Link2VoIP Announcement

[aluminumsulfate at earthlink.net]

I just came across this announcement that voice-over-IP provider
Link2VoIP plans to terminate their support for IAX at the end of
February (2007).  For those who don't know, IAX is the Inter-Asterisk
eXchange protocol used by Asterisk, the open source PBX.

Fortunately, Asterisk already supports SIP.  Nonetheless, this
announcement represents grim news, because IAX2 is a very
firewall-friendly protocol and SIP (another industry standard VoIP
protocol) is a port forwarding nightmare.  This will undoubtely make
Link2VoIP more difficult to use for residential applications.  But,
hey, if it makes things easier for corporate IT, forget about the
customers.

I also have wonder what the Asterisk team (the creators of IAX) think
about Link2VoIP calling IAX2 unstable.

> Date: Mon, 15 Jan 2007 22:25:28 +0000
> From: Link2VoIP <noreply at link2voip.com>

> This is an e-mail alert advising all customers currently using the
> IAX2 (Inter-Asterisk eXchange) protocol for Asterisk and TrixBox
> that they must switch over to SIP (Session Initiation Protocol)
> immediately as IAX2 will no longer be supported as of February 28,
> 2007.
> 
> Why the change? We have found, through rigorous tests of our network
> infrastructure that IAX2 as a solution simply does not have the full
> stability required to handle thousands or more simultaneous calls

> As stated on the Link2VoIP News Section for January 11th, we are in
> the process of changing and upgrading our equipment which will allow

Except that if you go to their web site, there IS NO news section!
Hum.

> Regards,
> The Link2VoIP Team

FYI, I wouldn't recommend using Link2VoIP as a provider, anyway.  They
charge a monthly fee for service -- a fact which isn't mentioned in
any of their advertising or fee schedules -- and which constitutes a
deceptive marketing practice.  In my universe, if your company has to
trick me into doing business with it, it won't.