Community Newsletter: Q&A: The advantage and disadvantages of using VoIP
- 10/26/07 9:46 AM
search for friend
by Toyba - 10/13/07 2:40 AM In reply to: The advantage and disadvantages of using VoIP by Lee Koo (ADMIN)
I don't have used it. Im sorry but I need friend to chat all the time do you agree with me? My name is Raonna. And I m 18 years old. PLease I m waiting for answer pease
VOIP
by drmet - 10/13/07 2:40 AM In reply to: The advantage and disadvantages of using VoIP by Lee Koo (ADMIN)
I have been using VOIP for about two years now and it is great. I originally had Vonage and found the service (at the time) less than optimal.
I switched to ViaTalk when they were first in business and they have been wonderful. When I signed up they made it so attractive I could not believe it. I am paying 5% of what my 2 landlines were costing me.
I suggest you get a separate computer that can be dedicated to the VOIP for your home. Put in every firewall, spyware, virus killer etc. you can and with very little effort you will have a phone system that can travel with you and has every possible goodie you could want from your phone system.
Go for it you will be pleased with the results.
Doc
Comcast VoIP
by at6671 - 10/13/07 3:01 AM In reply to: The advantage and disadvantages of using VoIP by Lee Koo (ADMIN)
In Burbank IL/SW side of Chicago, they are having a lot of problems with lost service. The cable tv may or may not be working and you realize that the phone hasn't rang all day. You pick up the phone to call and no dial tone. Now you are stuck with a call on the cell phone to report the outage. We went back to a plan with AT&T. At least it works all the time.
VoIP didn't work for me
by IRMA LOPEZ - 10/13/07 3:57 AM In reply to: The advantage and disadvantages of using VoIP by Lee Koo (ADMIN)
I had Vonage for a very long time and it was very handy. We don't use the phone much so VoIP made sense financially. I also have a friend who wired her whole house with Vonage. Sometimes it works well but not always. Sometimes I can hardly hear her and sometimes she gets cut off. I went overseas to Pakistan in 2006 for a year and we thought the VoIP would be perfect for that. But when my husband called me, I could hardly hear him and we would get disconnected. So we quit using it. Meanwhile, back home in the States, our cable company went out of business and Verizon took over. Vonage is not compatible with Verizon and the Verizon folks will not help with our Vonage issues, probably because of a legal battle they are involved in. Our Vonage simply would not work with the Verizon router. So I decided to drop my Vonage and have no landline at all. We don't really need it for anything. Well when i tried to cancel my subscription from Vonage the service rep would not let me. She said, I'll put your subscription on hold." When I told her I didn't want that she said, "Do you have anyone else you can give this subsciption to?" When I said, no, she said, "I'll put you on hold anyway". I had to argue with her to cancel my subscription. I would never go back to Vonage if I decide to try VoIP again later. When I was overseas, some of my friends used Skype and they absolutely love it. One of my friends called me using Skype and I still think the reception is pretty poor. I guess it's a matter of how much quality you are willing to give up for the amount of money you save by using VoIP.
Many options, not all of them very good
by SantiagoCrespo - 10/13/07 4:05 AM
In reply to: The advantage and disadvantages of using VoIP by Lee Koo (ADMIN)
Maria,
Beware Comcast!!!!!!!
My father lives in TX, he recently moved house and Comcast offered him THE bundle (digital cable, 7mbps cable broadband and VoIP, but there were two problems with Comcast's offer.
1. They wouldn't port his old number, supposedly because of e911 restrictions, which is one of the reasons he opted for Vonage.
2. The TOS said he couldn't take the VoIP adapter and take it with him while he traveled, second reason.
He ended up porting his old number to Vonage, which is not the cheapest option, but they have great voice quality, few dropped calls and a nice feature set. Plus there's the advantage of being able to take it with you wherever you go.
I can tell you that, at least in his case, Vonage works just as good as a landline, and with call forwarding, whenever there's a power or Internet outage, he can still get his calls on the cellphone.
I myself am a Broadvoice user, it is cheaper, lets you call a bunch of countries for free (including most of Europe, the Americas and some Asian countries. It DOES have some issues with voice quality, and every once in a while the service will go nuts and quit working for a 1/2 hour or so, therefore I wouldn't recommend it as a landline replacement.
Voipbuster
by KA17JOHN - 10/13/07 4:12 AM In reply to: The advantage and disadvantages of using VoIP by Lee Koo (ADMIN)
Maria
It was interesting to note your question.
One thing you say in the note, "will I regret switching", switching from what is the point.
I have Skype and Voipbuster on my computer in addition to the BT landline. The main benefit of Voipbuster is it is much cheaper than Skype for calling normal land lines. Skype is free if both caller and called are on the system. Voipbuster is very easy to use and it works on euros. It cost 10 euros to start and that gave me 5 euros of calls. After 5 months I still have 3.5 euros left, so it is cheap. You need speakers and a mike and the only downside, at the moment is that the person you call gets an echo when they speak. It is always clear at my end. It is worth a try!
VOIP
by kayq76 - 10/13/07 4:16 AM In reply to: The advantage and disadvantages of using VoIP by Lee Koo (ADMIN)
I was just like you, I had heard great things about it and signed up. It was easy to install and worked good for about a year. After that I would constantly lose calls or if my daughter was on the internet it would kick me off. I played with settings, bandwidth and all things they suggested. It became a joke when I would talk to friends, I would lose just about every other call or extreme static on the line. I called Vonage and they said its not them, its the cable provider and the limited amount of bandwidth. That as their usages increases the amount of bandwidth I personally get decreases. I called Adelphia (now Time Warner) they did packet trace and said its not therm. My girlfriend has something similar in Fort Erie, Ontario and she loved it. The last few times I talked to her it was static but she couldn't hear it. I finally tried to cancel mine and was told I had to wait till after anniversary, to call back in 3 months. Called back in 3 months and was told new cycle had started and there would be early termination charges. Finally after 5 months got it ancelled and went back to landline. Now Time Warner has similiar deal going and I am tempted due to high cost of landline.
It's time to change - if you can live with some minor issues
by joyto10 - 10/13/07 4:21 AM In reply to: The advantage and disadvantages of using VoIP by Lee Koo (ADMIN)
Here are the pros and cons of switching to VOIP
Pros:
- Save a lot of money. If you make a lot of long distance calls, this is a great advantage.
- Excellent voice quality -If you have good internet connection (5mbps or higher) you will have great voice quality and never notice the difference between the telephone and VOIP.
-You keep your current number. That helps to make the change easier.
-You can access voice mail from any computer.
Cons:
-If you loose power or cable service, you won't have phone service. This is a big issue if you don't have a cell phone or you have kids at home, specially for emergencies.
-From time to time, the modem starts dropping the calls after a couple of minutes. That will require that you unplug everything for a couple of minutes and re-connect everything to correct the problem. If you are not computer literate or don't like this, this is a big issue.
- If you have an home security system, you nay want to contact them because some systems don't work with VOIP.
I switched six months ago and I'm pleased with the service. If you can deal with the cons, go for it.
Vonage is great
by funbeads - 10/13/07 4:42 AM In reply to: The advantage and disadvantages of using VoIP by Lee Koo (ADMIN)
I have used Vonage for almost 2 years now. I have saved a bundle. The quality is great you won't know the difference from a land line. The only down fall I have seen is when you lose power or internet service you lose your phone. You can however set your phone to forward so if it does go out it will forward to your cell. I find the saving more than make up for the few times you lose power or internet service.
Richard
VoIP v. Other Phone Services
by Flatworm - 10/13/07 4:56 AM In reply to: The advantage and disadvantages of using VoIP by Lee Koo (ADMIN)
I live in Orlando and for many years used the only land-line phone carrier available in my area, BellSouth, with Verizon Wireless as my cell phone provider. I now use VoIP for my home phone service through Bright House Cable and have stayed with Verizon for cellular. The following are my thoughts on the subject.
Shortly after we moved into Orlando we thought we could rely on our cell phones exclusively and did not get a land line hooked up. We quickly paid the price for this mistake, because after getting a WHOPPING bill for monthly minutes over our maximum (you'd be amazed how quickly the minutes mount up when various businesses put you on hold) we became fearful of calling anyone for user support or to make any kind of appointment. That's when we got BellSouth for local calling only, to keep the costs down.
This actually paid off nicely in 2004 when we suffered from three major hurricanes in five weeks. The only thing that DIDN'T go out at my home was the BellSouth phone, which continued working despite the loss of our electricity, cellular service and cable.
The cellular service was back up partially within a day, but the electricity stayed out for two weeks. We stayed at a relative's place while our electricity was out and were able to check the status of our electrical service by calling our home and checking whether or not the answering machine picked up. It was quite a convenience because otherwise we would have needed to drive over a hundred miles just to check to see if we could go home or not.
We went home after the power was restored, two weeks after the storm. The cable service stayed out for an additional week, and this of course would have meant that any VoIP service would also be unavailable.
But since then, Verizon Wireless has significantly beefed up their infrastructure in our area and we doubt now that we would lose cellular service even in a hurricane. Our cable service has also become much more reliable, and given these two factors and Bright House also offering us a truly comprehensive -- ALL the bells and whistles -- VoIP service at a price we couldn't refuse (about $13.00/mo. LESS than we were paying for the most basic land line service without caller ID, call waiting, call forwarding, or even long distance service), we decided to switch to VoIP about a year and a half ago.
We have been VERY happy with Bright House VoIP. The voice quality is noticeably BETTER than it was with the land line, and we have had no outages lasting even as long as five minutes. All of our previous phones, including an old wall-mounted Princess phone that is powered off the phone line itself, work normally. It's great never to have to pay long distance charges, and Bright House's customer service stands head and shoulders above the infuriating arrogance and consistently blithering incompetence we used to get from BellSouth. It also adds the convenience of consolidating our bill for Cable TV, Internet and phone all on a single monthly invoice. I am sure that, under stress like the hurricanes, we would sacrifice some reliability, but we still have our cell phones so it would likely only be a minor inconvenience, a more-than-fair trade-off for the savings and additional services.
VOIP or not
by charliekr - 10/13/07 5:24 AM In reply to: The advantage and disadvantages of using VoIP by Lee Koo (ADMIN)
I've been using Vonage VOIP for several years and I'm very pleased. I can go online and change my features or listen to my voicemail when I'm away. I've recommended it to a number of my friends and all of them are satisfied. I think if you currently have cable Internet there's no good reason not to add VOIP if you want to have a landline. The other option might be to drop the landline altogether and use only nationwide cell phone service.
My Voip Choice
by rifin2005 - 10/13/07 5:47 AM In reply to: The advantage and disadvantages of using VoIP by Lee Koo (ADMIN)
hello.. i suggest you to usue the LOWRATEVOIP service.its not only cheap, but its offer free call to some countries.better chect it out pal..
www.lowratevoip.com
p:s: luckily my country (Brunei) is listed as free call.cooolllll...
Recommendation for VoIP--with caveats
by skeatsjm - 10/13/07 5:51 AM In reply to: The advantage and disadvantages of using VoIP by Lee Koo (ADMIN)
There is no question that VoIP (Voice over IP) offers a great opportunity to save money--but it isn't always as simple as traditional phone service to ensure that you'll be satisfied with the service. I switched to Vonage about two years ago and have been extremely pleased with the savings and almost always with the service as well. I would recommend it to anyone on three conditions:
--That they can live with the fact that they will lose VoIP service when they lose internet service,
--That they have enough bandwidth to support VoIP, and
--That they are willing to put up with the minor inconvenience of possibly having to "tune" their service to ensure they have the quality they want (but don't worry, that's not hard and the VoIP provider should help).
First, remember that VoIP relies on the internet so if your internet service is interrupted, so will your VoIP service. Vonage compensates for that by offering the ability to have calls to you automatically routed to another phone number if it cannot connect through the internet. I can vouch for the fact that the option works very effectively. You can, for example, use your cell phone as your backup. If you don't have reliable internet service and you have a critical need to have reliable phone service (e.g., someone with serious health issues that might need emergency care), make sure you set up reliable backup--but you should do that with traditional phone service as well because it too can fail.
Second, you need to make sure your internet service has enough bandwidth and is "good" enough to support VoIP. Think of an internet connection as being like a pipe. The bigger the pipe, the more traffic it can handle. When you use VoIP, the phone conversation is converted to a digital signal that is sent back and forth over the internet basically like uploading and downloading files but it has to happen almost instantaneously to allow conversation. If you don't have a big enough pipe, VoIP can compensate either by adjusting the size of the information it sends--but converting to a smaller digital signal reduces the quality so it can sound "funny" -- or, when it encounters traffic in the middle of transmission, by dropping packets--which means dropping parts of the conversation. In the best cases that can sound like static. In the worst, people one end or the other might hear gaps in the conversation. There are a number of services on the internet that you can use to test whether you have enough bandwidth to support a quality VoIP connection. Visualware has a good test that simulates a VoIP conversation and gives you a nice summary of factors that affect VoIP service at http://www.mycooltools.com/. Of course how you use the internet also affects the bandwidth available for VoIP. If you have 10 PCs doing massive uploads and downloads, it doesn't matter that the "pipe" itself might have been big enough to support VoIP because the PC traffic could be fully consuming the available bandwidth. If you're a typical home user however that should not be an issue.
Third, as I indicated before, VoIP units can send the signal in different ways. If you want the best possible signal, you can set up the VoIP unit to maximize the quality. That's very simple to do. The other thing is that if you notice problems with the service, call your provider. They can talk you through making adjustments on your end and they can make adjustments on their end to improve the service. I went through that a little while ago and the Vonage help desk person did a great job. It took probably 30-60 minutes after the call for the changes on their end to take effect but the quality was fully restored.
The bottom line: I am very pleased with the VoIP service I receive from Vonage and would recommend it to anyone with the caveats above.
VOIP pros and cons
by bdfeorene - 10/13/07 5:52 AM In reply to: The advantage and disadvantages of using VoIP by Lee Koo (ADMIN)
Pros: It's CHEAP!!!! Some of the features are AMAZING for the price
Cons: If the net goes down, so does your phone. I forward to the cell, so I am not without service but check to see if that is provided by Comcast. Also, if you are running a lot of cable-using things at the same time, your quality of phone signal can suffer. Last, some services do NOT provide 911. Actually, most do not. We found one that does. That can be a deal breaker for me.
I have Vonage
by pjrobbins - 10/13/07 5:57 AM In reply to: The advantage and disadvantages of using VoIP by Lee Koo (ADMIN)
I changed to VoiP to save money. The setup was quite easy but I did have some problems getting the connection right with daisy-chaining the Vonage router/adaptor with my existing router and wireless access point. My cost for a landline number went from about 60/month to @ 32. No problems with sound quality. I have needed to reset router a couple times after thunderstorms. I still would like to put a UPS in the system to power it when the electricity goes out. I also just unplugged the telephone at the outside interface and plugged in the adaptor in a wall socket. Easiest way to connect to all you phones. Good luck.
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