[Intrepid Homoludens]

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It's a threat to the phone companies, yes? It's free long distance calling, right?

Just got myself a mic headset. Shit, I sound like a pubescent Peter Brady on that one episode! < turns down mic volume >

Does anyone here do VOIP? What's it like, besides being free?

[Toefur]

I'm totally loving, VOIP.

I don't have free VOIP, though. I use Skype and I can only get free stuff if I call other people on Skype. And the number of people I know that use Skype is a big fat zero.

However it is awesome for making overseas calls. I can call pretty much anywhere in the world for only a cent or two a minute. It's annoying when people are downloading crap though, because it messes up my phonecalls.

And until internet services (and computers, for that matter) become as reliable as fixed lines and mobiles, then VOIP shall remain just a fun little gimmick to me. And I can't call 1800/1300 numbers with VOIP.

But me likeys voip.

[Talas]

I use skype... sometimes. I have the same problem, there isn't much people I know that use it. And well, e-mail is free

[Aj_]

I've used roger wilco, skype, teamspeak, vent and google. Skype has proven most useful although I use vent for games if neccessary. Sound quality is OK on all of them, skype has the option of paying for out-coming and in-coming calls. Apparantly an American phone company sells you phones that use VOIP without a computer, I also know of German companies giving away free skype kits.

[LeChimp]

I use ventrillo when I play World of Warcraft and I'm doing a 40 man instance with a guild, otherwise, I'll use skype. Once I played shivers 2 with someone else and we helped each other by talking over skype. The game becomes a lot more enjoyable when you're pointing out all of the flaws and making fun of how shitty the villain is, it basically turned into Myster Science Theater 3000 but with games.

Actually, when there was that other thread in the adventure game section where everyone played through a section and then talked about, I thought it would have been cooler to have maybe 5 people on skype at the same time, and playing through the game.

[Kolzig]

I never could get ventrilo to work properly, but Teamspeak is great. I haven't used it in a year though, because me and my buddies stopped playing Enemy Territory and Turbo Sliders...

[Erwin_Br]

At the office we use VOIP phones from Cisco.

They're connected to a Cisco router, but what happens from there I don't know. It's not like we can make free calls or anything. Except to phones in the office, of course.

--Erwin

[Tobbe]

My sister moved to Sweden before christmas, and she got broadband a few days ago, and yesterday I bought a VOIP phone, so now I can call her for free!

[RLacey]

I chat with my now-emigrated-to-Australia friend using Skype.

My only experiences of using VOIP have been pretty positive .

[Mattsius]

I use Skype quite often these days. I have three contacts on my list, but really only talk to one of them, my bro. It's great when you talk tech stuff or something similar that might take quite a long time to go through. I mean it's free for god's sake!

And of course it's a pleasure when you have a Sennheiser headset (not exactly the same one as in the pic, but close enough).

I'm trying to get my sis to buy a headset also, but so far no luck.

[Dasilva]

Skype is free and I've had no problems with it.

[Tanukitsune]

I only have one friend that uses Skype...

But it's cool, lot's of podcasters use it for interviews, and the sound quality is good!

[DustCropper]

Can someone explain to me what you guys are talking about? Is this similar to using a voice chat over something like Yahoo and MSN? I do voice conferencing on these instant messenging programs, but I've never heard of VOIP and Skype.

[Quadriflax]

I used Roger Wilco and Ventrillo a couple years back. They made playing Enemy Territory that much more fun, with a group of people you knew, anyway. I also recently signed up for Vonage. Let me sum that up for you: you get what you pay for. I'm on the 500 minute/month plan for about $16/month. You get a crap load of features that you'll probably never use (three way calling? I've NEVER had a need for that...), features you might actually want but don't have (blocking numbers), and it sounds like a cell phone. Yay! I only got it because I didn't want to give people my cell phone number anymore. For that, it's worth it. But I'd never use it for a business or anything.

[Richard]

I use Skype, both to chat, and to receive voicemail from my website's readers. Good piece of software, but the paid options are...less than wonderful.