Wired News: Mr. Disruption Strikes Again

Wired news is talking, of course, about Michael Robertson:

By offering low-cost SIP phones -- $129.99 per pair, with plans to reduce the price to $40 per phone within a year and $20 within two -- Robertson hopes to tap into SIP's early momentum, just as he did with his Linux and MP3 ventures.

"There's no per-minute cost for the phone company to zap electrons from one set of copper wires to another, so why do we pay per minute?" he says, "If you intersect with the (regular phone) system, you inherit their cost structure. With SIP to SIP, it can all be free."

His new company (along with MP3.com and Lindows) is SIPphone. The article mentions the "danger" that customer growth is required -- both people have to be on the system in order to communicate. I don't see this as a problem. Even better if you can buy "2 packs", with two different shipping addresses.

We keep talking about getting Kate's dad set up with a webcam. Once he retires and the lease on his business Dell is up, we'll get him to get an iMac and be all set.

This is part of the long term Archive, originally published on

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