by those servers to the peer-to-peer network. Since they have to charge money to pay for such service, they have to bill you when you use that service. And billing costs more money, and then they have to track when you make a call that must use a long distance link away from the local phone exchange hosting the gateway and on and on. You can see how this gets complicated.

Luckily, you don't have to worry about much of this at all. When you use a peer-to-peer service and call only those in your service's address book, there's never a charge. When you call out to the "real" world, there may or may not be a charge. Many cooperative groups have collaborated to shuttle Internet calls to a public telephone network central office serving the telephone number you dial. And when you do have to pay, it's pennies per minute, and only when you use it.

2.2.4. Virtual Numbers

Calling out from a peer-to-peer network to the public telephone network is one thing. But if your peer-to-peer service lists you as JamesGaskin inside the Skype user directory (well, yours doesn't, but mine does), how do outsiders dial that? How can they call you?

Enter virtual numbers and the inbound side of the public phone to peer-to-peer network gateway. Virtual numbers are traditional telephone numbers that link the public telephone network into the broadband phone world. Vonage and their competitors with analog telephone adapters that plug into your broadband modem are providing virtual numbers as well, but they don't really say that. The phone-centric companies assume you will tie a telephone number to an actual phone, just like the traditional telephone companies have always done. Even your cell phone has a virtual number if you look at it that way.

The beauty of virtual numbers for Internet Telephony is that clients are no longer bound to the telephone company central offices that, since area codes were implemented in October 1947, defined the area code prefix. Distance from the central office is critical. It sets your exchange, and therefore your area code, which is based on the area's upstream central office with the huge telephone switch. Across the Internet, a mile or a thousand miles makes almost no difference in the voice quality of the call. That means broadband phone companies can connect their network to the telephone network anywhere with any area code, and connect that number to a phone a continent away.

You live in Cleveland and want all your friends in Dallas to be able to call you with a local call? Your provider can give you a phone number with a Dallas area code, such as 214 or 972. Your friends call you on the 214 number, it travels across the Internet, and your phone in Cleveland rings. Your calls out to Dallas will be local calls, but if you call for a pizza delivery one snowy night, that call will be long distance. Remember, the area code for your Cleveland phone comes from a Dallas central office.

However, businesses love this. If you have a business in Dallas and want the people in Fort Worth (30 miles away) to think you're local, get a virtual number in the Fort Worth area code (817).

Travelers love virtual numbers as well. With softphone software on a laptop or PDA, you have your phone number anywhere you can get a broadband connection. Want to be that annoying person in Starbucks hogging a table with their laptop? Now you can double the annoyance factor by using your laptop's softphone to talk noisily with your friends back in Cleveland. Sure you could do that with your cell phone, but that costs a lot more than a softphone. Plus, everyone hates noisy cell phone users, but softphone users are rare enough to get a pass for the cool factor.