VOIP??

Anyone out there using VOIP as home phone? If so, who are you with and what do you think? Any recommendations or warnings?

I did have it before I got rid of my landline. We used Charter Communications (our cable provider). They came in, installed a box in the basement the size of a cable modem (for 911 locating, tech said),attached a cable line to it and patched it into the phone box outside. Had no problems whatsoever. If I ever decide to get a landline again I will go back to it.

Anyone using Vonage, TW or any other cable co providing phone service are using VoIP, whether they know it or not.

I played around with Asterisk a little while. It was nice for a free platform and runs pretty good on old hardware. Not really something I'd recommend as your only phone service.

Oh yeah...I've heard some good reviews of Magic Jack too. It's a USB adapter for youe PC and uses your existing internet for connectivity.

At about $40 including a year of service, it could be a nice initiation.

What ever you get, you want the 911 locator.

This will not be our only phone. We have 2 phones (cell) now but because I'm starting my own business we are bumping up against, and now starting to blow by our plan mins. The next step up is more mins than we need and more $$ than we have. I figured if, for $15 or $20 a month we had a home phone we could really make the most of our cell phones.

We use Vonage at work for our second line (1st and 3rd are POTS). It works well with decent quality over our wireless (over a mile) link. We run dd-wrt in our router to do QoS duties (among many other things) with VoIP at the top of the heap. Keep in mind that plane ole' phones work when the power is out.

Dan

2002acr wrote: What ever you get, you want the 911 locator.

You got that right.

We have VOIP through TIme Warner. We also have HD cable and internets through them. Most of the time it works fine, but when it doesn't you can't call 'em or e-mail 'em to let 'em know you have a problem with your service. Having had it for about two years now I would rather not have ALL my eggs in one basket.

We have considered dropping VOIP and just using the cell phones as our primary phone, since it has voice mail at no additional cost, unlike VOIP through TW, and we have excellent range with our Sprint program.

My personal opinion... VOIP in any form simply sucks at this point. Its fine for personal use if you don't mind dropping calls 20% of the time, but as someone who has used three different VOIP setups for business, I can tell you they literally made me rip the phone off the wall and throw it through a window. And when I say literally, I mean I actually threw the phone through the window.

At my current office, we had cable internet and regular phone. In 6 months, we never (and I mean never) lost internet for even a split second. Our synch log showed one brief time-out for 0.6 milliseconds over a 6 month period. We switched to VOIP for the simplicity of linking multiple locations from one number. So far we have logged an average of 44 losses per day, each lasting about 3 minutes. That's hours a day that we can't conduct business.

VOIP at my apartment was abyssmal. The very act of the neighbor sending a fax would knock out my synch for nearly an hour. Rain? Forget about it. You were lucky to get it back when the sun came out.

VOIP at my parents' house? Good luck getting the phone to ring. I could call them a dozen times in a row and they wouldn't get so much as a ring or a voice mail notification.

IMHO, VOIP is like the birth of AM radio. It is so ridiculously infantile in technology, and incompatibilities are rampant. For instance, using a wireless keyboard or mouse with VOIP is much like trying to listen to an AM broadcast while using an electric shaver. The field generated by the wires involved are notable, and simply routing power wires near network cables can render the signal completely useless.

I ditched land lines years ago. The last land phone I had was in 1999. I've been cell phone only since then. I have seen such incompatibility that I keep my voice communication on mobile phones and internet on DSL. The only exception is using chat software with voice/video.

Comcast Digital Voice is my home/ office provider. No problems. Tried Majik Jack, had too many problems.Low volume, dropped calls, poor voice quality. A number of my Caribbean customers use it, with a Miami area code programmed in, so they get free calls to the States. I use Skype Out for most of my outgoing calls. Free for all US, very good rates for international calls. Not perfect,though. Sometimes get an irritating echo, a few dropped calls, but overall satisfactory. Skype to Skype gives incredible call quality, better than dial up.

Bumboclot wrote: Keep in mind that plane ole' phones work when the power is out. Dan

if a pole comes down the phone line usually comes down with it.... ( cable also )

I don't know what Curtis73 has been smoking or what company he was using (I'd guess Vonage) but I've been using Voice Pulse for business and home for over 4 years now. Never a dropped call and the voice quality is exceptional. I have people ask me all the time what phone I'm using cause I sound like I'm in the next room.

I cut my office bill by over $400 a month switching from a land line. If/When the internet cuts out for any reason it automatically forwards the calls to our cell phones.

They have a wonderful service that senses autodialers, etc and we've cut those calls down to almost nothing.

In the beginning I had Voice Pulse and Vonage at the same time because they were new enough I wanted to be sure I had one that worked. Voice Pulse was light years easier to set up espicially roll over ringing for multiple lines and MOST IMPORTANTLY Voice Pulse gives you a phone number that lets you talk to real people night or day to get any issues, questions or problems taken care of in minutes. Vonage gives you an email response system that never took me less than 2 days to actually get an answer. They always start you off with an FAQ response then try an almost boiler plate email and only after all that fails can you talk to someone.

There is one itty bitty problem, with VOIP you won't be listed in the phone book. You have to contact all the local phone books and give them your number.

We used Vonage for a short time. Customer service was terrible. Actually, non existant. Until we wanted to cancel, then they called constantly to try to change our minds.

been using voip for a few years now... we had Vonage and whlile the service worked well the customer service was so bad I CAN'T recommend them.

we now have magic jack... occasionally it has a few issues... the biggest is it operates with software... has to be plugged into a computer that is on to work... but it's $20 a year for service... a neat part of it is it'll work with a standard phone or you can use a headset though the computer (although i did notice a little more lag with the headset and WiFi combo) also had issues innitaly getting it working on the laptop, using magicjacks live chat customer support I was able to get it working just fine... also very portable which can be nice.

works real nice as a "land line" if you use a cell phone as your primary

So Why do you need a land line again. Just for going over on min? Just get Google voice and the cheapest cell plan with the 5 favorite or whatever. Then froward the Google voice account to that phone and call out through your Google voice number and your good. Simple.

And magic jack blows don't buy it.

xd not a bad idea for the google voice and fav 5 or whatever setup

xd wrote: So Why do you need a land line again. Just for going over on min? Just get Google voice and the cheapest cell plan with the 5 favorite or whatever. Then froward the Google voice account to that phone and call out through your Google voice number and your good. Simple. And magic jack blows don't buy it.

Ok, can you 'splain that to me like I'm a third grader? I'm wanting the landline to make my cell mins stretch further. I'm not going to use it for business calls (since I'll be on the road, my cell is my primarry business #) but to call family and friends before 7 pm when nights and weekends kicks in. So yeah, can you tell me more about google voice and your idea??

if i'm catching his drift you use the call forward feature on google voice... change it and make your call to your google phone number... if you set your google voice number as one of your freebie numbers you could do this and it wouldn't cost you anything...

xd and donalson, you are brilliant!!!

Now, the next question is, does anybody have a GV invite? I clicked on the link and it said something like "when it's available in your area, you'll get an invite" or some such thing. Well, uh, I have the internet here, and phones so?????? Anyone know how much it is?

DrBoost wrote: Now, the next question is, does anybody have a GV invite?

I would, but it doesn't look like they gave me any invites??

OK, I see it's free! Sweeeet. Now I just need an invite and I'm golden.

yup not seeing any invite option :-/... sorry or i'd send you one...

now one minor issue though with using the call forwarding thing... you'll have to change the number you're calling every time you want to call someone else... but thats the cost for not using your min up i guess haha

We have had Vonage for like 6 years, customer service is not the best but is also no worse than AT&T that we had before that.

The calls are clear as long as you set up QOS.

Ok, never mind I was about 6 months ahead of myself thought it was out of beta and they took all my invites sorry. It is free

Anyway when it comes out of beta 1. sign up for google voice. 2. Put your Google voice number in your top 5 or whatever you call for free. 3. First the incoming to your Google voice account will always be forwarded to the cell hence free. 4. Second dial out by calling your Google voice account and dialing out through there from your cell phone. Hence you are calling Google voice so that is free.

On a side note for every call you make through Google voice you get credits for international calls. So those will also eventually be free depending on how much you use it.

If this does not make sense I'll explain further. My brain is fried today.