VOIP Questions

[Smithman]

Curious to know if anyone here has any experience using a VOIP phone line instead of a traditional landline?

I've been looking into them and they seem a lot cheaper than a normal phone, and have some kinda cool benefits. I'm curious for some feedback though--I'm looking at Lingo, Vonage, and SunRocket mainly, though am open to other options. Really my bottom line is price and international calling, as I don't use my phone for much other than ordering the odd pizza and calling overseas.

[clutch-monkey]

i'm getting it soonish for work reasons, until then i have no idea lol

[Smithman]

Nice. What company are you going with?

[Lagonda]

From what I've read they all have sound quality issues/dropped calls. YMMV. I have no first hand experience though.

[Smithman]

From what I've read they all have sound quality issues/dropped calls. YMMV. I have no first hand experience though.

Yeah, I've seen some of the feedback on that. I think it depends on how good your connection is, for one thing (need to double check mine, I suppose). Most of the reviews I've read of companies like SunRocket though say that it sounds crystal clear, even for international calls. In any case I doubt it's any worse than a cell phone, which is my other alternative--ditching the landline for my cell phone as a full-time phone, which I don't really want to do since international rates are obscene on a cell.

[lightweight]

I use Skype. You pay 5 pounds and each minute costs 0.019 pence if you talk to a landline anywhere in the world. It doesn't disconnect and I don't have any problems whatsoever.

Hope it helps!

[pimento]

I use a VoIP that's from my ISP. It's great, no quality issues at all, I was calling my sister in Japan on her mobile there, no issues with it at all. The calls only drop when your internet feed does, so make sure your connection is stable first.

[Alastor]

I have had Vonage for about 6 months now, and I have experienced all kinds of quality issues. Most of the time it is pretty good no complaints. However, if the internet is being used for any kind of moderately bandwidth intensive application the quality takes a dive. Oddly, enough it usually the person I am talking to that hears most of the distortion.

Overall, I am happy with the system because it so cheap. I have the Limited Use Plan which is $15 a month for 500 outgoing minutes and unlimited incoming minutes. My wife and I do not make a lot of calls and have never used more than half of the outgoing minutes. Plus she can call Japan for only 6 cents a minute, so I stopped freaking out when she is on the phone to her family for 2 hours.

When I had Qwest I had the most basic service they offered, no caller ID, no long distance, and not even access to the operator. After taxes that cost about $29/month hardly worth it in my opinion.

I don’t blame Vonage for the quality issues it is just a lack of sufficient consumer resources. At work our phones are VOIP and they are crystal clear never a hiccup, but that is running on a 100Mbit LAN.

I don't know if you have ever seen the Vonage online setup but it is kind of slick, attached are pictures of the online tools. The first one is of the activity page, the second billing overview, third is online voice mail access (mp3 format, sorry no current messages), and last is the email notification.

[pimento]

Alastor, if you are having quality issues with your VoIP, I would suggest that there could be a way around that. A lot of routers nowadays have QoS or Quality of Service settings in side them that can effectively reserve bandwidth for the exclusive use of something running through there. You may be able to set up a rule that will reserve the bandwidth for your VoIP when it needs it, I know that mine can. Basically it would hog its allocated bandwidth when a call is being made, but leave it free to be used at other times by everything else. Worth a try.

[Alastor]

Alastor, if you are having quality issues with your VoIP, I would suggest that there could be a way around that. A lot of routers nowadays have QoS or Quality of Service settings in side them that can effectively reserve bandwidth for the exclusive use of something running through there. You may be able to set up a rule that will reserve the bandwidth for your VoIP when it needs it, I know that mine can. Basically it would hog its allocated bandwidth when a call is being made, but leave it free to be used at other times by everything else. Worth a try.

Unfortunately, as far as I can figure out there is no such option, just the standard port blocking, forwarding, etc. Thanks for the suggestion though. Incase someone knows otherwise it is a Linksys BEFSX41.