VoIP has become a staple in the lives of the wired set, connecting friends, family and business partners who are continents apart. It has paved the way for business transactions to ensue and it has become indispensable to the lives of many.

Aside from instant messaging, VoIP is one of the key elements to business transactions. What you can’t say as clearly on instant messenger can be communicated excellently through a voice call.

But what makes a VoIP call a richer experience would be incorporating video in it: quite a lot of VoIP and instant messaging applications have now incorporated video in its communication services. Yahoo Messenger has a webcam chat, and if you would also use its PC to PC calling service, then you can have a voice and video call with Yahoo Messenger.

But the one complaint that so many users have with Yahoo’s voice and video services is that the video stalls or lags. It’s not as real-time as it should be. The voice call quality is less than desirable, and most of the time, users have to repeat what they said to be understood. Not only that, the receiver of the call has to strain himself to actually understand what is being said.

Another complaint for Yahoo’s VoIP service is that they had limited the voice call functionality to their Windows users. Development for the Mac and the Unix clients had been slow and I guess it has something to do with Microsoft now owning Yahoo. Don’t you agree?

But that aside, there are other applications/programs that you can use for VoIP and even video calling purposes. There’s Skype, which is possibly the most feature-filled and the most mature VoIP client on the market, GizmoProject, which offers integration with other instant messaging accounts, and superb call quality, and if you want video in real time, with superb quality and the speed with which it delivers images, SightSpeed is a worthy competitor to Skype.

There are a few bugs with SightSpeed, however, but these are pretty much bearable nonetheless. Since it’s much faster than Yahoo Messenger, and needs less RAM than either Yahoo Messenger OR Skype, those who have tried SightSpeed are more than satisfied with its service. The only other downside is that there are so few people who use SightSpeed in the first place.

But if you have close contacts you may want to try it with, it’s very convenient for communicating with people on a constant basis. Video quality is sharp and clear, voice quality is superb.

As the VoIP industry matures and the best applications and services get better over time, while the not-so-good ones just fold up, these applications and services are tested and as in the natural world, it is a matter of a “survival of the fittest.” All I know is that video calling and VoIP are definitely here to stay.

More of my friend’s SightSpeed experience on the next post.

Download SightSpeed here.

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