Other applications of TCP/IP

any experience....

[FreeBee]

oilman – sorry for slotting in on your forum here but I can’t think of anyplace better :)

We’re in need of some non e-mail solution for long-distance connections with a remote office limited by a standard analogue dial-up at 14,4k. A satphone connection isn’t justifiable but video-conferencing or even Voice over IP would do the job. Some simple bits of hardware and software must be around.

Does anybody here have experience with this sort of thing? Maybe some guys in the gaming sector?

[mivox]

For real-time communication, I can't think of anything simpler than using ICQ... but I don't know if ICQ is limited to two-party conversations or not.

[satanclaus]

Is the voice part of your communications really necessary? If not then definitely go with something simple like ICQ, Messenger, etc. We use ICQ for simple communication between office employees. There is a chat function for more than one person communication.

[bill]

NetMeeting will let you do one-to-one video/voice conferencing. CUseeMe will let you have multiple video/voice connections, but the software is not free. Both of these options work better with more bandwidth.

If you're limited to 14.4k then ICQ or MSN Messenger might suffice. To make it a little more secure you might want to try encrypting your communications with PGP. I haven't tried these, but there's PGP-ICQ [samopal.org] for ICQ and a plug-in for MSN Messenger [commandcode.com].

[Black Knight]

I've not been involved with developments in chat and internet telephony clients for over a year, but the original voice version that was popular was PowWow, followed closely by FireTalk. Both had a better reputation amoung the chat addicts than any other client software.

Dunno if that helps, but it's all I can offer. :)

Ammon

[FreeBee]

Thanks for the feedback guys, this has been really helpful. ICQ looks like a good starting point even if it’s used primarily for initiating a voice session using another application.

The telephony part is important but the bandwidth constraint is a problem and there may be firewall issues to look at too. If ICQPhone can’t solve the problem then I’ve got some good leads here.

Thanks again. :)