Skype vs. Every Other VoIP Provider

12 February 2008

Technology questions are inevitably lobbed my way when I attend family get-togethers, and the holiday that just passed was no exception. It seems that a couple of folks were seriously considering signing up for some kind of VoIP service (one pointedly remarked on the near-flood of promotional material he was receiving about the service from his cable company), when someone piped in, "What's this Skype thing I keep hearing about?"

All VoIP services allow you to make and receive voice calls via your broadband Internet connection, but there are important differences between Skype and other VoIP services. Here we'll compare them in some key areas so you'll have the information you need before deciding to try one or the other. The exact features and capabilities you get with VoIP service depend on the provider, but for purposes of this discussion we'll broadly divide VoIP services into Skype and non-Skype (the kind you obtain from cable and phone companies, plus third-party providers like Vonage).