OT Voice over IP??

[darrenj]

Hey all is been a hell of a last couple of days..Sold my house Monday afternoon and purchased a new one before breakfast on tuesday..Made the damn real estate agent work for his money!! had him running papers out to me at 1.30am thismorning for a signature..) Anyway thing are moving fast becouse i have to be out in about 30 days or so..

Question i have....

I want to keep my existing phone number and becouse i am moving out of area Ma Bell wants to change it..However if i go with voice over IP i can keep the number and move pretty much anywhere in the us or canada and keep the same one.. One company has cought my eye in the last few weeks..Vonage..Does anyone here deal with them?? what is the service like? what kind of internet connection do you have? is there anything i should watch for??

Vonage offers some nice features like a second phone number with any area code..(Great for the Wifes Family) Softphone..(can make calls from my PC anywhere i have a broadband connection) and some other nice stuff..

Anyone care to comment??

Thanks

D

[stasis]

I have checked into this as well...basically, you just need a broadband connection. I want to switch to save $$. If I dropped my current phone service, I'd save about $20 a month. When raising 4 (my wife says 5) kids, every dollar counts.

[darrenj]

I have checked into this as well...basically, you just need a broadband connection. I want to switch to save $$. If I dropped my current phone service, I'd save about $20 a month. When raising 4 (my wife says 5) kids, every dollar counts.

LOL we are all kids at heart!! i dont expect to save money with the plan becouse of some of the extras that i would get but it just seems a whole lot more flexable than regular phone..Imagine going on the road and keeping your buisness phone with you..Its like a cell phone without the cell phone bill..Check into a hotel wit high speed and you have your local phone..no matter where you are..Apparently even if you go oversees as long as you have a high speed connection you can have your phone...

I spoke with a friend of mine about 5 or 10 mins ago and she has VOIP and loves it..You couldnt tell talking to her it was over the net..No delays or lags..

D

[Peter Nachtwey]

I have used Skype and it is free.
http://www.skype.com/helloagain.html
In my recent visit to Australia Skype was essential. I used Skype to keep in touch with the office and also used it to support a customer in NZ. It worked well even over a 128kb or ISDN line. It can transfer files, sent text or chat. It can now do video too.

The free Skype can only access other people that are also on the internet but there is also a Skype in and Skype out and voicemail. The Skype out allows one to call normal telephones at about .02 cents per minute.

I too am looking at dumping my telephone since I don't use it much and get only annoying salesmen. I can get a Tracphone or GoPhone for much less.

Phil should let people list their Skype names in their profiles along with the Aol, MSN messenger and Yahoo. Hint hint.

[darrenj]

Again i am not looking to save bucks..But that would be nice..I am just looking for a way to stick it to Bell.. We had a beef with each other about 6 months ago..A private contractor (entourage) was on stike..I had problems with my phone..(No dial tone is a fairly Major problem in my view..) I was told that becouse of the recent labour dispute it would be 4-6 weeks before anyone came out to fix my phone..I said i didnt know bell was on stike..i was told they were not but the sub contractor was..I told them it wasnt my problem that there sub was on stike becouse i dont have my phone service with them..i have my service with Bell..I was then told there problems are my problems..Fairly bluntly..I was then told they were going to charge me a 30 or 40$ setup fee to transfer all my phone options over to my fax line..(I did this s i could at least have an answering machine...) It took about 4 months to get that bill all straight.. But the biggest joke is...

I called tech services to get them to fowrad the number that didnt work to my other line.. I was told pick up th phone and dial this..I said i know how to do it but i dont have a dial tone..After about 30-40 of talking to the guy on the other end he got mad at me and said why the hell dont you just forward the calls by using the correct procedure..I then got mad and told him where to put the correct procedure..He then told me what iwanted to do couldnt be done (No suprise)..I called back 5 mins alter got a different operator and had the calls forwarded in less that 5 mins...I then asked for the Head Honco's number and spoke to him..He told me that when bell has a problem with labour..it was my problem and that if i didnt like that i could go somewhere else..Well now i am going to take him up on that offer...

[Ken Roach]

I haven't had a home phone number for well over a year. I use SkypeOut for outgoing calls and a free voicemail service for incoming calls, but I work on the road most of the time so my cell phone is my principal means of communication. I love not paying a landline phone bill ! I, too, found that most of the calls that came to my home line were solicitations, and my family and friends just called my cell phone.

My sister has Vonage, and loves it. Voice quality is superior to her POTS line. I have a friend who kept his home phone line just to have emergency 911 service (he has two under 2 and worries a lot) but uses Vonage for all his long distance (he and his wife both have family back East). Saves a bundle. And he... worked for AT&T !

My boss has Packet8, which I used to hear him coaching his wife on how to reboot a lot. Sounds like it's cleared up.

I say, get Vonage before the various governments figure out how to tax it.


You'll be a lot more sensitive to Internet service outages, though. I would have shrugged off the four service interruptions on Comcast last year, if not for the fact that I couldn't work effectively because I didn't have my "phone". I live in a high-density neighborhood in Seattle so I wasn't worried about finding a neighbor with a working phone in an emergency.

[Peter Nachtwey]

free voicemail service for incoming calls
Is this the Skype voice mail? Which one do you use?

[Ken Roach]

I actually use a free voicemail service called K7.net. That company is a provider of things like callback services and personal 800 numbers, and they offer a free local Seattle-area phone number with a voicemail box. The system e-mails me a WAV file with the message in it; I cannot access the messages via telephone. It also accepts faxes and e-mails me a TIFF file.

Because they operate out of Seattle, they only offer this service for the Seattle area code. Strange but true.

I even have a vanity number that spells out part of my personal website !

There are a handful of other services of this type. If K7 ever discontinues this, I'll probably buy a suite of Skype services.

[ArikBY]

I have phone line from Stanaphone https://www.stanaphone.com/ (https://www.stanaphone.com/)They work pretty good and I can use them all over.

[Bruce99]

I use Vonage for long distance. Inlaws are in Nevada and Ont. Friends back home in southern BC. Great quallity. I still have the ol LL for Internet service interuptions. It does save money.

[paulcs]

Since cell phones are free after 7PM and 1-800 calling cards are as cheap as 2 or 3 cents per minute, does the advantage of voip begin to disappear for small to medium size users?

[zmanvortex]

I have had Vonage for about 6 months now. I am very happy with the service. The voice quality is excellent and I am able to use my existing phones. The setup was a no brainer. I plug the phone adapter into my router, plug my phones into the phone adapter and it magically worked, no setup or configuration. I even switched from a Linksys router to Dlink and still no configuration required, it just worked.

I don't have any internet outages (yet) so the dependability is good.

I too had problems with my phone company. They overcharged me by a large amount on my bill so I did not pay it until it was resolved. They decided to disconnect my service, but when they found the error and accepted that it was their fault they still wanted to charge me $40 to reconnect. Needless to say I told them to shove it and immediately switched to Vonage.

With the service of today's phone companies so poor, I think they deserve what they are getting with the switch to cell and voip.

[Hydro Power Guy]

I also have vonage for about 1.5 years. Great service, but that is based on your ISP. If your service goes down, it will automatically forward to a number of your choosing.

You also have the possibility of having hardware problems with either your cable modem or your vonage box. If you are on the road alot and your family is not techinically savvy, I would stay away from it. Either that or have extra equipment laying around with a procedure to replace the failed equipment.

[dale1627]

I also had issues with the local telephone company. I decided to drop their DSL and landline. I switched to cable internet and telephone. With the telephone I got to keep my phone number and free long distance to anywhere in the U.S. and Canada, 911 service also works. The misperception with tel service provided by Charter Cable is that it is Voip. It is not Voip. The signal is carried across their coaxial and fiber to their switch and then distributed out into the traditional system. I've had it for over a month now and not a single problem. Stick it to the tel co.
A big thing in this area is the local elect utility providing power, cable, telephone and internet service. One provider for everything. I believe that Bristol, Va was the first to do this in the nation and others are now gathering momentum. Ironically, my brother works for the cable company that services Bristol, Va. He said that once the utility started offering the services the cable company flipped out. Also, my father works for one of the contractors that is installing alot of the cabling and fiber for the utilities in Bristol, Va and TN.

Dale

[akreel]

One thing I've noticed with Vonage: delays.

Note: I haven't had it long, or tweaked anything yet.

I get about a 1 second delay, which can make two way conversations a bit odd at times. It might make faxing difficult.

My friends also tell me that they get out-of-service messages when they call. But, this was during the first weekend I had it.

All I had to do to install was purchase the vonage router at Best Buy, tie it into my house phone system, configure it with touch-tone prompts, and then sign up online. That's way better than waiting for the phone company to come and "install" your line.

AK

[Hydro Power Guy]

Sounds like an ISP/routing issue to me AKREEL. I notice no delays with my service. You should contact vonage tech support. I would be interested to hear how helpful they are.

[akreel]

Sounds like an ISP/routing issue to me AKREEL. I notice no delays with my service. You should contact vonage tech support. I would be interested to hear how helpful they are.

Hop counts, bandwidth... Who knows?
It's not really that important to me, yet.

I realized the first time that the phone rang just how much I enjoyed not having a line in the house. The sound made me cringe. When my cell phone rings it's almost always for me, and it's never a telemarketer. If I don't want the call, I flip open the phone and let voice mail take it. I enjoy knowing that the call is not going to waste my time unless I want it to, or my girlfriend is having a bad day at the car mechanic.

AK

[marksji]

We've got 2 lines at the office on Vonage (other 4 are a local telco) and those 2 lines get a LOT of use. Call quality to Australia sometimes suffers, but overall I'd rate Vonage as very good quality and service. The really cool thing was that I could run phone cords from the phone adapter I got from Vonage into our phone system and presto lines 5 & 6 became vonage lines at every extension in the office.

If your internet connection isn't very good you'll have problems, but if you've got a decent connection then you'll love Vonage. After a year of using it I haven't even touched the phone adapter that sits in our phone closet.

I will add that I've got the Vonage phone adapter sitting outside of our firewall with its own public IP and so far no problems with hackers, etc.

[akreel]

I will add that I've got the Vonage phone adapter sitting outside of our firewall with its own public IP and so far no problems with hackers, etc.

What would be the point? There's really nothing to hijack.
Hack in an make your phone ring all day?

[marksji]

That's a good question, but putting it outside the firewall wasn't recommended as of last year. Never did really understand why and re-configuring our company firewall would've been a pain so...

[darrenj]

Well i got the gear from Vonage and i must admit i am impressed..No delay, good clear sound..excellent options (All Free!!!) easy to set up (although my computer desk does look like a small IT room now with 3 phone adapters,an 8 port hub and a cable modem!!..I will have to work on the setup at the new shack..) and it has a nice on line interface..all in all a good product so far..we will see how things work out in the long run..