Internet telephones better than land-lines: new report

A large-scale VoIP study from Keynote Systems concludes that VoIP audio quality is improving, and in some cases exceeds that of the traditional phone network—so long as you're making calls within the US. More than 100,000 people a month are making the switch to VoIP, but questions still linger in consumers' minds about quality and reliability. The new study gives reason to hope.

Ars spoke with Arun Bhardwaj, a Senior Product Manager at Keynote, about the results of the company's third major VoIP study. Keynote specializes in mobile and Internet test and measurement services, and for this test they rented apartments in San Francisco and New York City, stuffed them full of gear, and made more than 125,000 calls using VoIP hard phones, VoIP soft phones, digital cable VoIP phones, and traditional phones during the month of August.