Anyone with VOIP experience?

[Mildoc]

VOIP = "Voice Over Internet Phone."

E.G. Vonage, Magic jack, etc.

Years ago my god daughter & her husband (a network pro) had some system and I could NOT understand a word she said!

Looking into new systems. Any experience????

[trungdok]

I've had Vonage before. It worked fine, but a bit expensive compared to some of the alternatives. Now I'm using Ooma, which works fine. With Vonage, you pay more per month (about $25/month for me) but not much for equipment. With Ooma, you pay nothing except for local fees (about $4/month for me) plus the up front cost of equipment (about $120 for me). I have cable internet and there's no real difference in call quality for both of them.

If you're tech savvy enough you can get Google Voice (free, for now) and a SIP box (about $20), configure them to work together, and you'll get VOIP for free. However, this approach does not give you 911 service; although you can configure it to call local police station, fire dept., etc. using whatever number you want, such as 911 for police, 922 for fire dept, etc.

One thing I found VOIP not comparable to old traditional phone line is that if you lost power or internet connection you're out of a phone line. This could be troublesome if you have an emergency. However, if you have a cell phone in the house, then this should not be an issue. If you and everyone in the house have a cell phone, then perhaps you don't even need a house phone line, IMO. You could get Google Voice (www.google.com/voice) number, treat it as a house phone number, set it up to ring all (or selected) cell phones whenever someone rings that number.

[BizCoach]

It was years ago that I tried Magic Jack - and the connections were flakey. But it's years later and they are still around. I have to assume they've improved.

I have 2 VOIP lines - it's a bundled service from my cable company. I think they cost around $20 a month each. They work fine (as long as the power's not out as trungdok said). I also had a similar service before that - one that cost a bit more and came with an adapter. It worked fine as well.

FYI - For any real techies reading this. I have my VOIP line set to ring to may cell phone as well. That way if I'm in the office I can pick up the VOIP but if I'm on the road I get it on my cell without having to do anything. The question I have is, if someone sends a text message to my VOIP number it doesn't go thru to the cell phone. Is there anyway to set that up?

[alpha]

Several years ago, I had Vonage. It worked great over my cable internet connection. I switched over to AT&T DSL connection and could not get Vonage to work right. After about a year, I switched back to cable internet connection and got the package deal of cable + phone from Time Warner. It works great.

When I had Vonage I had a few problems with telephone reception if I was downling something while my wife was trying to use the telephone.

I concluded that the quality of VOIP depends on the band width and speed of your internet connection.

[dbhost]

I was an early adopter of Vonage. It worked reasonably well although I did have one person that had trouble with my calls. My Dad, he still has trouble with my cellular calls. He tends to use these lousy old wireless phones though. I am pretty sure the problem is on his end. Nobody else had sound problems with me, but he complained about trouble from several others as well.. Just can't talk him out of his old Uniden cordless phone is all...

I dropped VOIP back in 2004 because I had been paying for it for several years before I realized the only calls I was getting were for my ex. I kept my cell phone as my primary phone and dropped land line entirely. Now every now and again I want dialtone service, for things like fax etc... or to just make a phone call when my cell is dead... Hadn't looked too seriously into Google Voice. Might be worth checking out though.

Oh, for the acronymn VOIP means Voice Over Internet Protocol.

[cork58]

We use Skype a little but without a land line our security system is dead. Probably wouldn't be a big deal since we have a state trooper living on each side of us now. Reason we even have it is that when we built the ranch our closest neighbor was about a quarter mile away. That was before the subdivisions surrounded our 40ac. Still nice to have instant response to fire and break-ins if we ever had one.

[JR]

Wikipedia has a nice write-up on the 911 system architecture, including a good section on how VoIP systems can interact with it. Apparently Vonage recommends a method for registering with the 911 service, enabling location identification in an emrgency.

VoIP as a technology is certainly mature enough for good quality voice transmission. AFAIK, all the phone offerings from cable companies are VoIP, as well as the fiber-based systems from AT&T (U-Verse) and Verizon (FIOS). I have

Most modern broadband links should be able to provide good quality VoIP in addition to data service. The technology is available to assure voice priority on the local link, mitigating the confilcts identified by Alpha, however open-network regulations prohibit their use in public internet networks. In a small bit of irony, the OP has been very vocal in his support of those regulations. AT&T and Verizon can use these proioritization techniques because they are not providing their voice services over the public internet. On those networks voice is packetized at the home, transmitted around the carrier's internal network in packet mode, then converted to analog at the egress point.

The loss of voice capability in a power outage is no small problem. Some of the likely causes of power outage (tornado, flood, earthquake, eetc.) are the very reasons one would want to have voice communications. My FIOS box has a battery, enabling continued connectivity for four hours (IIRC).

JR

[TB Roye]

We have ATT Uverse. The phone is VOIP, we had a choice to keep the standart land line but went with VOIP, only problem we have had is if the power goes out no phone. We have cell phones so that is not really a problem our Security System is Cell so that continues to work on a battery. We are gong to get a batter back up for Uverse so we could keep that up in a local outage. Once you loose the power your Residential Gateway goes down and then you have to reboot every thing. I have notice no difference in the quality of phone calls, just to many junk call inspite of the do not call list. Had my 2year old Granson record the voice mail greeting so there are no message on the answering machine execpt for those who know us.

[newbie2wood]

I have magicJack for long distance calls. I paid approx. $16 a year for the service. I have not notice any difference in sound quality between it and a regular landline. However, I can not get my fax to work consistently with magicJack. Sometime it well work fine, and sometime it won't when I really need it. In addition, I still have a landline for my home security system.

[dusty]

Maybe a stupid question but I gotta ask.

Is the voice communication on Skype a VOIP interface?

[durango dude]

I lived and worked overseas for 4 years --- and VOIP was very useful in keeping me in touch with family/friends/business.

I used Packet 8, which worked fine. Overall, very pleased with the service.

Skype is a neat service, but has a step down in quality compared with standard VOIP. I use SKYPE when I travel, these days.

I haven't used MagicJack, - but a friend of mine calls me with it a few times a year. I'd rate it as slightly better than SKYPE, but not as good as a full-blown VOIP. Personally, I wouldn't use it for business purposes - but it's likely fine for family/friends.

I'd note that some service providers block VOIP applications - in which case, your best action is to layer your VOIP application over top a VPN service
(such as Witopia).

The Department of State provisions Vonage for staff workers. It's a fairly feature laden system for a reasonable cost.

[cork58]

I posted today about using Skype a little. Just got a warning that they have been hacked and your account username and password are in jeopardy! Better not use it till a fix can be released.