I have a somewhat checkered history with VoIP. On the one hand, I really like making Skype-to-Skype calls. The quality tends to be great, I have some friends I make video calls with, and it’s hard to beat the price. One the other hand, a recent employer tried to switch everyone to VoIP for home offices, and the results were mixed. The system they used wanted a serious (and very reliable) broadband connection. There’s nothing like the need for reliable broadband to point out just how rare it really is out in the real world. Anyway, there’s a new VoIP system out that may be a great answer for folks who travel between public internet kiosks or just don’t want to load new software on their computer.

GizmoCall is based on Flash technology, and doesn’t require any client software beyond the Flash plugin. You get a few minutes a day of free calls to regular phone numbers, and reasonable rates after that. The folks over at LifeHacker have looked at GizmoCall, and seem to like it, though judging from their forum messages it may be a short-term victim of its own success. With Google and others jumping into the VoIP pool it’s likely that computer-based calling is going to get very interesting in 2007.

Categories: General computing, Consumer, Software