Despite (or perhaps because of) its closed and proprietary system, Skype seems to get a lot of support from hardware manufacturers. There are dedicated Skype phones available from the likes of Belkin and Netgear, but the firm has managed to get mainstream consumer electronics companies on board too, with Panasonic, Philips and Siemens all offering Skype-compatible DECT phones.
Although I certainly wouldn’t recommend businesses abandon their BT lines and use Skype as their main inbound number, I reckon it’s a perfectly acceptable alternative to expensive mobile roaming if you happen to be spending a few days overseas. Just be aware of the fact that your calls (although encrypted) will be passing through a lot of other people’s computers and network connections, and if you’re going to be using Skype for business calls, make sure that this behaviour complies with your company security policy.
That’s it for VoIP this month, and I didn’t even have room to mention a rather excellent ADSL wireless router that provides a VoIP mini-switchboard, so I’ll cover that one next time.
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