Free Online Phone Call Service & iChat AV

[macphoria]

Creators of Kazaa came out with free application for making free phone calls using internet connection.

http://www.skype.com/

But iChat AV pretty much does what Skype offers. And iChat AV adds video capability. Skype does have some advantages, cheaper price and lower bandwidth requirement.

Anyway, my question is why is traditional voice only, phone service, still being pursued? How long will it take for iChat AV like service to completely replace phones? Would that ever happen?

[Dahl]

It will probably take a while.
People are creatures of habit and everybody loves their phones.

But when the technology is stronger who knows what will happen. But we can't have delays and dropped calls.

[jxyama]

anonymity (at least visually) of phone calls has its place... technology to have video phones been around but never got popular for reasons beyond just costs and quality...

so i think phones will be around for a while... sometime, you don't want the image on the other side.

[Dahl]

I'm already getting into the habit of using my iSight with my brother in Denmark.
Goodbye long distance phone calls. :)
Now the quality just have to get better, not that the current quality is bad, but it still have ways to go.

But just consider how old iChat is, it's still a new product. Let's see there everything is in a year or two.
Faster connections are crucial. ( Don't they have uberfast broadband in Japan for consumers ? )