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What VoIP Is Actually Good For
gManZboy writes "One of the things that's bothered me about VoIP is that other than so-so quality phone service at a cheap price, what's the big deal? I mean so you can now deliver voice mail into e-mail because it's all IP packets, does that mean I should ditch my telecom investment. Well in part 3 of Queue's special report on VoIP (here's part 1, part 2) two authors from Bell Labs help explain actually useful things you might do. Now I get it."
Having used Vonage for several months I can say I am very pleased with their service and the quality of the calls. Before Vonage my only phone was a SprintPCS phone. When I got Vonage and called family/friends to tell them about a new number most of them commented how much clearer it was compared to the PCS phone I usually call them on.
;)
The only time I have had a 'problem' was when I was downloading some files on bittorrent AND playing FFXI Online and received a phone call. There was a slight echo audible on my end.
I have actually convinced my father and two friends to ditch the local phone company and get VOIP. They are also very pleased with the service and money they have saved, which equals free months of phone service for me!
Yes, voice packets are given priority on the network IF your ISP has DQoS implemented and enabled. This is not assumed or standard on any networks I'm familiar with, and you'd be foolish to assume ISPs rushing out to benefit third-party VoIP companies when there's a push to roll out ISP-branded VoIP... Anyway, without DQoS, it's all best-effort. As noted above, given sufficient bandwidth, you'll hadly ever get jitter unless you saturate the pipe with up/downloads that preclude sequential voice packets.