AT&T is ripping off our GIs trying to call home from Iraq and Tom Evslin, who knows whereof he blogs, is on the case. Read three recent posts.
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9 Responses to “As if risking your life isn’t bad enough”
For $750-1500/month and a computer and skype we could provide FREE phones to service men. Anyone know how many simultaneous phones one could put on a 512K line?
Grrrr.
-j
Janice, I believe it’s around 70-80 Kbits/s so six or seven simultaneously would be a good bet.
So, Skype doesn’t work there and they can’t use pay phones without being shot at.
If any troops are reading this you can do a tracert to whitehouse.gov to figure out if you’re using a satellite connection. Then do a speed test with an American server to see if Skype is possible or if the govt. is just filtering it out for their buddies at AT&T
Skype is encrypted by default so the US government might not be happy about its use but it’s rumored that they have a backdoor and so can listen to any encrypted Skype conversation.
One thing I know for sure — If one is on a sat internet connection in Iraq, the quality of the connection on skype will vary from crystal clear to echo-y. It depends on latency…
In my experience, Skype between Iraq and US via satellite works better than the phone more than half the time.
[...] It’s not old news when the overcharging continues. And in the way the Web can have of elevating important news, a posting on the O’Reilly Emerging Telephony site, pointing to Evlin’s posting, got “Digged” in a major way. Jeff Jarvis and other prominent bloggers have linked to it as well. I predict it’ll be back in the Big Media very soon now. [...]
Skype isn’t the only VOIP service in town. There are many VOIP providers, many better and cheaper than Skype, and lots of different ways to talk directly without even using any service at all. Video game players have been using technology like this to speak to each other for years.
With 512kbs upload you can fit 5-10 concurrent calls with some kbs left for internet overhead (depending on the setup). There is a free codec called gsm that takes about 32kbs and sounds the same as a normal phone. There are ways to fit even more, if you don’t mind a serious degradation in voice quality.
March 10th, 2006 at 7:43 pm
AT&T - Ripping Off The Troops?
AT&T charges the troops $0.21/minute to call home from Iraq. Calling cards usable on streetcorner phone booths in Baghdad cost $0.05…
March 11th, 2006 at 1:35 am
You wanna stand at the phone on the corner in uniform?
March 11th, 2006 at 7:28 am
This is what is happening to this nation.
people have been reduce to parasites and they care for nothing except profit.
March 11th, 2006 at 8:57 am
For $750-1500/month and a computer and skype we could provide FREE phones to service men. Anyone know how many simultaneous phones one could put on a 512K line?
Grrrr.
-j
March 11th, 2006 at 4:17 pm
Janice, I believe it’s around 70-80 Kbits/s so six or seven simultaneously would be a good bet.
So, Skype doesn’t work there and they can’t use pay phones without being shot at.
If any troops are reading this you can do a tracert to whitehouse.gov to figure out if you’re using a satellite connection. Then do a speed test with an American server to see if Skype is possible or if the govt. is just filtering it out for their buddies at AT&T
Skype is encrypted by default so the US government might not be happy about its use but it’s rumored that they have a backdoor and so can listen to any encrypted Skype conversation.
March 12th, 2006 at 11:55 am
One thing I know for sure — If one is on a sat internet connection in Iraq, the quality of the connection on skype will vary from crystal clear to echo-y. It depends on latency…
In my experience, Skype between Iraq and US via satellite works better than the phone more than half the time.
…and thanks Kirk!
March 12th, 2006 at 12:29 pm
[...] It’s not old news when the overcharging continues. And in the way the Web can have of elevating important news, a posting on the O’Reilly Emerging Telephony site, pointing to Evlin’s posting, got “Digged” in a major way. Jeff Jarvis and other prominent bloggers have linked to it as well. I predict it’ll be back in the Big Media very soon now. [...]
March 14th, 2006 at 6:58 pm
Skype isn’t the only VOIP service in town. There are many VOIP providers, many better and cheaper than Skype, and lots of different ways to talk directly without even using any service at all. Video game players have been using technology like this to speak to each other for years.
With 512kbs upload you can fit 5-10 concurrent calls with some kbs left for internet overhead (depending on the setup). There is a free codec called gsm that takes about 32kbs and sounds the same as a normal phone. There are ways to fit even more, if you don’t mind a serious degradation in voice quality.
June 14th, 2006 at 5:21 am
And our German soldiers in Masar i Scharif use privately bought telescopes.