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You can get them to change the codec you use to a less bit-hungry one. That has helped a few people I know who have Vonage.

You can test your connection to see how it will behave http://testyourvoip.com/ and you can try different codecs to see what the difference is. Try it a few times throughout the day to try to characterize your line better.

-ben

VoIP is cool stuff and can save you a bundle on your phone bills (if you make many long-distance calls). BUT make sure your internet connection is good enough for it. It's not just about throughput, you need low latency and low jitter as well. Anyway, try your connection out at http://testyourvoip.com/ a few different times of the day and make sure it is worth your time.

My Dad and a couple of co-workers have Vonage and they all love it. Unfortunately my DSL is pretty much at the limit of the distance from the local telephone CO so my line is not up as much as I want my phone to be... ah well.

-ben

If you want, you can run a free VoIP quality test at http://testyourvoip.com/. So if you have wireless, or want to place a VoIP call over your Cell data link (for whatever perverse reason) you can check your quality before setting it all up if you have a web browser with Java enabled.

-ben

Heh.

But if you are seriously concerned about your line, try http://testyourvoip.com/. It is a free service and allows you to keep a history of performance so you can try a few times and see if the service degrades at any particular time.

-ben

Surprisingly there are a bunch of low cost carriers who route their calls over VoIP when going overseas so they can fit more calls into the same pipe. A lot of said countries are in the third world. Of course, whether you can get decent IP service when you don't have leased T1s is a different story :-)

Anyway, you can test your VoIP quality from anywhere with IP and a Java-enabled browser at http://testyourvoip.com if you are concerned about your IP quality not being up to snuff, or if you want to see how it is and you are in the wilds of Africa... but have IP connectivity.

If you are at all interested in this service (or one of the alternate offerings from the other VoIP providers) then make sure your line can support a VoIP call by using this free service: ahref=http://testyourvoip.com/ [slashdot.org]http://testyourvoip./ com/>.

Here is a working link for www.testyourvoip.com just incase some people don't feel like highlighting the proper part of that URL and pasting it in their browser.

Make sure your connection is up for it:
http://testyourvoip.com/

Wikipedia VoIP Article:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Voip

"As this guy said, sat-based Internet SUCK HARD for VoIP being that it is so latent."

Latency is bad, but you can get decent VoIP calls as long as the jitter isn't too bad. Jitter really kills you. The latency is just annoying for the people talking, but you can get used to it.

The best answer is to test your connection. http://testyourvoip.com/ offers a free service that places a sample call from Java to a bunch of locations of your choice around the world. Then you can look at the call quality (reported in industry standard MOS) as well as detailed reasons for quality degradation.

Hope that helps.

-ben

"Find an ISP that doesn't have those restrictions and use them instead."

Check out your current ISP with http://www.testyourvoip.com/. It places a call in Java to test out your connection's ability to handle a good quality VoIP call. But it will also tell you if your provider is blocking VoIP specific ports.

-ben

Surprisingly there are a bunch of low cost carriers who route their calls over VoIP when going overseas so they can fit more calls into the same pipe. A lot of said countries are in the third world. Of course, whether you can get decent IP service when you don't have leased T1s is a different story :-)

Anyway, you can test your VoIP quality from anywhere with IP and a Java-enabled browser at http://testyourvoip.com/ if you are concerned about your IP quality not being up to snuff, or if you want to see how it is and you are in the wilds of Africa... but have IP connectivity.

-ben

Also useful for checking your connection to see if it can handle VoIP: testyourvoip.com (the site has had an overhaul... some interesting new features)

-ben

To find out how your net connection is for VoIP try the free service http://testyourvoip.com/. The detailed stats can tell you about delays, dropouts, perceived quality and much, much, more. Try it at several times of the day (and week) to get a good picture of your connection.

-ben

Before you waste time trying to get VoIP (or paying for VoIP from a provider) going it is worth testing your connection to see if it can support VoIP calls at a reasonable quality. You might want to test your line at various times during the day... I get crappier calls in the evening.

Anyway, http://testyourvoip.com/ provides a decent free testing serice just using a web browser.

-ben

My two issues with VoIP are quality (which you can test using free sites such as http://testyourvoip.com/). Mine isn't too bad... but...

I am always concerned about safety. My phone works when the power is out and is Federally mandated to be up more than 99.999% of the time. VoIP has no such requirements. The counter-argument is that if you have a cell phone then that will work if the power is out.

The cool thing about VoIP phones (in this case Vonage, but I don't think that matters) is their geographical independence. My Dad took his to Greece on vacation and coordinated his house sale over the VoIP phone (so it was a local call for the other parties). It also turned out to be cheaper to make calls over the VoIP phone (via the US, so paying Vonage's low long distance rate to Greece) than it was to make local calls from the hotel!

And now he has moved from the US to the UK, but took his Vonage box with him, I can call his old local number and it rings in England!

Oh, and the other neat thing is that his voicemail messages get emailed to him.

-ben

I would be interested to see the MOS scores over the link.

Check out http://testyourvoip.com/ to get detailed analysis of a VoIP call.

-ben

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Before you download and configure this, test your connection out so see if it can handle VoIP. You can also play with different codecs to see if one is better than the other over your connection.

-ben

[I posted this to the other VoIP thread, but it is a useful tool]

You can simulate a VoIP call and get the MOS voice quality score. So if you want to see how your Wireless setup fares, visit testyourvoip.com.

Even if you don't care about VoIP, it is a useful test of the latency and bandwidth of your connection. VoIP is pretty sensitive to late packets so this tool highlights connectivity problems.

-ben

You can simulate a VoIP call and get the MOS voice quality score. So if you want to see how your Wireless setup fares, visit testyourvoip.com.

Even if you don't care about VoIP, it is a useful test of the latency and bandwidth of your connection. VoIP is pretty sensitive to late packets so this tool highlights connectivity problems.

-ben