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NYT Reviews VoIP: Vonage, Packet8, VoicePulse
securitas writes "The New York Times Technology section reviews VoIP services Vonage, VoicePulse and Packet8. A second article rounds up the competition including VoIP start-ups, cable companies and traditional telcos. The review primarily focuses on Vonage and it's an enlightening review particularly because the reporter isn't a techie. Most interesting is the comment from Vonage's CEO Jeffrey Citron: 'We're not that happy with the level of service today.' The outcome of the review and CEO's comments really do indicate that VoIP is still at the bleeding edge - and not for the average consumer - but the technology is maturing quickly. It will be interesting to see if the telcos do any better with their QoS (quality of service) - which has historically been a critical differentiating factor and competitive advantage - when they introduce their VoIP services in 2004."
People in the UK can now get VoIP from BT with BT Broadband Voice. They are aiming it at people with cable connections. The odd thing is that they recommend still keeping a normal phone line.
It's quite strange to see BT doing something before anyone else.
Steve.
A latent existence
A while back the FCC made a decision that has removed the availability of unbundled DSL service. This is one of many reason's why. Of course I understand the Baby Bell's position, you want me to not charge for the line? I say that they get to wholesale it, and frankly that the Baby Bell's should be like power companies, you get a contract to maintain the lines for X years, you get paid Y dollars, and have to maintain Z services. On top of that you get to call them "your" lines, except you have to wholesale (wholesale purchases get to pay taxes just like you do, but they just get a circuit.) At that point states/localaties get to choose competition.
If I remember correctly this is the way Power lines/companies are handled in Chicago, but I could be wrong.
Of course I now live where DSL can't get to, so I have to live with cable until I can convince someone to startup a Wireless broadband company on one of the many high tranmission towers in the area. That or I convince everyone in the neighborhood to by in, and I set it up.
I've been using Vonage as my family's primary line since April. It's not perfect, but it's better than a cell line. Back in the SFBA I was using it over a SBC DSL line; I found that it cost about the same to use Vonage and keep a $80/mo DSL line as it did to use a traditional PSTN line and keep a cheaper DSL line. I think we saved maybe $5 or $10/mo, chump change. But where it really came in useful is last month, when we moved to Wellington New Zealand. We've been using it since our DSL went live down here, and as far as the yankees can tell we're calling from the SFBA. Even with the outrageous prices of DSL (Telcom NZ is a monoploy and they really love to ream it to you) it's still cheaper than international long distance. There's a slight bit more latency than PSTN, but not enough to matter, given the significant savings. Another nice thing is being able to dial US 800 numbers. It's a real bitch from an international line, but on Vonage it's just like I'm callng from SF. And of course when folks call us they pay domestic long distance and ring a phone in Wellington. Good stuff for the ex-pat.
ehintz
Vonage has sold out and are owned partially by the Canopy Group. We all know the Canopy Group is also involved in the whole SCO mess. If you use Vonage, you're supporting Canopy (some money goes to them) and therefore are supporting SCO.
I also have Vonage, and I managed to find a way around this.
I simply ran a telephone cable to the outside wiring of my house, where the telco's line would normally plug in. With a little cable stripping, I was able to remove the telcos line and splice the line from the ATA right on there.
Voila! Vonage is now integrated into the normal wiring of my house. I love it, its great!
Speaking at Defcon 12 - Credit Card Networks Revisted: Pen
I'm with Vonage now, and only having one phone port in the back of the device is a bit of a drawback. However, I found that the point at which our standard phone connection enters the apartment is basically a second phone jack in one of the rooms. Plug this short RJ-11 cable into the bottom of this oversized wall plate, and you have standard phone service throughout the house. So I bought a line coupler, and hooked my Vonage box to that short cable, and now I have Vonage service at every jack in the house. My only worry was that the Motorola VoIP converter box didn't put out enough power for multiple phones at once, but so far, it's worked perfectly, and every phone in the house rings.
Absolutely love the service, haven't been able to notice much of a difference. There is sometimes a slight white-noise-type hiss when you're on the phone and no one is talking, but it stops as soon as there's some activity, and it isn't all the time. The latency is outstanding. Very, very impressive, considering how it's routing the call. I would put the overall sound quality at well above a cell phone, and only a fraction lower than a POTS.
All communication lines going to any endpoint (home, business, sensors, etc) are quickly moving to an IP based data network. Unfortunately, there are two problems that governments and current telephone companies face:
:-)
1) Roughly 50% of their voice revenue stream comes from per minute connection charges, other carrier access charges, & regulation charges (govn't). These will evaporate when subscribers move to data driven VoIP (ie: you pay a flat fee for DSL or cable modem bandwidth now, and it can run all your voice calls to anywhere in the world). Eventually the PSTN connection part will no longer be necessary, so Vonage will disappear as we know it today, but it has finally woken up the telcos to what the future will bring.
2) Pretty much the other half of their revenue stream comes from the 'premium' voice feature services (call waiting, text messaging, etc), all of which are quickly moving from the class 5 switch into the phones themselves (aka: free).
What do you do when your primary revenue stream evaporates? Fight it in the courts or with govn't officials. Remember, govn'ts have been taking a nice chunk of that revenue for themselves as well.
We will have to move to a bandwidth & quality of service (QoS) based payment style. A minimum bandwidth is given for a flat rate (which will include -all- voice), and extra bandwidth will be provided on demand at an agreed QoS. The higher the bandwidth & QoS, the higher the fee.
Things to watch out for: VoIP everywhere, SIP phones/services, VoWLAN, current voice carriers moving their infrastructure to their IP networks, and govn't regulations dictating that comm lines (called data services & unregulated) become regulated for QoS.
The companies that move to this model last will not survive. They aren't going to like this.
Unfortunatley, the article only briefly (very briefly) covers Vonage's competition. I'm using Packet 8 and have been for some time now. I've found their customer service to be EXCELLENT, unlink the article suggests - Perhaps the author of the article did not realize that they are based on the west coast, and while many people believe this to be true, the world does not revolve around Eastern Time - Before anyone starts screaming - Im also on the east coast.
Anyway, we had the packet8 service installed about 6 months ago, unfortuntatley before number portablility was available, so we got a fresh new number. I had a minor problem in the begining, since my firewall (sonicwall) had a known incompatibility with H323 packets, This has since been fixed with a firmware update on sonicwall's side, but I solved the problem just by putting the phone directly on the WAN ( I pay for 5 IP's, might as well use them).
Voice quality and overall satisfaction was poor to fair in the first month or two. The phone numbers would come into the caller ID boxes all garbled up, since they would add a "1" to the beginning of the number, making the CID info all skew by one digit.Also, the time CID info was Pacific Time, not local time.
This has all been remedied since then. We've bought our first house and I brought the packet 8 device with me, plugged it into my network and installed a jack in the basement near where my network is setup. Simply plugged the device in, and we were up and running. The big bonus is we don't have to change our phone number, or pay bastard child SNET (SBC) any money.
I'm sure this is where VOIP has a big market - People like me who have been burned hard by the local phone company- you know, the guys that never care about you or me.
So, Give packet 8 a try - I'm happy, and I believe they offer a risk free trial.
Don't Tread on Me
I think you're focusing too narrowly.
I currently get phone, television, and internet through time-warner. If it involves the sending and/or receiving of data in my home, it goes through them, completely, with the exception of my cellphone. and you know what? IT ALL COMES THROUGH ONE CABLE.
Phone lines were treated specially because they had to be a separate entity and a separate infrastructure utilizing public lands for a long time. That is no longer the case. Explain to me why there should be additional taxes and surcharges on my VoIP phone which utilizes cables that were ALREADY HUNG for use with cable TV and internet, with their own sets of taxes? Simply to allow phone companies to compete, when they use completely separate lines on the poles? Are you suggesting that time warner and other cable companies are allowed to use pole space without appropriate taxation for their existing cables?
Infrastructure consolidation my friend, not an artificial market. My VoIP service may not be 100% of a regular land line yet, but it's reliable enough for me to run a business from home. Soon enough having a regular land line will be the "last mile" option or a premium service only ("Dedicated phone lines! Still work when the power goes out!")
From personal experience of having loved ones abroad -- more specifically on islands in the caribbean that charge in excess of $0.50/min for long distance to the island(up to $1/min for VoIP providers) and $1-$3/min from the island -- I have discovered that using the Asterisk PBX [asteriskpbx.org] with an IP Phone cuts down on my long distance bill dramatically. Many of these islands offer 256/128kbps dsl service for under $100/month. Add a DSL line on your side with asterisk and you're in business. The savings I've gained by free long distance has paid for the extra hardware I purchased -- FXO & FXS line cards. Asterisk does more than support PC-to-PC calls. It supports a range of telephony hardware that enables you to create your full-featured PBX or in my case: VoIP->PSTN gateway. Whenever I travel in or out of the country I can usually find complementory internet connection somewhere (or pay for one for $10-30/day) and call people to my hearts content. To them, it would appear as if I were calling from my home phone... because I am. Its really the Anti-Vonage setup, but it serves my purpose. If I need a long distance voip provider I can just add it to the dialplan/configuration. This message was written before morning coffee.
You mean, like paying for colocation of their equipment, their bandwidth, the USF fees they pay, and that sort of thing?
I thought when you paid for these things, you were sharing the cost of the IP infrastructure. It's not like Vonage has just a cable modem at their end too. The fact that they can pay for the bandwidth they use, the bridging equipment, and the tie lines to the PSTN and still charge what they do is a pretty good sign that VoIP is a cheaper way to provide voice service to individuals.
I'm a (very satisfied) Vonage user, and work for a voice services provider. After spending some time looking into providing VoIP to our customers, I can tell you there's a whole lot of work that takes place and a big chunk of money to set this up. A lot of people seem to be under the impression that it's a no-brainer to provide a service like this. Although there are some good bundles available today from folks like Cisco to get started, there's still a lot of real telco work involved.
And while I'm on the subject, has anybody seen anything about Vonage's infrastructure? I'm sure they don't want to divulge all of their secrets, but I would love to know how it's all put together.