Last night, I made my first Internet-only phone call to an overseas friend. It was amazingly easy! We both signed up for accounts at Free World Dialup and used the free SIP Softphone called X-Lite from XTen. It even includes a version custom-made to use FWD: no configuration necessary!

True, we were pretty geeky talking to each other through our computers, but we had surprisingly good sound quality for talking half a world away. There are adapters that will also take a SIP call that lets it use regular phones.

I’m very close to returning my Packet 8 phone, since SIP does so much more than that. If Packet 8 allowed incoming SIP calls, I might keep it, but at this time it does not.

The future of telecommunications is in SIP and packets. Once you try it, you’ll really appreciate it.