Two new Internet telephony products for Mac OS X 10.2 have been released by Mac2Phone. They’ve released Mac2phone Basic and Mac2phone Pro, two versions of a voice-over IP Internet phone that’s SIP based.
SIP stands for Session Initiation Protocol. It’s a signaling protocol for Internet conferencing, telephony, presence, events notification and instant messaging.
Mac2phone Basic is freeware and lets you make free calls over the Internet from any Mac to another Mac or PC. You can also communicate with others on mobile phones and SIP IPPhone without costs.
Mac2phone Pro is US19.95 and offers all the features of the basic version, as well as dtmf touch tone support and vanity support for numbers like 0800-BUDDY-4-MAC. With the pro version’s SoftPhone SearchList you have direct access to a list of all people who use the softphone currently. (SoftPhone is an Internet telephony product for Wintel systems). You can make a search inside of the list to find people you like. Double click on the name, and you can directly call them or send them SIP instant messages.
Mac2phone Pro also has an IgnoreList (for blocking out those who disturb you), a BuddyList (for quick access to those you call frequently), an AIM (AOL Instant Messenger) compatible messenger, SIP compatible messenger (which lets you send instant messages directly to and SoftPhone or SIP compatible hard phones with instant message enabled).
The folks at Mac2phone claim their telephone rates let you save up to 50 percent compared to the rates of traditional phone companies. You can check out their rates online.
Both Mac2phone Basic and Mac2phone Pro require Mac OS X 10.2, a connected microphone, and connected loudspeaker. With very slow modem (under 56K with compression) you can use Mac2phone for computer to computer phone via Internet, however, a fast modem with compression or DSL is recommended.