Skype and Vonage: thank you, and goodnight

[skroo]

"It's small, it's boring and won't turn any heads - but it probably spells the end of the road for Skype, Vonage and any other hopeful independent VoIP companies. It's Nokia's 6136 phone, which allows you to make calls over your home or office Wi-Fi network, as well as on a regular cellular network. UMA, or unlicensed mobile access, is the mobile operators' answer to the threat of VoIP - and now it's reality."

From http://www.theregister.co.uk/2006/02...voip_analysis/ .

Not sure I agree completely, but it is an interesting move by a cellular phone manufacturer.

[CP99]

"It's small, it's boring and won't turn any heads - but it probably spells the end of the road for Skype, Vonage and any other hopeful independent VoIP companies. It's Nokia's 6136 phone, which allows you to make calls over your home or office Wi-Fi network, as well as on a regular cellular network. UMA, or unlicensed mobile access, is the mobile operators' answer to the threat of VoIP - and now it's reality."

From http://www.theregister.co.uk/2006/02...voip_analysis/ .

Not sure I agree completely, but it is an interesting move by a cellular phone manufacturer.

War-phoning?

[astcell]

I can't wait to see the traffic sniffing when folks bring then to Defcon!

[Ridirich]

lol 'warphoning'

[Thorn]

Which brings us full circle to WarDialing.

[CP99]

There is a pattern forming.

Wardriving to Warphone
Warphoning to Wardial
Wardialing to ???

etc etc

[TheCotMan]

This is silliness. We have a legacy in hacking like we have a legacy in telephone hardware.

We call it war dialing, because at one time we "dialed" a number using a rotary system on a phone, but now most people press-out, tap, enter, type, or poke out a number on a touch tone phone or keypad. However, we still call it dialing?

I guess that is to be expected though. What name do we still give to the handset-like device we pick up when we "answer" a phone? Is that name "receiver" ? Sure.

Supposedly, that goes back to the old fashioned telephones that has a small speaker you put next to your ear (through which the other person's message was "received") called a receiver and usually, a solidly mounted microphone on the phone itself which was called a "transmitter."

Back to the topic, I think we had a discussion nearly 2 years ago about Japanese cell phones that supportes wireless 802.11* for making phone calls as well as a number of other features.

Yay! We almost have the technology in use in Japanese cell phone from nearly 2 years ago.

Heh heh.

Seriously though, it is good to see some effort being made to support VoIP with cell phones, and it will be welcomed in the US.