When deciding to go for Smart voip, you need to determine what kind of standard
you wish to adopt. Unlike the traditional PSTN phone system that has had
decades to sort itself out, there is no single for Smart voip. Every company has its own way of going about
things. The closest we have to an international standard is known as the
Session Initiation Protocol or SIP for short. As the name suggests, it mainly
deals with the setting up and tearing down of a Smart
voip call. The actual
communication takes place using an RTP channel directly between the two users
making it a P2P application.
Third-party programs like Skype however use
proprietary protocols that are not compatible with SIP. What this means from a
practical point of view is that you cannot speak to an SIP user using Skype at least for free. It's
like two people speaking a different language. If each possesses a telephone
number however, then the call will drop down to the traditional PSTN phone
system which is the common denominator. But this is a waste of time and money.
It's as if two people with a Gmail and Yahoo e-mail address want to communicate
and have to wait for their messages to be hand-delivered to a specific location
and then converted into electronic format again.
Unfortunately, it makes good business sense
for Skype to enforce a
different kind of protocol. It is not in Skype's interests to allow
intercommunication with people from other networks. Because it creates a
"lock-in" and prevents their customers from leaving. The so-called
"network effects" become larger as more and more people join the
network. It's the same reason that it's so difficult for anyone to move to
another social network - all of their friends are already on there!
Skype is also a single company whereas SIP can
be implemented by any organization. So for example when Microsoft decided to
allow law-enforcement agencies to have access to Skype calls, there's nothing
the user can do about it. If you don't like the privacy policies of your SIP
provider on the other hand, you can just move to another one with a more secure
system. SIP is also more flexible in the sense that you can use any number of Smart voip clients on your smartphone, tablets, or your
PC. With Skype however you're stuck with just the one. That is once more the
result of them having a nonstandardized Smart voip protocol.
If you're looking for a long-term Smart voip solution, Skype is a very poor choice for
that. SIP on the other hand is attracting new adherents all the time. Always
place your bets on standardized systems rather than those making use of
proprietary protocols.
