Yahoo! Messenger Gets Phone Service 92
prostoalex writes to tell us that Yahoo! has launched a new phone service attached to their Messenger service. From the article: "The calls have to be initiated from a PC, but can be made to traditional landline phones and cellphones. Yahoo customers can receive calls from those phones, as well. Yahoo will charge 2 cents a minute for domestic calls, on top of the monthly $2.99 fee. Per-minute charges to 180 other countries will vary. It won't charge to receive calls."
Cheap international calls! (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:Cheap international calls! (Score:1)
I can't offer any insight into the quality of their service, as I'm not affiliated with them in any way, but I've heard good things....
Re:Cheap international calls! (Score:3, Informative)
Expensive international calls! (Score:2)
Telus charges extortionate rates [telus.com] if you don't pay them 7 Canadian dollars per month to subscribe to a long distance plan.
Re:Cheap international calls! (Score:1)
It cost
gotta love it
What happened to the US? (Score:2)
So, if that is sufficient for the call-by-call provider to make money even though these providers usuall
Shop around for a targeted plan (Score:2)
In 1997 the best per minute rate available from the Continental US to Malawi was $3.55. In the last ten years we watched the price we were paying drop through $1.25, $0.90, $0.75, $0.35, $0.125... Today I pay $0.07 with no "connection fee".
I haven't been able to find a VOIP solution that comes close to that. (PC to PC calls are not
Re:Cheap international calls! (Score:1)
Re:Numbers? (Score:2)
It's not every yahoo account, just the ones that opt to pay the $2.99 monthly fee.
Re:Numbers? (Score:3, Informative)
The setup is like NAT, you can call out but they can't call in.
Re:Numbers? (Score:3, Informative)
The calls have to be initiated from a PC, but can be made to traditional landline phones and cellphones. Yahoo customers can receive calls from those phones, as well.
The way I read this, Yahoo customers can call landlines and cellphone, and can also receive calls from those phones (meaning landlines and cellphones) as well. If that is accurate, presumably Yahoo phone subscribers would need a phone number for their PC, unless the plan is going to work like a calling card or something, where
Re:Numbers? (Score:1)
Phone In
Get your very own phone number for your PC. Then people can call your PC, just like it's a regular phone.
Re:Numbers? (Score:2)
You can recieve calls from other people.
Problems with Skype (Score:2, Insightful)
free as in beer & speech (Score:3, Informative)
Re:free as in beer & speech (Score:2, Insightful)
Always pays to watch what you say.
Re:free as in beer & speech (Score:2)
Re:free as in beer & speech (Score:1)
Re:free as in beer & speech (Score:2, Informative)
In other words, if you are a party to the conversation, feel free to record. You can't record your two neighbors having a private conversation but you can record the conversation you have with your neighbor(s).
Re:free as in beer & speech (Score:1)
Market? (Score:1)
I agree (Score:1)
Re:Market? (Score:2)
4,782,369 users online
Re:Market? (Score:1)
Re:Market? (Score:2)
Are you kidding? (Score:3, Insightful)
Doggone it (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:Doggone it (Score:3, Informative)
That's where SIP comes in. It's been around for awhile and there are many, many clients on every platform from which to choose. You may not like the format of the contact you're trying to call, but it works pretty reliably.
Re:Doggone it (Score:2)
Who's Calling? (Score:4, Interesting)
Re:Who's Calling? (Score:2)
(I do kinda take your point, but if it gets cheap enough....)
It's always hackable (Score:4, Informative)
It's always hackable [spoofcard.com]. Your grandma can hack caller id on a regular phone. Your standards are higher for the brand new technology?
Re:Who's Calling? (Score:3, Insightful)
I have no problems with my callerid from my * box over voip lines.
Re:Who's Calling? (Score:3, Insightful)
heh (Score:2)
My mom comes up as an unknown caller, and I have no Mr Smithers to take care of it.
Re:Who's Calling? (Score:2)
Re:Who's Calling? (Score:2)
Re:Who's Calling? (Score:2)
Well, duh. (Score:2)
So I don't have to pay for the calls I can't receive anyway, since the first part tells me that the calls have to initiate from the PC?
Re:Well, duh. (Score:2)
What they are saying is that you as a customer of Yahoo, to use their service, have to use their PC softphone to make and receive calls - eg they dont provide (or support) ATAs to connect to a real phone, like most VoiP providers do.
Interesting alternative (Score:2)
Good work Yahoo!
How many digits in the phone number of the future? (Score:3, Insightful)
How many digits in a chinese phone number? Is their system capable of handling billions of numbers?
Re:How many digits in the phone number of the futu (Score:2)
the thing that annoys me most about what many of the VoIP people are doing is their insistence on keeping the worst part of the network - unintelligent, uninformative, unintuitive identifiers. direct-dial numbers were wonderful a few decades ago - the ability to have modern phone numbers was huge. but we should be done with that by now. especially aggravating the VoIP providers who give me things that look just like phone numbers, but aren't (as in: aren't routable on the PSTN). people - ev
Re:How many digits in the phone number of the futu (Score:4, Interesting)
There are some city with 10 digital number such as:Beijing, Shanghai. You have to dail 10 XXXX-XXXX. Attention, The 10 is area code and the 8 digital is your local number. Most of the cities in china have 3 area code with 7 local number just like North American and those cities are face the shortage of number, so they want to change the local to 8 digital.
for mobile, you have 135-XXXX-XXXX. the first 3 digital are limited to some different operator, such as 135,136 belong to china moblie,133 belong to CDMA network. The next 4 digitals used as area code which you can know where this calling coming from.
There are alot of change and many "new" technical. I had left china for 4 years, so just for your reference.
Future Phone Numbers? How about... (Score:2)
FEDC:BA98:7654:3210:FEDC:BA98:7654:3210
We'll have to add a few more keys to the keypad. But your phone will no longer be georpahic-location based.
Competition (Score:2)
Skype is great, but it doesn't have the brand that Yahoo has. I can't imagine my mother downloading Skype, and calling overseas with it. But she's known about Yahoo messenger since the late 90's and has even chatted with distant friends. She would notice this functionality.
-- Jim http://www.runfatboy.net/ [runfatboy.net]
Re:Competition (Score:2, Interesting)
Mind you, I'm only talking about PC t
Service evolution (Score:4, Interesting)
The future of the traditional model will continue to drift as it has been, to mobile phones and broadband digital services. Yet another milestone on the path to having a unified telecom service provider stick just one line into your home for everything.
Re:Service evolution (Score:2)
In my house it is indeed a cable line, piping in digital TV, VOIP phone, and my beloved cable modem. I do worry that when everything is swallowed into big enough chunks, they'll get just as bad as Bell was 30 years ago.
As for wireless, the only problem I can see there is bandwidth. The airwaves are cluttered with massive amoun
Re:Service evolution (Score:1)
I doubt there will even be a line! Everything is moving more and more towards wireless broadband. Why not? There's no hassle of waiting for the cable guy. The only people who really do _have_ to show up are the electrical and water utilities. I know in Toronto the electrical company is offering WIFI as a way to read their soon-to-be-installed smart meters.
The point being that soon enough data will be considered data regardless of the content. The company who can provide the cheapest and most effective se
How doesn't this interfere (Score:4, Insightful)
Why bother? (Score:1)
Re:Why bother? (Score:2)
Re:Why bother? (Score:1)
Re:Why bother? (Score:2)
Re:Why bother? (Score:1)
- Yahoo Messenger is...cheaper. I looked...almost all the international calling rates are cheaper. This is this a bad thing how?
- Yahoo Messenger has...no handset. It just came out today. I am sure there will be plenty available.
- Yahoo Messenger has...no SkypeIn equivalant. Try reading the page before making a comment. Read: http://beta.messenger.yahoo.com/ [yahoo.com] more carefully. This feature is there...and not only is it there, it is cheaper and doesn't require a mini
Don't they already have this? (Score:2)
I quickly scanned through archive.org versions of older http://messenger.yahoo.com/ [yahoo.com] features to see if I could find a page where they advertised this as a feature, but couldn't find it.
I certainly do see a "Call Center" to "Place Net2Phone call" on the current version of Windows Yahoo messenger 7.0 I have. So what's new with this? I didn't find this a groundbre
Re:Don't they already have this? (Score:1)
Spim at dinnertime? (Score:1)
VOIP vs Traditional Landlines (Score:2)
I would like to save money by switching to VOIP but all the horror stories [voipreview.org] I hear from customers of Vonage, Sunrocket etc scare me.
Is this just a case of small but vocal minority or is VOIP still not ready for primetime? Any advice will be appreciated.
Re:VOIP vs Traditional Landlines (Score:2, Interesting)
Re:VOIP vs Traditional Landlines (Score:1)
Re:VOIP vs Traditional Landlines (Score:1)
Re:VOIP vs Traditional Landlines (Score:1)
Re:VOIP vs Traditional Landlines (Score:1)
In terms of overall quality, I would rank Vonage as above SunRocket. In terms of features, Vonage over SunRocket.
Open standard? (Score:2)
But will it work with MSN/AIM/Skype? (Score:1)
Cool ! Now improve the linux client and the video (Score:1, Flamebait)
Hopefully they add call forwarding too. With Skype I can get calls forwarded to my cel phone even when the computer if off.
The Y! linux client is a real bummer, it looks like they haven't done anything to it
It's been available for awhile in Japan... (Score:2)
What about Emergency Calls (911, 000, etc.) ? (Score:2)
they don't give users the "false security" of being
able to make Emergency Calls (since, in most cases,
a VoIP system won't send caller's location details)
Some ADSL modems have POTS-phone ports (for analog-
telephones and maybe FAXs) built-in, along with the
more common router features & ports - in Australia,
ISP Internode offers Agile's NodePhone VoIP service
using Billion 7402-VGP (has 2 phone ports that work
even when the computer is switched Off).
I'm told
I look forward to this new service (Score:1)
I think you guys talk too much (Score:2)
no montly fee. The break even compared to yahoo is 100 mins
per month. The next 100 minutes will cost me a whopping $3 more than yahoo and <i>I get to use a real phone with real quality of service. </i>. Even at 600 mins its only 15 bucks more and I know I'll never ever get dropped or hear 'what did you say?'
I guess I'm old fashioned - I was out of college before cell phones and as IANAL I just find no need to bs on the