I’ve always loved the idea of Internet telephony. I first discovered a free web-based application called Dialpad in 1999 when I was a freshman at Syracuse University. I remember running out and buying a mic that day so I could call the world from my dorm room in Syracuse, NY. I loved Dialpad.
Fast forward 7 years and the industry has exploded. We now have multiple providers of Voice over Internet Protocol services. Vonage, Tomato Vine, Dialpad, Skype, and Time Warner are just a few.
Yesterday, Skype announced that all calls to US and Canadian mobile and landline telephones are free until the end of 2006. Before I finished reading the article, I was shuffling through my old boxes of computer carnage looking for that old microphone I bought in ’99. It brought back a lot of memories.
So, if you’ve been meaning to try VoIP, give Skype a shot. Unlike a lot of things on the Internet today, it’s free.
