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VoIP for the Masses!
SkywalkerOS8 writes: "Vonage has begun offering Voice-over-IP(VoIP) service to residential broadband users. I've had the service since Friday and the quality is indistinguishable from a regular phone line. It's only $20/month for 500 minutes or $40/month for unlimited service. They include Cisco equipment, Call Waiting, Call Forwarding, Caller ID and Voicemail (which you can check online) in the service price. You can read more about it in this
article in Time. It works fine through my Linux NAT firewall/router and my monthly phone budget has now dropped from $60+ to $20."
I wonder since with limited upstream on most residential broadband connections nowadays, when you try to call someone will it kill your ping on your game of Tribes. Or if you're downloading a bunch of stuff, will your girlfriend get mad because your phone won't ring when she tries to call? ack.. i can see the problems already..
I've tried different services like this and all performed really well. The hard part is finding good hardware. But it looks like this company is helping out in that department. This could seriously cut down your phone bill if you use the unlimited rate. If they can stay afloat I think the public would really love the service.
But what do the Bells think about this? Here's a service you can buy that's about the same price as theirs, but INCLUDES long distance? I'm sure they will throw a fit if they see a drop in sales or customers jumping ship. Just curious as we might see the giants trying to crush the little guy again.
Until broadband providers support quality of service as in 802.1q&p, this isn't going to be very popular. Most people will get pretty pissed when their phone service starts to crap out because the kid next door just set up a warez site, and your shared bandwidth is being hogged.
I love VoIP, and can't wait until my cable provider has it, assuming they do it right.
Casca
My AT&T broadband cable modem connection is spotty at best. I've had weeks of downtime, their level of customer service is horrible. They call me every now and again and try and sell me their voice over cable service. I wouldn't use it if they paid me. There's no way I'd use this. After all the problems I've had between the cable modem and the digital cable, I went with DirecTV, and even switched my long distance carrier. I just wish I had an affordable broadband alternative (too far down the loop for dsl). Like hell I would ever trust my phone service to AT&T broadband.
That issue aside, has anyone checked out how this works for data connections? Even if you have high speed net, DirecTV + Tivo still needs pots.
For instance, usually your phone still works when your power goes out. Not with Voice Over IP, because your DSL router/bridge is dead. I guess you could get a UPS, but then we start adding additional costs to this technology that is supposed to save us money.
The Cisco VoIP solution is also very popular and has some nice features, but be advised that the core of it, CallManager, runs ONLY on Windows 2000. From what my VoIP consultant friend has told me, it's still quite buggy. And no surprise, patching it or making major changes involves rebooting... and your calls disconnected. I think there is redundancy but whether it works correctly is anyone's guess... since it is Win2K, my guess is no.
The fundamental problem is: no one minds too much if a computer network is down. These things happen and people are used to it. But if the PHONE is out everyone from Grandpa to Little Susie is going to be complaining!
Carl
Vote Libertarian
Because I would like to have more than one handset in my house without having to pay 20-40 for each one of them.
Because the voice quality on cellular still isn't nearly what it is on a landline ( I don't care what the sprint commercial says, they suck rocks).
Because in most areas you can get fewer calls going in a cell than you can on landlines, so when something big happens, like a tornado, I want to be able to use my phone. Of course cable will be out since it relys on power, and not many cable providers have UPSs in all the distribution points.
Casca
I seem to recall services that allowed people outside the U.S. to place international calls anywhere at reduced rates by routing the call through the U.S. The to-U.S. leg was set up as a bogus "collect" call, so they caller payed deregulated U.S. rates for the whole thing, instead of paying local monopoly rates.
This goes back to Thomas Edison. Unable to patent his movie film, he copyrighted the sprocket holes. That gave him a monopoly -- until somebody invented a camera that punched the holes as the movie was being filmed. No DMCA back then of course!
Then there were "tax carts". In the UK, they used to asses road taxes on people who owned wagons and carts, based on the number of axles. Naturally somebody invented a cart that held up to six people, but only had one axle.
Social Libertarians like to think that Evil Unchecked Regulators are a sudden, massive crisis. It gives them an excuse to demand the other extreme -- privatize everything, even the army. No regulation of anything, except by contract and lawsuit. Nice classroom exercise --- let's hope that's where it stays.
The reality is that a modern society is full of people with conflicting agendas. The comprimises and workarounds they generate are often weird, kludgy, and inefficient. But that's preferrable to mandating that everybody adhere to some "logical" theory, be it Libertarianism, Marxism, or whatever.
Even if you use a cell phone to call, 911 won't be able to pull up your address.
-prator
Why not switch to just using a cellular phone for all your calls? Same effect.
Not quite. Way too often cell phone service sucks at your home, away from cities, where broadband is still available. With this, as long as your broadband connectivity is available, so is your phone.
Of course, that's the big uh-oh about this service, too, though. While it hasn't been flaky lately, my RCN cable modem service doesn't have a sterling silver reputation, so... I'd be without phone for the period during which my connection drops. That'd suck. And I wouldn't be able to call RCN to complain, because my cell doesn't work at home...
If you knew me, you wouldn't need this here...
I like the links, but they don't lead to anything related to "not getting booted off" or "flat-rate unlimited internet access". Both of those terms are usually used in relation to dial-up access. And that would be just plain dumb.
I need an internet connection to use my phone, but I need to dial my phone to get an internet connection...
In short, $62.95 per month for unlimited local and long distance calling (as long as you don't go over your bandwidth allocation) and high-speed internet access.
It's only worth it if you want both long distance (international is CHEAP (look, proper use of links!) with this service ) and high-speed internet access. If you just want one, look elsewhere.
bah enough with the wires, things in my place only move towards wireless. Best bet is that it'll die out like the others for lack of necessity. Make something i need and can't live without, or at least make it a super deal.
"i can never say no to anyone but you"