Asustek brings Skype to motherboards

By Alex Zaharov-Reutt
Sunday, 03 December 2006 21:03

Your IT - Entertainment

While it still needs a PCI card to be plugged into the motherboard, inbuilt Skype support letting you plug in a regular telephone to make Skype calls is finally being built-in as standard.

Asustek, also known as Asus, the manufacturer of notebook computers for other companies and under their own brand name, along with making a range of other computer parts, including motherboards, has decided to include Skype support with their motherboards at last.

While it uses a PCI card that plugs into the motherboard to give you an RJ-11 phone jack into while you can plug any regular telephone, it’s surely only a matter of time before the necessary chipset is built directly onto the motherboard for simplicity’s sake.

After all, many notebook computers already come with an RJ-11 jack with a 56kbps modem behind it to plug into a phone line for Internet access or to send faxes.

But with few people bothering to dial up anymore, and with few faxes sent these days, unless absolutely necessary, and at least in comparison with the ever popular broadband and email alternatives, perhaps Asustek will make sure that any future RJ-11 jacks on desktop and notebook motherboards will be able to be used for all three features – modem, fax and Skype or other VoIP provider support.

That’s an important issue. What if I don’t want to use Skype, but I want to use Vonage, or Engin in Australia, or a big telco’s VoIP service? Surely this ability will come, as will the need to ensure computers come with more than one RJ-11 jack in the future.

Ah, the humble RJ-11 jack. Just when some may have thought your days were numbered, along comes 21st century telecommunications to make you relevant in the world once again.

Oops… Sorry, I gotta go. The phone’s ringing.