[ms] · Est. May 2002
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Hey all I have a question if anyone can help me out. I am looking into changing my home phone service and was looking in to the Voice Over IP service. They have pretty good deals I have looked at only 2 so far which is ATT and Vonage. I was woundering if anyone has the service and how is it for you so far and should I get it?
Thanks
Never used it from home, but the only real downside that I see is that you can't use your phone if your power goes out (or gets cut :Who:)
i use only skype ... check at [url]www.skype.com[/url] ...
do you have good internet service? that is my first and only question.
VOIPs OK, but you'll occasionally get some weird warbling in voices and things like that. Sometimes your voice will sound really hollow to the other person.
It's nowhere near as reliable as regular phone service, and yes, if the power goes out, you have no phone.
I have Vonage, it works great for me. I got a line with two different phone numbers with different area codes. In the office I have T1, and its as good as a mobile phone. In most hotels they offer DSL, last month I was in Europe and Asia, you just plugged the vonage and you can speak as if you were in the states. Its so good, I sended to my office in Latin America..... i can speak all I want for 25 a month...
Re: VOIP - Voice Over IP
[quote]do you have good internet service? that is my first and only question.[/quote]
I have dsl. also thanks for the input guys, so it looks mixed so far from what some of you have been saying and plus i dont mind if the power goes out and I cant use the phone, i can always use my cell.
I have ATT Callvantage. i got it becuase vonage couldn't keep my local number the same. i have no problems with it it's clear and very convenient. i have 3 Mbps comast cable internet though.
i have a 1.5 Mbps verizon dsl with really no problems at all, hopefully that shouldnt be a problem for me to get it even though cable internet is better.
Most VOIP services are going to use G.729 or some other variant of it for its codec which only uses 8k of bandwidth per call vs. PCM (standard voice compression) which uses 64k so really you shouldn't have any problems with a DSL line even with half the B/W.
Packet 8 offers video over IP right now too, I know Vonage has plans for it but its not offered yet.