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."

Skype, see Microsoft

[guruevi]

Skype is like the Microsoft (MSN) of VoIP. It's one of the main players for home and even small business yet it isn't compatible with any of the other players. It also attempts to lock in their customers (as they don't accept or dial out to SIP) so anyone that wants to connect to anyone else needs Skype. Furthermore it's doing some dubious practices behind the doors with three-letter agencies and governments so they can't be trusted. Anyone trying to implement their protocol is either infringing on patents or otherwise will meet a DMCA.

Wading into Telco Waters

[mpapet]

that are filled with Verizon/SBC/etc patents.

Note to all, the telco monopoly litigate with vengeance when an organization tries to cut into their hostage base. See Vonage case for the ultimate, totally unjustified, vigorish.

http://www.techdirt.com/articles/20070417/005814.shtml [techdirt.com]

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

[joe_cot]

SIP [wikipedia.org] is the underlying protocol that makes most VOIP work. If you're using Vonage, or Asterisk, or most other VOIP systems/providers, your phone calls are getting coordinated over SIP, with the audio sent back and forth on the side. Using SIP, Cisco systems can communicate with Asterisk systems, which can communicate with Microsoft SoundPoint systems, etc. Any of those systems can connect to a "SIP Provider" to get phone service.

Skype is off in its own little walled garden, with a special protocol and codec. There have been many attempts to link Skype and SIP, and they're usually pretty painful (and proprietary).

SipToSis [mhspot.com] is a program that will allow you to have a skype "server" that will connect sip calls to skype users and vice versa. It's a bit of a pain to set up, but it walks. He also offers a set of scripts to have multiple skype clients set up, load and unload them as necessary, redirect calls, etc. It's a huge, huge hack, but it works, and is much cheaper than previous solutions of this type.

There was apparently a beta test for an Skype channel driver for asterisk. This would allow someone to setup skype as just another input type (like a Zaptel analog phone connection, or a SIP trunk), and seemed to be the ideal solution. Either it never went anywhere, or they decided they didn't want me in the beta :(

Gizmo also offers a Skype trunking solution, similar to what Skype seems to be offering. They call it OpenSky [gizmo5.com]. It looks like it would work pretty well for home users, but it would get pretty steep for businesses -- and how many home users would set up friggin asterisk, besides me?

So if you're a business, OpenSky or Skype's current beta is probably what you're looking for. If you're a home user or an admin who either can't wait or has too much time on your hands, give SipToSis a try. It's a bit of a pain to set up, but it costs $2-$14 dollars one time, as opposed to everyone else, who will charge monthly or per minute.

Re:SIP trunks are already widespread and cheap

[vlm]

I'm mystified as to how to set up a dial plan for this. Maybe the answer is not to, just ignore it?

I have a perfectly good asterisk PBX at home with voicepulse as a IAX err... SIP provider, which used the much more modern and firewall friendly IAX protocol but dumped it for the PITA ancient pre-NAT pre-firewall era SIP protocol last month. Other than that major headache, they are great and only cost me 1/2 of a cent per minute outgoing.

Now skype will do free on-skype-net calls but offnet is 2 cents per minute per the article, which is a mere four times my current providers cost and they don't even offer off-net incoming like voicepulse. So I need two providers minimum.

So, whats in it for me? How do I only route skype user calls out the skype hole? I guess if I know in advance I can make custom plan for individual numbers.

Also saving a whopping half cent per minute only to skype users, what is the payback time for a business that pays a consultant $100 per hour to set this thing up?

And whats in it for skype? Lots of talk about "billions of dollars" in the article, which at 2 cents billable per minute, would only take something like 95000 call-years to gross a single billion.

Re:SIP trunks are already widespread and cheap

[Anonymous Coward]

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

Here's your answer. While you are correct, there is no desktop client like skype, that does audio, video, instant messaging & calling and does it VERY WELL.

Having tested many sip softphones and IM clients for corporate use, having one simple "presence" client that just works in all network situations and does everything is very handy. Having to deal with stun, ice and other crap with SIP can give you a big headache. (Ekiga comes close, but it won't work behind the most restrictive type of NAT which is still pretty common).

Of course, I don't trust skype at all, so it's banned from the office computers. If there was a private skype client, that would only connect to my company's skype servers, I would love a product like that, and I'd pay for it.