Actually, I just set up Speak Freely with xspeakfree last night.  It works
well if your sound card drivers support full duplex on the card.  Using GSM
compression, the voice stream is only 2.0K/sec.  Make sure when you compile
Speak Freely, you add the -DLINEAR_NEEDED option to the makefile or your
sound quality will sound like a chainsaw (95% of all Linux boxes will need
this), and remove the -DHALF_DUPLEX option if your card AND DRIVER supports
full duplex.  Delay over my DSL to the U of MN was roughly 1 second, no
jitter though.  

Of course, you don't get a POTS gateway if that's what you're looking for.
Cisco makes some sweet IP phones now also if you're into spending some
cashola.  Probably cheaper than a traditional phone system, especially if
you have many remote sites.

If anyone's interested in messing with Speak Freely later tonight, drop me a
line.  I won't be able to mess with it until after 9 or so though.  I still
haven't set up encryption.

Jay

> -----Original Message-----
> From: Bill Layer [mailto:b.layer at vikingelectronics.com]
> Sent: Monday, November 20, 2000 8:52 AM
> To: tclug-list at lists.real-time.com
> Subject: Re: [TCLUG] Telephony Stuff
> 
> 
> Hi,
> 
> On Sun, 19 Nov 2000, you wrote:
> > Does anyone know how this internet telephony work ?
> 
> Quite nicely, with sufficient bandwidth.. You need about a 
> 28.8K segment of
> bandwidth to carry a high-quality full-duplex voice connection. 
> 
>  I would like to know
> > how expensive it is to set it up and what kind of hardware 
> and software
> > I need. My goal is to see if I can get around the long distance
> > companies to make international calls in carrier grade quality. any
> > thoughts ? ....
> 
> The best hardware solution I have seen for for dedicated VOIP 
> is the InterStar
> IP Star by DSG technology. You need a minimum of two boxes, 
> at a cost of around
> $200 US per box. The IP Star presents a standard 10/100 RJ-45 
> UTP interface for
> data, and an RJ-11C interface for an analog (POTS) telephone 
> device. In effect,
> you can plug an old-fashioned analog telephone into this box 
> and place calls
> across the LAN or internet by dialing the IP address of the 
> remote box. There
> are also solutions for VOIP to landline, and vice-versa. The 
> management of DSG
> also seems quite responsive: I phoned them about a firmware bug that I
> discovered in the unit, and the software engineer literally 
> corrected it
> on-the-fly, offering his thanks & apologies. 
> 
> I have tried the system with fax machines, and fax worked 
> fine across the LAN.
> Lag was in the milliseconds, and voice quality was comperable 
> to a cordless
> telephone.  The only competing product that offered as  much 
> performance was
> the Multu-VOIP from Multi-Tech (made right here in good old 
> MN). But at 5x the
> cost, the IP Star was the obvious price / performance choice.
> 
> -- 
> Bill Layer
> Sales Technician
> <b.layer at vikingelectronics.com>
> 
> +----------------------------------+
>      Viking Electronics, Inc.
>        1531 Industrial St.
>     Hudson, WI. 54016 - U.S.A
>       715.386.8861 ext. 210
>  <http://www.vikingelectronics.com>
> +----------------------------------+
> 
> "Telecom Solutions for the 21st Century"
>     Powered by Slackware Linux 7.1.0
>  
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