VoIP Telephone service

[bluebsh]

Does anyone here have VoIP telephone service? We just signed up for VoIP from a place called Vonage, seems like pretty good rates, better then our standard phone service from Verizon in terms of price. Does anyone have any thoughts about VoIP or any experience with Vonage or any other companies that provide similar service? Thanks!

[chronic871]

Yeah i got Voice over IP phone service. I pay a flat rate of $34.95 a month and i can anywhere in US & Canada, plus i get 5 premium calling features free. The best part is I don?t gotta pay all those damn taxes I use to pay with my regular phone service.:yes:s: i use OptimumVoice.

[bluebsh]

how is the sound quality for you? do you get any mpeg compression artifacts (sounds like breaking up of sound kinda sounds like an error in an mp3 type of noise) or anything similar to that?

[bluebsh]

the one we signed up for is called vonage, it's as cheep as $14.99 a month for 500 out going minutes (incomming is unlimited) but for $24.99 a month you get unlimited regional claling plus 500 long distance.. regional is nice because it coveres almost all of our state.. for $34.99 you get anywhere in the USA and canada as unlimited time. also you get free voice mail, free caller id, free call waiting, free call forwarding, free call transfer, free three way calling, and free vonage to vonage user calls no mater your plan... plus you can keep your normal phone phone number, get a 1-800 number and international calling is way cheaper then most of the major phone companies... sounds good so far... waiting for our Cisco ATA box to get here to set it up to try it out... 14 day money back garantee for all fee's and 30 day money back garantee for that month of charges... so figured would give VoIP a try... only thing that bugs me is 911 works diffrent... there still is 911 but instead of going to an emergency center it goes to a personal assistance response center... I dont know what to think of that...

[chronic871]

While the sound quality is great, its all digital, my phones all plug into my cable modem. No sound distortion, I really don?t think this kinda service has much to do with like the internet d/l&u/l, because it does not affect my d/l speed and my top speed is 1mb a sec. i can even put my modem in standby so I know for a fact its using some other stream.

[bluebsh]

really? something about that seems odd, because it uses an IP address to connect to the VoIP server... if your modem is in stand by it should be stopping all traffic... I know some VoIP gives QOS prioritization but I dont think that would even get through a suppended modem... what kind of VoIP box do you have? The one we are recieveing is a Cisco one

[MxxCon]

vonage VoIP service uses about 10-15kilobytes/sec

[bluebsh]

from what ive read about the ATA box cisco has you can select the bandwidth usage.. so im guessing its 128kbps to 192kbps sound?... or thats what it seems what ive read out of it

[modem]

and this lets you call standard non VoIP numbers and standard non VoIP numbers can contact you? I was reading somewhere that when using some of these VoIP services you can only call other VoIP users and not outside land line users.

[MxxCon]

and this lets you call standard non VoIP numbers and standard non VoIP numbers can contact you? I was reading somewhere that when using some of these VoIP services you can only call other VoIP users and not outside land line users.

maybe some of those services do that :x , but it's not the idea. w/ "real" VoIP you should be able to call/get calls from anybody.

some services offer unlimited calling to other VoIP users, while calls to/from regular lines will be charged.

bluebsh, 128kbps to 192kbps comes out to ~16 to 24 kilobytes/sec, a bit higher than what i experienced, but maybe they are quating 'raw' data rate and not tcp/ip or something like that..

btw, reciently i actually got the chance to talk to somebody using Skype, and i must say it's much more impressive. sound quality is much clearer than phone or VoIP, and it's using contant stream of only 5kilobytes/sec both ways. the only drawback is it's half-duplex, meaning both parties can't talk at the same time.

[chronic871]

well bluebsh, i don't know about u but like i said i can put my modem into standby and my phones work fine. the only thing that is affected by standby is my internet. The modem i got is the Motorola SBV4200 and the phone plugs directly into it and has nothing to do with my computer. optimumvoice.com thats the company that gives me my service..

[Steven]

People have stated that "OptimumVoice" from cablevision is terrible. Stick to a Wired phone.

Here:

http://www.dslreports.com/forum/remark,8696150~mode=flat

(N)