Do you think Telstra would have called a few meetings over the past few days regarding VOIP? You bet your life they did! For the first time in history we had all major TV news, newspapers, radio all covering the news that Google has entered into FREE telephone calls through their Google Talk software. I have tested this software and it is just so simple to use and the voice quality is superb.

This is just the beginning for Google as they ramp up the software for the mainstream community. Google are famous for releasing products in beta mode and this is no exception. The one thing that will have Telstra nervous is the fact Google has such a massive reach. Telstra users pale into comparison to the Google user base.

Telstra has to make a decision on VOIP - they will of course keep rolling out statements such as “we are currently testing VOIP but the technology is not mainstream”, but this is just another way of saying, “we are making so much money with the status quo, why should be coct ourselves billions of dollars in revenue, when we don’t have any serious competition”.
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Ok, many of my clients have asked me about my VOIP (Voice Over Internet Protocol) setup and so I dedicate this article to explaining what processes I went through to get this working.

1 Purchasing the Phone.
Although I have had VOIP software for some time, I always felt that unless I actually had a phone set then I would not use it as much as if I did. So I purchased a IP Telephone from Polycom. I chose the Polycom IP 500 (pictured below). The cost was around $300.00 (AUD).

2. Installing the Phone
Quite simple really, just plug the phone into a USB port, power plug and it fires up.

3. Software & Configuration
This was the painful bit, I don’t know why this type of service does not come with a simple step by step user guide or set up cd. What you have to do is install software on your pc to configure your phone and make your VOIP software talk to your phone. After a few days of back and forth calls to the supplier Comms Connect I had it up and running.

The Software I use is from a company called Freshtel and the software is called Firefly. It really does not matter about which software you get as long as it supports a SIP phone.

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