Skype Courts Businesses With "Skype for SIP"

Skype has made a new foray into the business front with their announcement of "Skype for SIP." This allows businesses to migrate to Skype without having to move off of their old PBX systems. "Skype has long had a business unit, but that version of its service required computers and software, which is how most users make their Skype calls. With Skype for SIP the company seeks to lower the pain barrier by requiring no hardware installation whatsoever, and the re-configuration of a SIP-enabled PBX to an established codec that presumably is within the skillset of whoever maintains it already."

Questions on Supernoding & Security

[eldavojohn]

1. Are they going to give you the option to turn off supernoding (I think this was included in version 3.0 but I don't use Skype) instead of having to work around [ghacks.net] them destroying your bandwidth [slashdot.org]?
2. Will it still punch holes in the company's firewall [slashdot.org]?
3. Is Skype still reading the machine's BIOS [slashdot.org]?
4. And what about the rumors at home and abroad of back doors for bugging [slashdot.org] on Skype? Have those rumors been quashed or does my company risk dissemination of proprietary phone calls?

Sorry guys, my very large employer gives me a big policy denial if I even try to visit Skype.com let alone download anything from them and install it. You have to address the above before you even start to gain the trust of large companies.

Skype for Asterisk

[Ransak]

Last year at AstriCon a Skype to Asterisk [skype.com] channel driver was unveiled so I don't think it's a jaw dropping announcement that Skype is implementing SIP in a more general fashion. Based on that pricing however their going to be competing with Vitelity, Gafachi, and a few other wholesale VoIP termination/origination providers. Could get interesting.

Re:SIP trunks are already widespread and cheap

[TheRaven64]

I don't really see who would use this. If you already have SIP infrastructure there are loads of companies competing for your business in SIP to POTS bridging, and you can easily use different ones for calls to different companies, and for providing phone numbers in different countries. Skype doesn't offer particularly good value for money, its one advantage over SIP providers is that it is trivial to use from behind a NAT or a firewall, something that doesn't apply to a company that already has SIP deployed internally.

Re:SIP trunks are already widespread and cheap

[NormalVisual]

I'll give a shout-out to Vitelity. I've run my Asterisk box at home through them for about three years now, and the reliability has been such that I hardly ever give them a thought. I don't think you can ask much more of a comms provider, and I definitely like being able to pick and choose services ala carte.

Skype has yet to offer anything interesting to me.

Re:Questions on Supernoding & Security

[eldavojohn]

are you retarded or just trolling?

Neither, I hope.

Your post indicates a very large ignorance about what SIP trunking is.

Ignorant as charged. Mind helping me out ... oh, wait, forgot this was Slashdot!

So they aren't installing software anywhere? They have made it "just work" with SIP trunking? What's their angle/revenue from something like this? And I can safely assume this means they won't be doing anything listed in my original post?

I didn't find any details on any of this in the article. You have succeeded at making me feel like an idiot but any answers directly to these questions or the previous ones would still be appreciated. Let's just assume I'm a retard so you no longer have to establish that point, ok?

Re:Questions on Supernoding & Security

[citizenr]

SIP is usually implemented in hardware, be it a PBX or a phone. "Skype for SIP" means they will offer SIP gateways for Skype = no Skype software on your end.

Ten Reasons to Boycott Skype

[Anonymous Coward]

Most of the Ten Reasons Why You Should Boycott Skype [freedom-blog.net] apply also to businesses. So think twice before you fall into the trap.

Why

[silas_moeckel]

It might be nice to let Skype callers reach you via SIP or vice versa but otherwise there software is pretty questionable and there tech is subpar. I'll take SIP with a HD codec anytime. This is good news as it seems they want to play in the phone 2.0 world with everybody else, for better or worse that world is SIP based.

For those that dislike SIP please note that without NAT SIP works very well and NAT == Evil things should get better in IPv6 since NAT should never be needed again.

Re:I don't know about Skype's quality of service

[nicklott]

Skype for business is truly awful. There is no support , their software locks users out of their accounts randomly along with their credit, it also blocks them from the business account randomly, oh and did I mention there is no way to contact skype?

I can deal with the lack of support and dropped calls in their free version, but as soon as I start paying them money I expect to at least have some level of contact with the company and people who are paying a considerable amount (and there are people spending thousands complaining in their forum) will expect personal contact. If they ever want to turn a profit I suggest they get this part of their business sorted or they are boned.

Re:Skype, see Microsoft

[raju1kabir]

I guess my question is really what do VoIP applications like Quetcom or Twinkle have that Skype does not? Give me a good OS-X-vs-Windows-Vista reason why they are superior. I'm genuinely curious and would switch if there's a good reason to do so.

I've been using SIP-based VoIP for about 8 years, including leading some decent-sized deployments around the world, and I have never heard of Quetcom or Twinkle. So this tells you one thing already: there's a tremendous diversity of software out there in the standards-based VoIP world (an alternative theory is that it's just telling you that I'm somewhat ignorant). Diversity means you have a better chance of finding something that more closely meets your needs.

But let me tell you some of the reasons I think SIP-based VoIP would appeal to a home user who's at least a tiny bit technically inclined:

1. Vastly superior hardware. Even halfway-decent SIP phones make the best Skype-compatible hardware look like absolute garbage. A mid-range Polycom will give you a full-duplex speakerphone that will rock your world. I'm using one from here in Malaysia to connect with co-workers in Europe and the USA, and the sound is perfect. 100%-effective echo cancellation, even with my 250ms other-side-of-the-planet latency. With Skype, echo always seems to become a problem at long distances (I'm not talking about feedback you get when using your PC speakers).

2. Vastly cheaper calls. The SIP ecosystem has a huge number of competitive suppliers, many of them with rates that leave Skype in the dust. My per-minute cost for most calls is 1/3 to 1/2 of what Skype charges (and I get comparable or superior audio quality).

3. Far more customisability. With a bit of tinkering, you can set up call handling/routing to do anything you can dream of. Calls from my parents ring on my mobile at any time no matter where I'm traveling, while calls from clients are handled differently depending on where I am and what time it is. Despite traveling to 20+ countries a year, I never pay roaming fees because I can route my calls to a new prepaid SIM card minutes after buying it, just by sending my server an SMS. With Skype you can only do what Skype, and a handful of bolt-on plug-in vendors that require your PC to be on all the time, think will make them money.

4. Interoperability. I'm a freelancer, and the SIP phone on my desk integrates directly with the PBXes of three of my main clients. I'm just a 3- or 4-digit extension in their phone system, with full abilities to do whatever people sitting in the office can do on their phones. My 4th line button connects to my own Asterisk server, which in turn bridges to a bunch of other systems.

Re:To fill in the missing info for the confused ..

[TooMuchToDo]

Voicepulse just discontinued their support of the IAX protocol because supposedly it didn't handle redundancy properly. Too bad they couldn't have just done a bit of work on the protocol.