While not defending the choice of voice for this particular thing, voice over the internet seems 'solved' for general purposes. People use Skype or similar for business all the time, and gamers have been using teamspeak or ventrilo for 'mission critical' things for a decade. Any laptop on a non-terrible internet connection should be a usable endpoint for VOIP comms.

There are some people who type with 'chop sticks'. It would be rather frustrating having to wait for the other party to respond in that case.

Yeah, so let the two people having the chat decide if they want to use voice or abandon voice because it’s just wasting time or use text. A whiteboard would also be helpful to have.

Interesting! :)