VoIP

[Nosartur]

If we can all stop bashing each other over politics for a few minutes I have an important question.  Well important to me.  I have been eyeing some of the residential VoIP offerings lately.  Since my wife makes so many international calls to her family and the break even point for most dedicated Telco International Plans is so high these look like they might be a good bet.

So the question is does anyone here have any experience with residential VoIP? If you do what companies have you used and how is the service?

Thanks in advance.

[Grelf]

I'm using Cablevision's VOIP up here in NY. It's cheap, and not that bad. The transmission quality is such that I don't notice I'm not using a normal landline.

The downside is, now and then, say once or twice a month my phone line dies for anywhere from 10 minutes to an hour. While I don't mind this, ymmv.

[Nosartur]

Thanks.  Here is the service I am thinking of going with.  They offer a value plan that has no monthly service charge and their set up fee is under $30.  Also if it turns out I don't like it I can cancel within the first month and get my money back.  The only downside I see is that this won't accept incoming calls except from other Zip Global members.  Not a big deal since I have my cell phones for that.

[Sky]

Teamspeak! :)

Seriously, though, I'm working with my family to install it all on their computers and I'm going to run a little linux server to host it. It's not nearly as flexible as voip, you can't call phones or whatever, but if everyone has a pc, it's free.

[Alluvian]

I loved when those things used to be in seemingly permanent beta mode a few years back.  I used one place for like 3 years before they started charging and then I stopped using them.  It was fun to have free calling to anywhere in the US, canada, and england.  That was GREAT.  Then reality butt in.

[Grelf]

Well, thankfully the service I'm using is 35 bucks a month unlimited long distance and works with..well..phones. :>

[Alluvian]

But can you get incoming calls with your system?  If not you still need local at least and then $35 a month is no longer looking that good unless you make a shitload of calls.  I pay a lot less than that for my long distance, but I don't make that many calls except 7 cents a minute to canada calls.

[Grelf]

35 bucks a month, unlimited for north america. That includes incoming calls from normal phones, cell phones, pay phones and the occasional tin-can and string.

Got a nice setup where I get cable internet, voip, and all the cable channels, (including 10 hbo's) for 118 bucks a month.

Last place I lived I was paying 149 just for phone/dsl.

[Alluvian]

Nice setup indeed.  The incoming calls was the only thing that had me wondering.

What happens when you are gaming?  Or do you have a second/third system doing the 'phone duties'?

[Grelf]

Naw, it all comes through the cable modem.

Cable comes through the wall, to a t. There it splits to the cable modem and the cable box on the tv. Cable modem takes care of internet and telephone.

Now strangely enough, those infrequent times that my Voip dies, my internet connection doesn't. Overall I'm just estatic with the level of service I've gotten, not to mention the price of it.

There are differences in the sound quality from voip to normal copper/fiber phones, but I'd say 98% of the time, I can't tell the difference.

[Alluvian]

I know about the cable/internet split, I am on a cable modem myself.  I was wondering how you handled incoming calls through your PC while playing a game on said pc...  or does it actually go to a physical phone?

[Grelf]

Ah. Yeah it connects to a regular phone.

I could have connected it to a phone jack and connect phones to all the other jacks, but I went the lazy way and got a phone with 2 sattelite phone stations.

[Nosartur]

Incoming calls don't worry me since anyone I want to talk to has my cell number and anyone else can get lost.  Like I said all I want it for is a way to make inexpensive international long distance calls.  There are a number of plans that have a monthly fee that allow you to get a "real" phone number that will receive incoming calls.  Just not what I am looking for.

So Zipglobal looks like it is a winner for my situation.  No monthly fee, $.15 a minute to where I want to call (they just lowered these rates and they apply to both mobile and landline), and a low initial start up fee of $30 to send the router and and set up an account.