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Suggestions for a Home VOIP Provider?
nate1138 asks: "My wife and I recently relocated so that I could take a promising position with a better company. Her job, being the fairly progressive folks that they are, graciously agreed to let her telecommute. Most of the services she needs we already have set up, such as the VPN, and VNC for remote control, etc. Now we only have one thing left to do. Get a phone line. Her office is a long distance call from our new location, and she needs to be able to call customers throughout the southeast as well. Since we need a number with a different area code from our home, it looks like voice over IP is the only solution. I want to know what you folks think about the various VOIP providers, like Packet8,
Vonage, and
Broadvoice. Or any other that I haven't thought of. Or another way to solve the same problem without shelling out a boatload o' cash. Features are the last priority, while reliability is tops."
Are you sure your phone company doesn't have a package with unlimited in-country or in-state long distance calling?
I remember when legal used to mean lawful, now it means some kind of loophole. - Leo Kessler
Depending on how much time she needs to spend on the phone, cellular might be your best bet. If you have coverage in your current area from someone who sells service in the area whose area code you're looking for, that would probably be the easiest way to get what you need. I'm sure you can still get phones which have good broadcasting power, and you can pick an appropriate antenna, so perhaps you can get coverage already. This will have the added advantage of coming with its own battery backup (unless you need to use an amplifier) and thus being even more reliable than a wired POTS->PSTN phone.
"You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"
I have been with Vonage for 6 months now and have had no problems. I have 4 lines through them with no problems at all, including fax. It also cut my phone bill by about 1/2 because all of the long distance calls I made are all now included.
a cell phone? I cancelled long-distance service for my landline because I had no use for it. Sure, if I use it it'll cost me an arm & a leg, but the only thing I use the landline for is to write a phone number down on receipts & whatnot as I've got a machine on it to collect messages. I have plenty of friends who don't even have a landline any more, preferring to select the best plan from the various cell vendors - especially now that you can keep the same number forever.
Since you say that reliability is your top priority I'd recommend a dedicated VOIP service provided by a cable company if available. They are required to offer the same level of service as a phone company, and also included life line support. While Vonage, Packet8, and the like are all excellent services, they are only as good and as reliable as your existing internet connection.
Vonage seems to work well so long as your connection is good. Being able to listen to your voicemail either on a phone or online is really neat.
My experience is that tech support takes FOREVER to get someone on the line if you have trouble. When I say forever, I am talking about 45 minutes plus.
Other than that, it is great.
The Linspire (Lindows) folks have quite a nice one called sipphone. I particularly like how you can plug your ordinary phone in. They're a fairly new player so currently low prices may not last.
I can tell you that I have used Vonage over the Optimun Online cable service and I was happy with it. My only problem (which is why I eventually canceled my service) was with my ISP, I would be in the middle of a phone call and the call would drop for no reason. I loved the quality of the service, easy to install and the price was right. Once Verizon (My local provider) came out with a flat rate phone service $49/month for unlimited local and long distance (within the US) I switched to them since a regular phone line in my opinion was more reliable than the VoIP solution. Another thing to consider is the fact that if you wife is going to be doing heavy downloading while talking on the VoIP network it will affect your sound quality as well, or at least that was my experience with it. Of course, I was getting speeds of 500+Kb/s on multiple downloads. But I didnt feel like cancelling the downloads when receiving a phone call or when I wanted to make one.. Hope this helps you in your decission.
It seems like the best way to do it (and cheapest) would be to call from your computer over the internet to a computer in the city you wanted to call to, which would then hook up to the regular phone line via a modem. I was looking for something like this, but haven't found anything on freshmeat, etc. (Any links out there?)
It seems quite possible. You tell the computer what local number you want, it dials it, and then just acts as a gateway between you (on the internet) and the person you're talking to (on a normal phone line). Nothing too complicated. If you get the reliability up, this might be your best bet.
you should definitely get this http://www.pulverinnovations.com/ this device allows you to used in pairs allows you to call each other through the internet and then use the ipp at you office to make local calls from that numbers area code
The $20 a month gave me unlimited calls anywhere in quote-unquote North America (step back Mexico - you're not part of North America anymore, the phone companies have deleted you.) Of course you can use the phone anywhere in the world, but you can only call Canada and the US for free with the $20 plan. But even the long distance rates are very reasonable -- for me to phone Norway is only something like 2 cents a minute.
The problem with the phone isn't the service, or which VOIP provider to choose -- it's the internet connection it's running on. If you're internet connection has a few hiccups here and there, or if you're just physically far away, your QOS will be shot. I recommend posting a follow up question of "Which ISP is best for VOIP?" Latency is a big issue, of course. Even some of the ISP's route occasionally via satellite, and that's just great for VOIP connections (great for VOIP connections... what? ...connections... bzzzzzzzzzt... what? Hello? Son of a ...!)
My conclusion is: it's okay, and it's a cheap phone. There are some sacrifices. And Packet8 is loads cheaper than Vonage and includes free equipment, or at least used to. Plus you don't have to deal with the bastards at the phone company anymore, which makes any sacrifice worth it! Hurray! But for $20 a month and no long distance, go for it, just use the referral code to save being screwed on "installation." If you just want to try it for a while, try Free World Dialup until you're comfortable -- although that's a lot more complicated to set up versus a ready to run system like Packet8 or Vonage. Good luck.
The baby's fine -- please stop sending business cards.
The only bad thing I've heard about Vonage is that it can take a long time if you want to transfer your current phone number to vonage. Check broadbandreports.com for more Vonage reviews
I make too many calls to the US from Australia and I've heard tht you need 200ms pings. I can get 150ms pings to some places in San Jose but typical ping times are 220 to 250 ms for random places in the US. What I'm looking for is where are the gateways located? What are their unoffical rules about getting connections that aren't from the US? How much does the adapter cost and how much does it cost me if I bail out of their serivce in the 1st month?
I am in the same situation. I moved from AZ to WA but I am still employed by a company in AZ. I am a software developer and I work from my home. My wife is a graphic designer who has lots of clients in AZ.
We have a Sprint cell phone with an AZ number. Because we are Sprint wireless customers, we were offered a $15 a month, all-you-can-eat long distance plan for our home phone. That allows me to call my company's office to talk with coworkers.
It works out pretty well.
DSLReports.com maintains a forum for VoIP providers as well as numerous reviews of Vonage, Packet8, and lots of others.
At our school, we don't earn a degree when we graduate—we earn pi/180 radians
I've been a Vonage customer for about 5 months now. My wife and I ditched our POTS because we realized it was costing us $34/month for absolutely no services (this was with Bellsouth). We decided to transfer our POTS number over to Vonage. Unfortunately, the old telco's like to rape customers by holding on to phone numbers for as long as possible (basically, the longer they hold your number, the longer you have to pay them). Bellsouth finally transferred my number to Vonage after about 90 days (bastards).
We haven't regretted switching ONCE. We use the lowest call quality setting and can't even notice a difference. We have a cheapest plane they offer ($14.99 for 500 local/long distance minutes / *every* feature they offer including caller id, voicemail, etc).
Perhaps our favorite feature is the web interface for doing everything. I mean, really...have you ever tried to set up your POTS line for forwarding? The web interface makes it very, very simple and there's no need to reference a manual.
I would recommend Vonage in a heartbeat. Perhaps the poster's wife could just ditch her traditional land line, get Vonage, and use Vonage's "virtual phone number" feature to get a local number in her office's area code.
I have a related question... Can you keep DSL and sign up for one of these providers? Will *insert local bell or SBC* let you have a line without service?
Are you sure your cable company doesn't have a local and LD phone package? http://www.twcdigitalphone.com/ The majority of my friends and neighbors have switched to road runner's VoIP... and we are all impressed. 911-service, call waiting, caller-id, works through your existing phone lines -- the service is packed with bells and whistles. Give it a shot if you have RR in your area. Davak
I switched from MCI state unlimited to packet8 for a few months. I had some latency problems with packet8. I could deal with it, but my wife could not. So we ended up upgrading our cell phone plan, and ditching a separate home phone altogether.
A router with QoS helped a lot. There was a noticable difference after a did prioritization with OpenBSD's pf.
I have no wired phone line. I use VoIP as my primary phone and a cell phone as a backup. That said, I am not aware that any VoIP provider meets the same level of reliability as a POTS line.
My own requirement was that my VoIP provider support my choice in SIP devices. That eliminated several of the vendors on your list as they require use of a Cisco-ATA and lock you out of it. I wanted a more 'open' service. I currently use IConnectHere. For $8.95/mo they provide unlimited incoming calls, Caller-ID, Voicemail, Call-Waiting, Call-Transfer, etc. Outgoing calls cost 3.5 cents/minute.
Addaline (http://www.addaline.com) has recently started offering DID service and has a very economical outgoing rate.
A.
...bringing you cynical quips since 1998
Local calling
Unlimited Long Distance (US only)
Caller ID
Three-way Calling
Voice Mail
Call Forwarding
other misc stuff
I've had it for about five months and I can attest that my phone bill does not vary. No surprises.
I hope this is of some value to you and I wish you luck with your move and your new ventures.
Happy Trails!
Erick
http://www.busyweather.com/
I recently signed up for Packet8's VoIP service, and have been very happy with it.
I would suggest that you read each provider's fine print, as some of them specifically telecommuters from their residential plans, and if they find out that you have been using a residential plan for telecommuting, will charge you the commercial rate for all previous months you've been subscribed.
You MAY find that it's not necessary to go fancy (though the geek factor is great and the price may be lower). You can also get service from the tellcos. And it MAY no longer cost an arm and a leg, thanks to competition from the geek-factor technologies.
First option is a "Foreign Exchange" line. Phone at your home office, connected to a switchboard in the city of interest (transparently, via the long-distance infrastructure).
This USED to cost an arm and a leg (or have a large per-minute charge) because it potentially tied up a long distance trunk any time you were off-hook, and a business might be off-hook essentially all day. But now that bandwidth is cheaper than air it might be another story. (Worth a look.)
Second option is to install a phone with call-forwarding and a dirt-cheap flat rate long-distance service, with the jack installed somewhere handy in the distant service area. (If you do business there but don't have an office, you can probably talk someone into letting the jack be at their site.) Set the call-forwarding to your home-office phone, and unplug the distant instrument. People call you, it transfers to your home-office phone. You pay the long distance charge for the call - which is prepaid or nearly free.
Third: Some tellcos have a service (I don't recall what it's called) that is essentially equivalent to number two but without the line to the unplugged phone. (Check with the long-distance providers, too, not just the local tellcos.) Local tellcos might still price this one sky high, but I bet the long-distance companies have a deal on it.
If you enquire about number three, it's too pricey, but number two would do the job in your price range, be SURE not to talk about them both in the same call to the tellco in question. B-)
Bantam Dominique roosters crow a four-note song. Once you've heard it as "Happy BIRTHday" you can't NOT hear it that way
but you do not want to show up as an extra expense in the office in cases when people want to phone you
That's exactly why we are looking into Packet8/Vonage/etc. We need to have a local number that her office can call or transfer calls to without running up their bill. It looks like the ISP is pretty reliable, so that won't be a big issue (we hope, anyway).
Where's my lobbyist? Right here.
I have had Vonage for 6 months and just cancelled today.
Very cool concept, and I'm a big fan of the company. Great product offering, great customer service, and super convenient in many respects.
But, I discovered a few limitations, and eventually decided that I just didn't need the service anymore.
The latency was a big problem for me. The latency for calls when using Vonage on my cable Internet connection (Cox in So. Cal.) was typically almost 1 second. I estimate that because I could hear the slight echo when the signal finally made it to the other end of the call, and because my friends would ask me what was wrong with my phone. After a few frustrating business calls, I stopped using it for important phone calls and only used it for a few evening calls to friends that were willing to tolerate the latency that reminded me of an international call. The actual quality of the sound was fantastic--no gripes there, but when you are stepping over the sentences of the other person constantly and having to wait for one another to finish sentences, it became very frustrating. I literally used my cell phone with 50% signal strength for important calls, since it had very little latency compared to Vonage on my Internet connection.
I did not tried Vonage on my DSL service at my new residence (due to wiring issues mentioned below), so unfortunately I can't offer a comparison of cable vs. DSL in terms of the latency. (And yes, I followed all of their tech support recommendations and opened up the swath of ports that they recommend to incoming traffic.)
The second issue that I had is that the phone must effectively be located next to the Internet connection (cable/dsl modem/router, etc.). You either have to run an Ethernet cable if you want to locate the Vonage device and phone elsewhere, or you have to run a long phone cord if you want to locate the phone elsewhere. Maybe there is some means of routing the signal into the copper wiring in the house, but I wasn't going to bother. My cordless phone crapped out, so I just gave up. My new location offers the huge benefit of actually having solid cell signal, so I now rely exclusively on my cell, and had no need for Vonage.
But, I give them tremendous credit for a great product (for those that can get acceptable call latency/quality) with a ton of features for an amazingly economical price.
I first wrote about my Vonage experiences here on and at the time I had basically put them on probation. I fear I've given away the ending of my story in the subject line, but read on anyway.
Since then, I found that I was experiencing really bad echo on certain incoming calls, even when those calls were forwarded from my Vonage phone to my cell phone. I was asked each time I tried to add more detail (by a new tech support person each time who never bothered to read through my issue history) whether my internet connection had enough bandwidth or my phone wiring had been tested... after the second time answer the same questions, I gave up. From then on, I would file additional customer care reports on the echo, from what phone numbers I was getting the most echo for incoming calls, how outgoing calls had no echo, etc. It became a major waste of time, and the fact that Vonage refused to acknowledge that they might have problems in their PSTN-to-VOIP bridges in certain exchanges, choosing instead to pass it off on my own house wiring or internet connection after both of those were eliminated as sources of trouble early on was quite telling.
When my local phone company (Qwest) offered to switch me back for free with 2 months of free service on top of that, I took them up on it. Yes, I went back to Qwest, which is a major indicator. I had the virtual number feature, with a second line in an out-of-state area code, so I asked on the phone of a customer care rep at Vonage if my virtual number could become my primary number once the switch took place, and he assured me verbally that that was no problem.
I'll let you, reader, guess what happened. Hint: if it isn't in writing it isn't true. Especially at Vonage.
I've cancelled my Vonage service. Aside from the nice voicemail features and the useful forwarding feature, and the reasonably-low price, I found the quality of service, the quality of their technical support personnel, the startup process, and the experience on the whole to be a major disappointment. I consider myself to be an early adopter (and I've been in the tech hardware and software business for a while myself), so I was willing to cut Vonage a lot of slack early on with the stumbles and the snafus, and they took all of that slack and then some.
BTW, I would suggest a service provider that doesn't lock you out of your own ATA device. Vonage prevents you from doing much of anything that they don't approve of, which is a major minus on top of their low-grade service.
A Canadian company called mobitus offers zero monthly fee, excellent software, and very competitve rates - it also has the advantage of being outside of the FCC's reach. I've used their system for quite a few months, and am quite happy with them. Plus, any support calls I've had to make (about 2 in 5 months) has been answered immediately. That's one things about those Canucks - friendly ;)
If you're a geek willing to put some time into learning VOIP and Asterisk, the options are endless.
How about this? Her work would give her a "desk" with an analog phone. You put an old Linux PC at the "desk" with a Digium FX0 card. You then have another PC at her home with with a VOIP phone jack or a headset with SIP software (like this Windows or this Linux) or run Asterisk on her home Linux box and run IAX between the two.
Reliability would depend on the reliability of the IP connection between home/work. Because of Internet delay (and possibly delay from your VPN encryption), there may be a noticable delay on the connections, so it may feel more like a cell phone conversation than a land line.
If you don't have time to tinker and really care about reliability, just get a $30 nationwide unlimited plan from your local phone company or long distance provider (BellSouth/MCI/AT&T), expense it to work, and be done with it.
For those of you north of the border (the icy wastes known as Canada), Primus provides a decent service. For about 25 loonies per month, you get unlimited local service (in the area code of your choice, as long as they service it) and reasonable long distance. They send you the equipment and (supposedly) pick up the return postage as well when you cancel. No signup fees, which beats all the Bells and Telus right there. We've found sound quality to be reasonable, certainly no worse than a cell phone and much better than our first try at VoIP a couple years ago. Worth a try!
As a matter of fact, I plugged in today and did indeed have a few hiccups. I could not get the MAC address to register and it took two calls to tech support to find out why. the first call ended in disconnect when the CSR placed me on hold and the second tech had to research the problem. It seems that my MAC was never registered in their inventory, so the system had to understand that my hardware existed. After a few hours (at least when I tried again) the sign-up went well. Once signed up, did a reboot and had a signal.
.wav format), email notification of new messages, call forwarding, call ID, call waiting, call return (*69), caller Id block, busy redial, and 3-way calling.
So far, I'm impressed with the features. Voicemail (you can set it so that new messages are emailed to you in
One feature I have enjoyed already is detailed billing. I like the features of cell phones where it will often show detail of the called numbers as well as sometimes even incoming calls. Since I have to sometimes file suit against telemarketers for violation of the TCPA, it is highly beneficial that I have a detailed listing of when calls were made.
You can place the hardware either inside or outside the firewall (if inside open ports 50605061, 53, 69, and 10000-20000 on UDP protocol). If you plug the device into a wall outlet in the house (making *sure* to disconnect the house from the street connection) you can use any other phone in the house as you normally would. Ad of course another last advantage is being able to take the device with you so that you can plug it in and use the phone whenever on a broadband connection. If you make a lot of calls to someone in another country, you could even try purchasing another device and sending it to them so they can take calls as if they were local (to you). I wonder how ling it will be before scammers, spammers, and other scum use this to appear local or in the states, yet be running things from Nigeria or other safe harbor.
Right now Best Buy has a pretty decent sale. I used a 10% off Memorial Day coupon to bring the price to 81 and then it comes with a mail-in rebate. If you use their rewards program ($10 a year) you get 50,000 bonus points for purchasing this item (which equates to 4 $5 Gift Cards). Circuit City has it for 79-50 MIR if you want to go that route.
Cave, wreck, and deep diver.
Comment removed based on user account deletion
Cable Voip has the same levels of reliability that POTS has. Thats the requirement for offering it along with 911 calling.
I've been telecommuting full-time for four years. I'm in El Paso, TX; my "office" is in Atlanta. Recently, my employer sent me a cool toy: a phone built by Intertel (if the case artwork is to be believed), that knows about both IPSec and my employer's internal office phone system. I plugged the phone into my LAN; within two minutes it established a secure connection to my employer's VPN via my cable IP connection, and hooked itself into the PTX. I now appear on the office phone network at extension 1003, and I can also use the office net to make long-distance calls charged to my employer, rather than to my POTS line or cellphone. It seems to be very reliable, and costs me nothing; it might be an option for the OP.