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O/T: VoIP service providers? Anyone using?
Mike Huffstatler, Photographer, Assistant
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Rancho Cucamonga | Ca | United States | Posted: 11:01 PM on 03.01.10 |
->> Hey all, I know this is a bit off-topic, but it is business related. I'm looking for ways to control some costs around my phone services. I'd stick with strictly cell phone, but the services doesn't work real well in my house. :(
Is anyone using VoIP.com, Vonage, or any other dedicated service? What has your experience been like? Is the quality of call good? How about other features?
Looking for any kind of feedback here. I did a search for previous threads, and everything I found was pretty dated. |
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Mike Last, Student/Intern, Photographer
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Toronto | ON | Canada | Posted: 11:42 PM on 03.01.10 |
->> Our US office at work tried to go with MagicJack. It has good days and absolutely horrible days. Person on the other line can't hear you talking, calls getting dropped, horrible call quality. Definitely not something I would base my business on.
Not sure how the other VoIP services compare, but MagicJack is one to stay far away from. |
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Steven E. Frischling, Photographer
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| | | Posted: 11:48 PM on 03.01.10 |
| ->> I use Skype. $12.95 unlimited global calling (with some limitations to certain foreign mobile phones and calls from Skype into the UAE are blocked) |
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Dirk Dewachter, Photographer
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Playa Del Rey | CA | USA | Posted: 12:32 AM on 03.02.10 |
->> Skype is great. I have an old plan with them skypePro, which gives me unlimited long distance calls for $3.00/month and $24.00/year for the number. Receive incoming calls, which can be forwarded to another phone number without loss of sound quality.
Since Verizon does not (by default) set up international calls, I have set up my skype to go to call my family abroad.
I love the ability to initiate conference calls with multiple callers, either skype users or external phone numbers.
Only draw back, when you are uploading volume images to your service (i.e. Photoshelter) the sound quality is affected. |
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Robert Caplin, Photographer
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New York | NY | USA | Posted: 12:44 AM on 03.02.10 |
->> I use Vonage specifically because of it's ability to simultaneously ring both my home phone and cell phone. The service works very well, although I've found that when I'm FTPing large amounts of data (images to clients, etc), it seems sometimes the person on the other end has issues hearing me. I'm not sure if it's because of my internet connection, which has rather slow upload speeds....but it definitely happens when I'm transferring data. Something to keep in mind.
Robert |
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PJ Heller, Photographer
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Santa Barbara | CA | USA | Posted: 1:29 AM on 03.02.10 |
| ->> Try Ooma. You pay somewhere around $200 for the system and then all your calls are free. If you have a landline, you can port the number to Ooma for a small fee. We installed it on our home line and business line and it paid for itself in three months. Overseas calls are cheap, too (you can add credit to your account, much like on Skype). Don't know if Costco still offers Ooma, but you might check there. Details at www.ooma.com |
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Ed Chan, Photographer
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San Diego | CA | US | Posted: 2:23 AM on 03.02.10 |
->> I've used Vonage at home for a few years. The quality of the codecs has improved since the early days, the better services have excellent call quality, and latency is virtually a non-issue.
I use Cbeyond VoIP for our four voice lines at my day job, and it's excellent as well, although it ought to because it it is taking it's bandwidth from my T1 line.
My biggest concern with VoIP is that in case of a major catastrophe, the disaster plan will restore phone and cel phone services far before internet services.
For more info, I'd head to www.dslreports.com and check out the reviews there. |
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Erik Markov, Photographer
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Kokomo | IN | | Posted: 9:06 AM on 03.02.10 |
->> I just started using truphone voip on my iPod touch. Not doing a ton of calling, mainly personal calls to family and friends. With both them and skype, you can buy minutes up front to try it out for either the touch or computer, for the touch at least those two apps don't cost anything, it's only the minutes. I'm using it on a dsl 1.5mb line and pretty happy. Some say there is a little lag in the conversation but it doesn't seem too bad. It's certainly better than my cell phone signal at home or having to sign a contract with a LD provider. With those two voip's there is no contract just to try it out pay as you go. Buy the minutes beforehand for $5 or $10 I think and it's about 5 cents a minute in the US, at least with the truphone iPod app you ask for the countries it will gave you a rate for the per minute call. I can call Tunisia for 40 cents a minute. Woohoo! Except I don't have any friends there :( Both apps have monthly plans that lower the cost to $3 or 4 a month, about 2 cents a minute. And I think if you have someone else on the same service provider calls are free then.
Wouldn't say it's perfect. I still have a landline as I just started using it, and my dsl would go up if I cancel the phone. Plus I just like having a number for insurance, credit cards , 911 etc to call as opposed to bugging me on my cell. |
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Eric Canha, Photographer
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Brockton | MA | United States | Posted: 9:29 AM on 03.02.10 |
->> We use Vonage too. As Robert has already stated, if you are moving a large portion of data while on a call the quality can get marginal to plain unusable. There are ways or routing the connection to solve for some of the drop in quality but then the transfers suffer.
We upgraded to a Docsis 3.0 modem last year and that has had a huge positive impact on the phone issues. For whatever reason when the modem was done downloading the config files from the ISP it was zooming right along at the higher speed even though I wasn't subscribing to it. |
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Preston Mack, Photographer
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Orlando | FL | USA | Posted: 9:40 AM on 03.02.10 |
->> I use Ooma as well.
If you have a good connection, calls are fine. I will break even on the $200 charge for the Ooma device in 3 months.
As long as Ooma is in business, you will never have another phone bill for domestic calls. Like PJ said, you can port your number and the device doesn't need a computer to work (like a Magic Jack). |
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Jonathan Castner, Photographer
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Denver | CO | USA | Posted: 10:26 AM on 03.02.10 |
| ->> Been using Skype for the last 5 years. An office phone doesn't get much use when most of your time is in the field so a land line wasn't the most important thing. But I get poor cell reception in my house so I use Skype for all of my office based calls. It's superb. An a full year of the service is cheaper that one month of land like charges. |
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Mike Huffstatler, Photographer, Assistant
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Rancho Cucamonga | Ca | United States | Posted: 10:50 AM on 03.02.10 |
->> Thank you all for the great responses. I've been digging around quite a bit, and I have looked at some of the more known services (like mentioned above), and I'm also looking at a couple others. One that caught my eye is via:Talk. http://www.viatalk.com Seems to be priced really well and offers a ton of services.
One thing mentioned above was the concern in a disaster, or if the net connection goes down for whatever reason. It seems that many (most?) offer a failsafe that will direct calls to a designated line...cellular or landline...if the net connection is lost.
Cheers! |
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Gerry Maceda, Photographer
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La Quinta | CA | | Posted: 10:59 AM on 03.02.10 |
| ->> I subscribe to our local cable company's (Roadrunner) digital phone services. I am not sure if that is voice over IP technology but the nice about it is I was able to eliminate our land line phone bill but still retain monitoring for our burglar/fire alarm services and also have fax capabilities (outgoing only). |
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Michael Strong, Photographer
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Lubbock | TX | USA | Posted: 10:59 AM on 03.02.10 |
->> If you are looking for a VoIP solution to integrate into a VoIP ready phone system, then I recommend Junction Networks. http://www.junctionnetworks.com/
I'm using their services for a number of corporate phone systems with great success. |
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Juliann Tallino, Photographer
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Seattle | WA | USA | Posted: 11:15 AM on 03.02.10 |
->> Robert,
Skype will allow you to forward to your cellphone just like vonage but much cheaper. I use skype and have it forward to my cell most of the time. |
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Robert Caplin, Photographer
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New York | NY | USA | Posted: 1:30 PM on 03.02.10 |
| ->> Would I be able to keep my current #? |
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Juliann Tallino, Photographer
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Seattle | WA | USA | Posted: 3:49 PM on 03.02.10 |
| ->> Vonage #? probably not but that's just a guess on my part. |
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Brad Barr, Photographer
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Port St. Lucie | FL | USA | Posted: 7:57 PM on 03.02.10 |
| ->> ATT Uverse is technically voip too...even though they try really hard not to call it that, basically you get tv, phone and internet thru the same line....which is run thru a "modem" and is really just voip. It does work pretty well I have to admit however. |
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David Bailey, Photographer
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Flower Mound | TX | USA | Posted: 11:21 PM on 03.02.10 |
->> I have used Vonage for several years and while it was a bit sketchy at first, for the last 2 years I have had 0 problems. Excellent quality and never down.
$26/mo. with unlimited calling. |
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David Bailey, Photographer
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Flower Mound | TX | USA | Posted: 11:23 PM on 03.02.10 |
| ->> Yes, you can transfer your # to Vonage. |
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