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."

Comments

Useful outside the USA

[openSoar]

We've put a VoIP unit in our place in the Carribean and it allows guests who are mostly from the US, to make (effectively) free calls back home - something that would be very expensive using the regular telephone system.

Its great...

[rpdillon]

I am a Vonage customer and use it as my primary line. Not only can you get voice mails delivered to email (great when travelling), but you can, for an additional $4.99/month get a line that is local to someone that calls you a lot, so they can make toll-free (local) calls, even if you're in New York and they are in California.

The feature I like best is that, free of charge, I have my cell phone ring anytime my home phone rings. That way, when I'm away, I still get all my home calls, and don't have to give out my cell number to everyone. This feature can be used for simultaneous ringing on any other number, or it can forward it to another number after a certain number of seconds without answer on the first line. You can turn the feature on/off and the change takes effect almost immediately.

Most of all, all the extras that you pay for with normal phone are automatically included in the Vonage plan. I pay $25 a month for all my phone needs (that are non-cell), and that's a lot better than my old SBC/MCI pairing I used to use.

I don't really notice bad voice quality, but I took a lot of time to set up my Vonage box *behind* my firewall, but then forwards all the ports necessary to have it manage the connection properly for voice-quality. For a more no-brainer setup, just route your connection to the Vonage box first, then to your router.

Re:VOIP Dosent still qualify the requirements in T

[rsrsharma]

I had the same exact problem with VoIP, except I also didn't like the fact that 911 calls didn't go to the 911 center. However, I've figured out how to get around these problems:

1. Keep a regular landline on your current phone number, just with $0/month (no free minutes or low rates) local + long distance plan on it.
2. Build a box with Asterisk (the OSS PBX) on it, as well as 2 FXO cards and 1 FXS card.
3. Connect the phone line from the VoIP ATA to the first FXO card.
4. Connect the PSTN line to the second FXO card.
5. Configure Asterisk to use the PSTN line for incoming calls, and the VoIP line for outgoing calls. (You'll probably want your VoIP company to forward all calls to the PSTN line, I know that Vonage does this for free.)
6. Connect another ATA (you'll have to buy it yourself) to the FXS card.
7. Get a double-pole-double-throw relay. This basically connects one line through when there is power, and another when there isn't. Let the line from the Asterisk server go through when there is power, and the unmodified PSTN line go through when there isn't.
8. Configure Asterisk to only use the PSTN line for 911 calls.
9. Connect the line from the DPDT relay to the phone lines in your house/buisniness.

So yeah, that should cover it. If you want more info, chech the Asterisk-Users list under the topic "Vonage, PSTN, 911, and hardware question". I'm planning building a system with this setup later this year.

Re:It's useless...

[SunPin]

You obviously weren't in the path of any hurricanes this summer. I have a gsm phone and it, along with everybody else, was effectively dead within an hour of constant 120 mph winds. It remained useless for days afterwards. The cell phone network can't deal with disasters.