Teamspeak Systems released their first ever client application over 17 years ago, in October 2001. Since then, many voice-over-IP applications have come and gone, but Teamspeak continues to live on. What makes Teamspeak so special? In order to answer this, you first need to dig deeper into Teamspeak itself, understand how it works and what has made them so successful.
How it works
Teamspeak runs as a dedicated servers on various platforms including Windows, MacOS, Linux and FreeBSD. It uses client software to allow users to control both server administration and configuration. Client applications are available on Windows, MacOS, Linux, as well as both major mobile platforms (iOS and Android).
What makes Teamspeak so special?
One of the most impressive things about Teamspeak, and one of the reasons why it continues to be so popular, is due to its extremely capable integer-based permission system. The permissioning is set either to Power (level that group/user has) or Needed Power (level needed by the group/user to use that specific permission). Besides permission, the audio quality is far superior to those of their main competitors, given the choice of CELT, Speex, or Opus codec, whereas Teamspeak’s two biggest competitors both only offer the Opus codec; users actually continue to comment on the absolutely terrible audio quality of Discord and others compared to Teamspeak. Teamspeak also provides the following features that are unique to it in comparison to its main competition: military-grade (AES-based) encryption, the ability to customize the client’s user interface, unlimited file transfers, and support for gamepad and joystick hotkeys.
So what about the others?
Discord in particular has made headlines in recent months, but for all the wrong reasons. While Discord has captured a large market share due to the fact that its core functionality is free (for now – while they have already started charging for other aspects of their business), Discord is known for (and openly admits to) selling user data to 3rd parties whereas with Teamspeak, their system is fully decentralized and they therefore cannot collect or harvest user data, even if they wanted to (which they don’t – and they have clearly stated this for a long time now). Discord also has ads, the audio quality is greatly inferior to that of Teamspeak (as referenced above), there has been news of Discord having major issues around pornography, and Discord can shut down a server at a whim for any supposed violation of their ToS (a quick Google search will reveal many instances of this – many that are definitely merited, but many unwarranted).
Why we continue to support Teamspeak
First, Teamspeak Systems have been good to us. Since becoming an ATHP in 2013, we have hosted over 10,000 servers of at least 10 slots each (and as many as 1000 slots on a single server), offering servers out of more and more locations year after year. Our partnership with the good folks at Teamspeak has continued to get stronger, and we are now eagerly anticipating the upcoming release of Teamspeak 5 which has been delayed from their originally expected release date of Q4 2018, but is now expected out in Q1 2019. Many believe that the innovation behind Teamspeak had halted, but from what we hear, they have been working tirelessly in the background for several years now, and the result of that work should come to fruition and be evident with the release of the new TS5 client.
Next steps
We recently purchased domains ts5.ca, teamspeak5.ca and teamspeak5.co — visiting any of those sites (www.ts5.ca, www.teamspeak5.ca & www.teamspeak5.co) will automatically re-direct you to our Teamspeak 3 page for now. Rest-assured however that as soon as Teamspeak 5 officially launches, we will support it from day 1, and will continue to provide the exceptional service that our users have come to love and expect.