Being a Software developer in Telecom, I have been hearing about ‘Click-To-Call’ feature for a long time. Many technologies promised click-to-fax, click-to-call and likes, and there were many implementations particularly in the SIP world as well. But I haven’t seen any website either on internet or intranet using this feature. And I happen to read this blog this morning which mentions about such testing going on from Google. Yet another first from Google.

http://www.yardley.ca/blog/index.php/archives/2005/11/23/google-tests-out-click-to-call-adwords/

I tried different searches, but did not see it myself. There are snapshots in the above blog however. There is a FAQ (http://www.google.com/help/faq_clicktocall.htmlFAQ ) also available on the Google site confirming it. Google might be using VOIP behind the curtains to connect the call. Yet another revolutionary introduction from Google. No wonder, analysts are expecting google share prices to go up to $500.

Interesting blog posting from Ingo Rammer. http://www.thinktecture.com/staff/ingo/weblog/archives/001431.html

Different perspective about why chunky interface are recommended over chatty interfaces.

Link to the Cheat sheet:http://www.paulenglish.com/ivr/

Normally it takes around 15 minutes on most customer care service phone numbers to reach the human agents. But the cheet sheet provided by Paul English might give you the customer care agent at an average of 56 seconds, as per the news story on NPR. What a great relief.

I don’t know how long this will work out. And how does it work if everyone try the same option? It has been really frustrating to get in touch with customer care agents. However short time it may workout, it is still a great relief.

I wish, the companies get the message and make it simple and really mean serving customer in providing easily accessible agents. I had a very painful experience with the customer care with Vonage, Uhaul and Budget truck rental and I summarized some of the reasons why customer service sucks for most of the companies along with detailed account of what happened in previous posts on my blog here.
Customer Service Sucks! Everywhere?
Vonage - Expecting good customer service is stupid
Uhaul, they stink
Budget Truck Rental Very tight budget for customer experiences.

Update: I tried calling Sprint PCS customer care, and I got agent just in few moments.

I was surprised to know that Skype steals my bandwidth for other Skype users without my notice. Skype architecture is not truly (traditional) peer to peer network, but an overlay P2P network and may steal your cpu/bandwidth[3]. I am not sure whether this is ever conveyed to the end user in terms and conditions or in license. Anyway, it was very interesting to learn the underlying architecture of the one of the most used applications of the day. And, I don’t mind sharing my cpu/bandwidth for other skype users. Skype is such an wonderful application, that I don’t want to abandon for this reason.

I searched for articles on Skype Architecture on google. Here are some of the links that explain the Skype architecture. I found the links to the first two articles at Brad Neuberg’s blog - Coding in Paradise

1. An Analysis of the Skype Peer-to-Peer Internet Telephony Protocol by Salman A. Baset and Henning Schulzrinne
2. An Analysis of the Skype Peer-to-Peer Internet Telephony Protocol
3. Challenges And Opportunities in Deploying IPV6 Applications There is fair amount of discussion over Skype architecture in this presentation

Some important points to note about Skype from the above three references:
“Skype is the first VoIP client based on peer-to-peer technology. We think that three factors are responsible for its increasing popularity. First, it provides better voice quality than MSN and Yahoo IM clients; second, it can work almost seamlessly behind NATs and firewalls; and third, it is extremely easy to install anduse.”[1]
“Skype architecture is based on stealing someone else bandwidth, without their consent, for other parties to use.”[3]

Brilliant fireworks at Disney Magic Kingdom, Orlando Fl, from my recent trip.
Visit Photo Gallery