The BBC has an article about Internet telephony, which compares Skype and Vonage. Yes, Vonage have quietly introduced their services in the UK. I’d initially thought to myself that if Vonage ever were to start operations in the UK that I’d sign up with them, but I think they’ll find it hard to match the value-for-money you get with an unlimited GossipTel account. This push to VoIP is surely a good thing, but it shouldn’t happen indiscriminately. KPMG has recently released a white paper discussing the risks of VoIP (PDF Article from KPMG). Yes, the risks. Picture for a moment, that all your phone calls are going to be routed in an open format across the very hostile Internet. If you want to do any phone-banking, your account codes and PINs are being transmitted over the Internet which anyone could sniff! Or simpler, less hostile possibilities: you lose electricity, your internet provider has a failure, whatever: you instantly lose your phoning capabilities - no more 911 or 112 or 999. Beware where you tread.

This entry was posted on Monday, February 21st, 2005 at 19:21 and is filed under SIP, Technology. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can skip to the end and leave a response. Pinging is currently not allowed.