Switching to VoIP service

[Pradeep]

So I've decided to give Alltel my local phone monopoly the flick, and switch to ATT CallVantage. Right now I pay around $45 per month to Alltell just for local service with caller ID package. Long distance from Sprint is on top of that. So I will be saving money from the first month. Got the Telephone Adapter today, a D-Link DVG-1120M gateway. Gotta wait till tomorrow to activate it, the number transfer will also happen then. TA was free, only setup cost was $10 shipping. Cost is $29.95 per month, unlimited local and long.

Anyone else thinking/done the same?

 

[Mercutio]

I'd do it, but I have to have the phone line (and long distance service, according to Verizon) to have my DSL service.

 

[Will Rickards]

I'm seriously considering it and would like to know what your bill looks like.
I have a $40 unlimited plan through IDT. But after taxes and fees it is just under $60. That's $20 worth of crap on a $40 bill!
I'm looking to reduce that. Some people over at fat wallet recommended packet8.

 

[Will Rickards]

Oh and what do you do about having multiple phones in the house?
And are there upstream bandwidth requirements?

 

[BooST]

So, let me get this stright... $29/mo Unlimited local/long distance, and you keep your current phone number?

Where do I sign up again?? The phone company's monopoly is about to hit the fan.

 

[MaxBurn]

Make sure they have some sort or QOS (quality of service) reporting on the phone side of things.

My parents got one and when downloading big files the phone sounds all garbled and distorted. Kill the download and it sounds fine. Not a huge problem as they aren't big internet junkies.

 

[Pradeep]

Oh and what do you do about having multiple phones in the house?
And are there upstream bandwidth requirements?

There's two options. One, you can just plug say a cordless phone system into the TA, and leave the home wiring alone. Other option is to disconnect the outside copper line from your phone junction box, and then connect one of your phone sockets into the TA. That way, all your phone connectors are hooked up to the TA, and work like normal.

You can also get a second VoIP line if you want, the TA has two line capability,

Bandwidth requirements, they recommend minimum 90kb up/down.

The TA does monitor quality and set QoS, you can give it more priority if you wish. The TA can be placed either before or after a router, if you use one.

Caveats: it's no good if you have a home alarm system hooked up to the phone system. Also it won't work when the power is out (no residual power like a landline - I can't figure out if this is negated by having it hooked to a UPS). And 911 calls are routed based on the service address on record, so make sure you update if you move address.

Pluses: Got a vacation home? Take your TA and your number moves with you

The most popular services are:
ATT CallVantage: https://www.callvantage.att.com/

Vonage: http://www.vonage.com/

Vonage is $24.95 per month, but they couldn't transfer my number for some reason.

From what I've read online people seem to have call quality issues with packet8.

Unlimited US/Canada. Both have cheaper plans with minute/area limits if you're not a big caller.

 

[Pradeep]

Oh yeah first month is free with CallVantage, dunno what Vonage is offering.

 

[Pradeep]

*shameless plug* Let me know if you wanna join ATT, I can get a $40 referral credit

 

[Handruin]

Vonage looks interesting to me. I checked and they are able to switch my current home phone number over to their service. I like the looks of their $14.99 plan which offers 500 minutes per month. I don't use my home phone very often and this would save me some decent cash. How's the sound quality for those who have VoIP?

I also thought it was interesting that Vonage offers a relatively cheap alternative for a 1-800 number. (something along the lines of $4.95 a month form 100 minutes) I don't really need that, but I thought it was a neat option.

So far my only real concern is connecting VoIP to my existing telephone lines. My Cable internet is setup in my office, and I'd have to setup the connection in a weird way in order for all phones in the house to use it. All my phone lines go into a utility room on my first floor. I don't have Cat 5 in the house, so I'd have to move the cable modem into that room. Doing this would then leave my office without internet unless I bridged it using wireless which I don't want to do.

 

[Pradeep]

Just made my first call using VoIP, sounds just like a landline. If you have a phone socket in your office, you could hook that socket up to the TA (provided you disconnect the copper wires to the house). Use a Y-adapter and you could hook your existing phone to that socket as well. Unless you have multiple phone numbers or something?

 

[Handruin]

No multiple phones. I wasn't certain I could connect all my phones from the location in my office. I spoke with a guy at work who has packet8 and he told me to disconnect the local service or else it will cause a loop back for dial tone, ultimately causing major problems. He has complained of a few outages from packet8, but he said the quality of sound is just as good as a land line.

 

[ddrueding]

Anyone know if fax machines play well with VoIP?

 

[Pradeep]

Fax is apparently a hit and miss proposition with VoIP.

 

[Will Rickards]

Okay the wife gave the go ahead, but she wants the higher priced ones because she thinks the sound quality will be better.
So I'm considering vonage or voicepulse, for the unlimited calling (my wife makes/receives a lot of calls) but sound quality and QOS is a priority. So will I have to change my router to get QoS capabilities in it? I have a netgear MR814v2.

I've read a bunch of reviews at broadband reports.
Seems packet8 had problems initially but seem to have changed a few things since then. Now their phone support is 24x7. I'm really leaning towards just trying them for the 30 day trial period. What do I get from the others for the extra 5-6dollars/month, 60/72dollars/year?

Is there an easy way to find which VoIP provider has the closest call center?

 

[Pradeep]

Usual install would be to place the TA between the cable modem and the router. So TA would take the bandwidth it needs for the call.

I've called ATT support twice so far, first time wait was less than 1 minute, second time about 2 mins.

 

[Will Rickards]

It seems that packet8 and vonage are the two senior members of the VoIP crew. They have the most kinks worked out. But people complain about the codec used by packet8. So I looked and saw a relative newcomer, Broadvoxdirect. They allow you to select the codec but seem to be working out kinks.

 

[Will Rickards]

Finally found the page on broadband reports that lists all the VoIP providers.
Then I stumbled upon BroadVoice.
And I said holy crap! They seem to be great and they give me the world for 19.99/month! That means I can call my sister in Italy without any long distance charges. They use the good voice codec G.711.

They are new, maybe 9 months old I think I read. No E911 yet.
People complain about their website (not the one that gets you to sign up, but the one you use to admin your account). But I think I'm going to take the jump with them as soon as they verify I can get a local central office/rate center.

 

[Will Rickards]

Here is that link to the page with the VoIP providers.

 

[Bozo]

It's not VoIP, but a while back I was looking at a base station that you put your cell phone in and then connected the base station to your house telephone system. Your cell phone then became your house phone too. If you were leaving the house, just take the phone with you.
You could then get rid of the phone company and one phone number.

Bozo :mrgrn:

 

[timwhit]

It's not VoIP, but a while back I was looking at a base station that you put your cell phone in and then connected the base station to your house telephone system. Your cell phone then became your house phone too. If you were leaving the house, just take the phone with you.
You could then get rid of the phone company and one phone number.

Bozo :mrgrn:

Got a link?

 

[Will Rickards]

This isn't what he describes, as it just forwards the cellular calls to another line (which could be a VoIP line I guess).

 

[Bozo]

I found this console in Radio Shack of all places. But that was some time ago.


Bozo :mrgrn:

 

[Will Rickards]

I've signed up with broadvoice, I'll let you all know how it goes.
The initial cost was nearly $80. The breakdown:
1) Month Up Front: 19.95
2) Activation Fee: 39.95
4) Shipping Fee: 14.95
5) Regulatory Recovery Fee: 1.50
6) Federal Excise Tax: 0.64

 

[Will Rickards]

Posted a review here

 

[Will Rickards]

As a follow up I cancelled broadvoice a month or so ago.
My wife was not satisfied with the service.

 

[Howell]

My wife was not satisfied with the service.

Care to be more explicit?

 

[Bozo]

I have Vonage along with my regular telco. Due to problems with the antiquated mom and pop telephone company, if my next door neighbor( 50 feet away) calls me on the Vonage account, he pays long distance tolls.

The performance of Vonage is great though. No drop-outs or other weird problems. It's nice to call family members that live out of state anytime during the day without long distance charges.

Bozo :mrgrn:

 

[Will Rickards]

I'll quote from the updated review:

My wife began to use it fulltime and started getting call drop offs and sometimes where she couldn't hear the other party. When no LNP showed up by the end of the year, we decided to cancel and take a look again in 6 months. At that time we may try one of the higher end sipura boxes with QoS built-in. I'm pretty sure the technical problems could have been worked out with the right box. But the lack of LNP meant we would have to keep two phone lines and that wasn't acceptable.

 

[Mercutio]

My ex- asked me about Vonage service tonight. She looked into it and was told by some Vonage salesdroid that their VoIP service doesn't work with home routers.

Huh?!?

Vonage apparently doesn't show their support site to non-subscribers, so I have no idea what they could even be talking about but since I know some folk here have had the service I thought I'd just ask first.

I guess what they could be talking about is having to open a port or two in a firewall, or maybe having to put their hardware on a DMZ'd external connection. But Vonage doesn't have some bizarro software client that needs a real IP, does it?

Also... Vonage works with standard telco equipment?

 

[ddrueding]

Vonage and Linksys have a package deal that has been flooding the retail markets (Office Depot, OfficeMax, Frys, Circuit City, etc) around here. Perhaps they are trying to only support the packaged hardware that they co-brand? It does make the tech support easier, I'd imagine.

 

[P5-133XL]

While I have no experiance with Vonage, it may be as simple as QOS issues that they are refering to. VOIP really needs real-time priortizing to work well and most home routers do not support prioritizing traffic (Well some of the newer ones now do but we are generalizing home routers). Which means that background DL'ing or other concurrant broadband usage may cause unacceptable lag and other quality issues when simultanously using VOIP.

 

[ddrueding]

Probably has QoS built-in...

 

[sechs]

Doesn't the "device" usually go on the WAN side of the router, taking care of all QOS issues?