P. Oscar Boykin

I started using Sipphone for my main telephone about two weeks ago. At that time, I said I would post about my experiences after playing with it some.

The Good

The good news is, Sipphone is cheap. Sipphone/Gizmoproject are basically the same company (probably some technical details only known to the employees that differentiate them). Using Gizmo you can purchase minutes to call the US for $0.01/minute. This is a good price. Since the only other fee is $3/month for the call in number, this is substantially cheaper than most other systems.

There are a couple of cool features with sipphone/Gizmo. I get my voicemail emailed to me as a wav file. This is probably common in voip, but I love that. Also, Gizmo has a nice conferencing system. We have used this for group meetings and it worked rather well. I really like how open Sipphone/Gizmo is. I can access everything with a standard sip program (like the Free Software program Twinkle). Also, I connected my own personal ATA to the sipphone service and I have had no problems whatsoever. Due to this openness, I am hoping to be able to make and receive calls when I am traveling this summer. I did a little when I was in LA recently, and it worked great (adding to my suspicion that all my calls are being routed through the west coast, since the delay was less when I was in LA calling NC).

The Bad

Unfortunately, the performance is not too great. I have had no hiccups with my setup. When you call, my ATA makes my cordless phone ring. When I call out, the call goes through. The problem is, there is a non-negligible delay on many calls. I suspect (though I have not done careful experiments) this is due to crossing the country two times. I think my calls out are being routed through some west coast location, and then back across the country. So, when I call NC (my home state), or other locations in Gainesville, FL, the delay is rather annoying. Again, this is just a hypothesis, but the delay seems to be much less when I call people on the west coast. Finally, when I call a friend that also using sipphone (free minutes!) the delay is not noticeable. The delay is the main problem I notice. I have not had dropped calls, or poor quality on calls.

Another problem I have is that I a bought my call-out minutes from sipphone, which charges slightly more than gizmo (100% more, but who’s counting) and they don’t deliver caller-id information. When I burn through these minutes, I will buy gizmo minutes, and I think caller-id will “just work”.

There is one last issue that may be a problem for some people. So far, it seems that they only do pre-paid minutes. This is not conventional with telephone service, but I don’t mind. They do accept Paypal, which I prefer to using Visa. If someone cracks Sipphone/Gizmo’s database, they won’t learn my Visa number. Paypal already knows my Visa number, so the marginal increase in risk is nil.

Summary

The summary is the following: if you don’t make a lot of calls, or you have other friends using sipphone. the system is great and very cheap. If you make a lot of local calls, the lag may cause a problem for you. If you really like being free to use your own hardware/software, sipphone may be for you. You can always test it out making some calls from a sip software phone at your home. The performance with an ATA should be very similar. You can very easily buy a few minutes and test it out, so the risk is minimal. Supposedly Broadvoice also lets you use your own sip hardware and software. I have not tried it. You pay much more for Broadvoice, but perhaps they have less lag in their calls.

I had the pleasure of visiting Los Angeles for a long weekend. Yesterday morning I had an early flight departing LA at 6am. At around 4:45 or 5am I was going through security. Obviously there is no good time to go through airport security, but the early hour and the guard running it didn’t make it any easier. The guard was letting us know helpful tidbits like “if the area beneath your bags is not moving, your bags will not move” (which is not strictly true since the conveyor belt is often stopped, but you get the idea). This guy is telling us all very helpful facts and reminders about how to run our luggage through the X-ray. He also mentions, that they “recommend” that we take our shoes off. Recommendation taken under advisement.

In general, I think law and order is great, and as a generalization, I respect cops. On the other hand, I think civil liberties are great, and given that I know I am not a threat, I don’t see how it is in my interest to volunteer to be searched. Additionally, I was wearing a pair of boots that are not terribly easy to remove. Given that they did not cause any problem in Gainesville, I was willing to give them a try in LA.

So, I go through the detector. There is no alarm. The guard says “please take off your shoes”. I said, “I thought that was optional”, he says, “it is, but if you refuse we will have to use the wand”. I said, “okay, let’s do the wand”. The first thing the wand guy does is tell me I have to take off my shoes.

Apparently, I missed something. I guess taking my shoes off was optional in the sense that getting on the plane is optional. My shoes did not set off any metal detector, it was only after I refused their offer to put them into the X-ray machine that I was required to take them off. So, I guess refusing a search makes me suspicious enough to merit being searched.

I am not saying that requiring passengers to have their shoes X-rayed is a bad thing. That might be a very sound policy. What I don’t like is the idea that this “option” is either not really an option, or that exercising that option automatically gets you flagged for more invasive search. If we must take our shoes off, say “you must take your shoes off”. Don’t say, “we recommend”.