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Old September 16th 04, 11:10 PM
Dave Platt
 
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In article ,
Leo wrote:

Heard the Dingotel.com 's new 2 way product will revolutionize voip
market .. if anybody used it.. let me know its performance..


I question "revolutionize". It looks as if they're taking some fairly
standard VoIP capabilities, and providing them as shrink-wrap hardware
and software, with some additional value-adds (e.g. PSTN access).

I see some issues in their product which may have results which are
.... well, "interesting" is perhaps the best way to put it. They
appear to be allowing the user to initiate outbound VoIP calls via
radios such as FRS, using voice recognition rather than DTMF (natural
enough since most such radios don't have DTMF pads). Security is
likely to be an issue, both in re initiating calls (do you really want
anyone with an FRS radio in your neighborhood to be able to call
people in your phonebook if they can fake your voice well enough), and
in privacy. Calls being relayed via FRS or other two-way radios are
not secure, and not protected by the statutes which cover cellular
phone calls.

They do acknowledge in the FAQ that you can't use the two-way radio
interface to call out to the PSTN, but this doesn't jibe well with the
statement on their home page that "DingoTel provides low long distance
rates to PSTN phones worldwide, and free calls to any DingoTel
member." My guess is that PSTN access is available only to those who
are using the hard-wired (PC headset) version of DingoTel, and not to
people using a two-way radio.

--
Dave Platt AE6EO
Hosting the Jade Warrior home page: http://www.radagast.org/jade-warrior
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