Recommend me a home VoIP solution
Monday, November 12th, 2007 - 1:57pm
My wife and I just bought our first house, and we'd like to change our home land line phone service from Verizon (~$45 unlimited local and long distance) to something cheaper. VoIP seems interesting, but I don't know that much about it. I'm hoping the Gooj Collective will have some answers. Here's what I'm looking for.
Requirements:
- Ease of use
- Almost all calls will be dialed to and received from land lines and cell phones, not other VoIP users
- Relatively inexpensive
- Doesn't require a PC to be powered on
- Voicemail
I've been using Vonage for a couple years and haven't had any problems. Very occasionally the call quality is spotty, but it's never been worse than what I get on a cell phone. The only real problem I had was that my Series 1 TiVo couldn't dial out using it. But I bought a plug-in network card to get around that (I've since moved to satellite).
Has anyone tried using Skype as their "land" line service? I was looking at that the past week and it looks like, once you buy phone that plugs into your router, you can have a regular dial-up number and phone other cell and landlines for $60 a year, which is a heck of a lot cheaper than the $20 a month I'm paying Vonage.
---Todd
The Nut and the Feisty Weasel: A place where a deranged Ohio State Buckeye and a rabid Michigan Wolverine fan come together... and air grievances.
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I am using Packet8 now. The quality is good, the service is very stable (don't remember any outages), and all the requirements you list are satisfied.
My only gripe with them is that their website is not as slick as old SunRocket used to be, and as Viatalk currently is. With SunRocket, I could maintain a phone book, for example, and make the names from it show up in the caller id of the incoming calls, instead of whatever they come in with. Or initiate the calls from the phonebook web interface. Packet8 doesn't have any of that, but is very stable, and for $29.99 offers a plan with unlimited international calling to most of the civilized places on Earth.
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I've got Skype, and once you get a router phone and Skype-In number it's very reliable. The only issue I have is that outgoing calls don't show up in the other party's caller id. Other than that though? Highly recommend Skype.
Does Skype offer an actual telephone service or is it just through a computer?
Sorta. You can get a regular style phone that doesn't require a computer or a cell phone analogue. See here for their available phones.
Which phone do you have? Do you like it?
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Update: This is a bit of an aside, but I just called Verizon to tell them that I'd be moving, I'm considering switching phone service, and asked if they could offer a loyalty discount. The CSR that I spoke with immediately said yes, that they could take $20 off of my current package every month for a year. So for those who have a Verizon land line plan like mine, give it a try.
I'm still interested in hearing about your VoIP opinions, since it still might be worth it to switch. Also, thanks to those who have already responded. I appreciate your insights.
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kaostheory wrote:
I've got the Netgear WiFi phone and I love it. One of the best things about it is not only does it work in my home on my wireless network, it'll work on any open network I take it to. I haven't yet, but it's cool to have that option.
Well for an averaged cost of $9/mo I've got Skype Pro, Skype-In (a landline number people can call), and Skype Unlimited (free calling anywhere in America or Canada + the normal free to any skype account). So basically I pay $30 for a year of unlimited national calling, $12 for a 3 month subscription to Skype-In, and $15 for 5 months of Skype-Pro.
You could probably do fine with just Skype In and Unlimited, which would total $6.50/month. Not a bad deal considering all you lose is the ability to call a local 911 line and have your number show up in peoples caller ID boxes.
Do you know if there's a good way to make up for the lack of 911? I've been thinking about going this route as well, but I've got two young kids and when they get another year or two older it'll be so much easier to tell them "in an emergency dial 911" than to put a long list of numbers by the phone that say, "if this, call this."
---Todd
The Nut and the Feisty Weasel: A place where a deranged Ohio State Buckeye and a rabid Michigan Wolverine fan come together... and air grievances.
Spore Page
You could use a deactivated cell phone. FCC requires that cell phones be able to make 911 calls regardless of activation status. I used to keep one of my old phones in my mountain bike gear for that reason until the battery gave up.
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Women can't be in the same room with me without abandoning men forever - rabbit
Yup. Any old cell phone, active plan or not, has to be able to call 911. Just have one of those as your "emergency phone". As an added benefit make sure GPS positioning is on on the cell phone; that way the emergency dispatcher will still be able to find your house if your kids can't remember.
Good advice. Thanks!
---Todd
The Nut and the Feisty Weasel: A place where a deranged Ohio State Buckeye and a rabid Michigan Wolverine fan come together... and air grievances.
Spore Page
It looks like Vonage's appeal was rejected, and now it will have to pay $117.5M to Verizon for patent infringement. Color me wary.
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kaostheory wrote:
Yikes. Perhaps I should accelerate my plan to dump them for Skype.
The Nut and the Feisty Weasel: A place where a deranged Ohio State Buckeye and a rabid Michigan Wolverine fan come together... and air grievances.
Spore Page
I'm looking to switch over to VOIP, do the recommendations in the thread still stand? I'm most interested in getting the NetGear WiFi phone and Skype.
Semper Delectatio
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I don't know about the other comments but I stand by my recommendations 100%. BTW, good choice of phone.
I am still very happy with Packet 8. For $29 now, I have a plan with an unlimited calling to much of the Europe including Russian capitals, and dirt cheap international rates for calls to the rest of the world.
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