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VoIP
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VoIP
10:23 AM EST 3/15/06
Hi All!

Does anyone have any knowledge or experience using VoIP technology? I'd like to find out if it would save us money to switch from plain old telephone service. We aren't a big library and don't have a huge budget but this sounds like a technology that could drastically cut down on our phone bill and offer us features that we currently don't have.

I realize that there are probably some high start-up costs but that's just par for the course with anything anymore.

Jean
Re: VoIP
11:25 PM EDT 5/31/09 as a reply to Jean Gaskill.
Great question, Jean. VoIP is one of those technologies that has been emerging for awhile, but is now gaining some steam. I too would like to know more about how libraries are using it --or not.

I know of many individuals who are happily using Skype as a free alternative to long-distance phone calls. I haven't heard how well it works at the organizational level. We don't have permission to download it to our OCLC computers because there is some compromise to security, which I don't fully understand.

I'll report more as I learn more, but would love to hear from the field about how this all works.
Re: VoIP
2:06 PM EST 3/23/06 as a reply to Jean Gaskill.
Hi!
We do not use VOIP at the library, but I do use it at home. We use Vonage and it is saving us over $50.00 on our home bill. I have had no problems with it. You do need high speed internet.

We have more services with this than our regular phone line. It is definitely a great service for the price and no one knows we have VOIP, unless we tell them.
Re: VoIP
5:35 PM EST 3/28/06 as a reply to Jean Gaskill.
I teach a series of workshops highlighting emerging library technologies and VoIP is one of them that gets a mention. While there are several libraries that use or plan to use the tech in their libraries, the general conclusion seems to be that the technology may need some time to mature a bit before it is really reliable enough for commercial use.

I use Vonage at home and am quite pleased. However, I drop about one in 20 calls. I also get unlimited "free" local and long distance calling for about $30 a month. For me the trade off is worth it, but for a library, that wouldn't likely be good enough.

If you were working in, say, a one room library with a very, very minimal operating budget I would say it might be wise to consider using something like Vonage. For many libraries though I wouldn't reccomend it *at this point*.
Re: VoIP
11:25 PM EDT 5/31/09 as a reply to Michael Porter.
I'd like to interject that libraryman's Keeping Up workshops are really super. I was lucky enough to attend one of them. Michael does a wonderful job of presenting emerging technologies in such a way that they are not intimidating. He's very straightforward about what is useful to libraries and what is not.

Thanks for the info on VoIP.
Re: VoIP
2:15 PM EDT 4/21/06 as a reply to Jean Gaskill.
Chiming in here a bit late... I wanted to share my list of VOIP-related links that organizations might find handy that were discussed at this years NTEN event for non-profits.

Those links can be found @ http://del.icio.us/jlorance/ntc2006voip

One of my favorite VOIP mashups is to use something like Skype to do conference call even folks on regular or cell phones and then be able to broadcast it on the net using this very inexpensive tool by Rogue Amoeba called NiceCast: http://www.rogueamoeba.com/nicecast/

This lets organizations have a "conference call", "interview the expert/author, etc" and broadcast it on the Net for basically free...

John Lorance
CompuMentor/TechSoup
Re: VoIP -- Appliance
11:19 AM EDT 5/19/06 as a reply to Jean Gaskill.
I am sure that there will be more of this showing up. However, I thought that this might be of interest at least as one example of what might be coming.

"Fonality packs Asterisk PBX in a box ; Low-cost, feature-rich PBX appliance sports ASP management model" By Wayne Rash, May 11, 2006 --
http://www.infoworld.com/article/06/05/11/78093_20TCpbxtra_1.html