Please stop using VOIP phones.

[AllUpHere]

As a consultant mainly offering my services via the telephone, call quality can have a significant impact on how successful (or arduous) my day's work is. It wasn't many years ago that if I had to call a landline I'd know i'd probably get a decent call, or if I had to call a mobile there was the possibility it could be a bit dodgy. Then, along came VOIP, turning every call into a possible nightmare.

I know that the VOIP companies have all sorts of technical 'selling points', based on how good VOIP call quality is (from a purely technical perspective), and they will always find a way to blame another link in the chain for a bad call, but this doesn't change the fact that the service can end up being a bit crap.

I also appreciate that many of you are using VOIP with no problems at all. However, in my experience, whenever I experience a call of poor quality, it's almost always because the other party is using VOIP.

I think the worst possible calls come from diverting VOIP calls to mobile.

If you use VOIP in your business, and especially if you divert to a mobile, (or use a softphone app) find a way to keep track of call quality.

 

[MartinCivil]

I also appreciate that many of you are using VOIP with no problems at all. However, in my experience, whenever I experience a call of poor quality, it's almost always because the other party is using VOIP.
.

I'm one of these...must say I use our VOIP line every day, and have no issues on quality at all.

I can understand how diverting to a mobile could negatively impact the service as you are then relying on the mobile service, but this would also be the case if a conventional landline was diverted to a mobile. Should we all stop using mobile phones?

 

[AllUpHere]

Should we all stop using mobile phones?

Obviously not. Although if you are paying to speak to someone on the phone, make sure you have a decent signal at the time of the call.

 

[cjd]

As a consultant mainly offering my services via the telephone, call quality can have a significant impact on how successful (or arduous) my day's work is. It wasn't many years ago that if I had to call a landline I'd know i'd probably get a decent call, or if I had to call a mobile there was the possibility it could be a bit dodgy. Then, along came VOIP, turning every call into a possible nightmare.

I know that the VOIP companies have all sorts of technical 'selling points', based on how good VOIP call quality is (from a purely technical perspective), and they will always find a way to blame another link in the chain for a bad call, but this doesn't change the fact that the service can end up being a bit crap.

I also appreciate that many of you are using VOIP with no problems at all. However, in my experience, whenever I experience a call of poor quality, it's almost always because the other party is using VOIP.

I think the worst possible calls come from diverting VoIP calls to mobile.

If you use VOIP in your business, and especially if you divert to a mobile, (or use a softphone app) find a way to keep track of call quality.

Well what a pile of ignorant crap!

The funniest bit is telling people not to divert calls from VoIP to mobile. If you set a divert, an incoming call doesn't use VoIP at all - the call comes from a landline or mobile and is immediately switched back out to a landline or mobile. Nothing to do with VoIP.

But to be sure, not all VoIP providers are equal and the least equal is Skype because it has no network - it uses the uncontrolled public internet, so you get what you get. Decent providers have their own platforms and network and calls never touch the public internet at all.

More often though poor quality is down to a bad installation and local network. With a hosted system on reasonable connection call quality is better than a landline.

 

[AllUpHere]

Well what a pile of ignorant crap!

The funniest bit is telling people not to divert calls from VoIP to mobile. If you set a divert, an incoming call doesn't use VoIP at all - the call comes from a landline or mobile and is immediately switched back out to a landline or mobile. Nothing to do with VoIP.

But to be sure, not all VoIP providers are equal and the least equal is Skype because it has no network - it uses the uncontrolled public internet, so you get what you get. Decent providers have their own platforms and network and calls never touch the public internet at all.

More often though poor quality is down to a bad installation and local network. With a hosted system on reasonable connection call quality is better than a landline.

As I said, whilst posting my ignorant crap, VOIP providers always have the fall back position that it's another link in the chain that's at fault.

In my experience, of making or receiving 10 - 12 calls per day every day, and spending a significant amount of time on each call, when call quality is poor, the call is usually in some way using VOIP. That's all I know.

My post suggested people should check their call quality if using VOIP, and I believe this to be good advice.

 

[Clinton]

My problem is not VOIP, it's some people on mobile phones. I've got better things to do in life than to keep answering the same stupid five word question over and over again.

Can you hear me now?

 

[AllUpHere]

My problem is not VOIP, it's some people on mobile phones. I've got better things to do in life than to keep answering the same stupid five word question over and over again.

Can you hear me now?

Maybe that's more the problem. I think I'm calling a landline, when actually the person taking the call is in the arse end of nowhere, on a mobile.

 

[Mr D]

Any benefit to the company I work for in NOT using VoIP?

 

[AllUpHere]

Any benefit to the company I work for in NOT using VoIP?

Depends what the call quality is like.

 

[Mr D]

Call quality is good enough for me to not notice any issues.

Years ago I tried getting a BT line at home and that had a terrible line. Was not VoIP just BT giving phone line and broadband.
2 year agreement but had to switch to Virgin after 2 months. BT could not find a fault with 3 engineer visits.

Neighbour we kept in touch with had a BT line fitted a few weeks back. 4 times since they have been out to try and correct - you guessed it - a terrible line. No VoIP merely a bad line.

 

[DontAsk]

In my experience, of making or receiving 10 - 12 calls per day every day, and spending a significant amount of time on each call, when call quality is poor, the call is usually in some way using VOIP. That's all I know.

Do you ask every caller how they called? How many say "don't know"? Do you count them as VOIP? What percentage is "usually"?

 

[AllUpHere]

Do you ask every caller how they called? How many say "don't know"? Do you count them as VOIP? What percentage is "usually"?

I'm the one who does the calling. I am always speaking with the business owner, so very few don't know. If a call quality is poor I ask. I don't have an exact percentage for you.

 

[cjd]

In my experience, of making or receiving 10 - 12 calls per day every day, and spending a significant amount of time on each call, when call quality is poor, the call is usually in some way using VOIP. That's all I know.

I'd love to know how you know. VoIP originated calls are a tiny fraction of the calls that you'll receive, the majority are going to be landline or - more likely - mobile. Mobile is far and away the biggest problem for call quality.

My post suggested people should check their call quality if using VOIP, and I believe this to be good advice.

We originate 5+ million minutes of VoIP calls per month, they're all monitored, if VoIP had poor call quality we wouldn't have a business.

 

[ecommerce84]

I've seen both sides of this coin.

I use Voipfone for my businesses at home and have 2 numbers running over my fast broadband connection. Both excellent quality and indistinguishable from a landline.

At work we have a different provider and it was awful for about 9 months as our IT providers could not sort it. It's a shop that would receive dozens of calls a days and a large portion of time on those calls would be spent doing what Clinton says above 'can you hear me'. Our internet connection came from a wireless link which turned out to be the issue.

In my mind VOIP is great but you need a good provider and good connection so I would agree with cjd that it's not the technology that's the issue but some of the ways it's implemented (probably more often than not on the cheap!).

 

[cjd]

At work we have a different provider and it was awful for about 9 months as our IT providers could not sort it. It's a shop that would receive dozens of calls a days and a large portion of time on those calls would be spent doing what Clinton says above 'can you hear me'. Our internet connection came from a wireless link which turned out to be the issue.

Happy to sort that out for you ;-)

 

[Cromulent]

VoIP has been great the many times I've used it. I used VoIPfone in the past and was very happy with the system (apart from one thing and that was they autogenerated a really insecure password and you couldn't change it on their system which was probably one of the most stupid things I've ever seen a company do - if you are going to auto generate a password make it 20 characters or longer).

 

[AllUpHere]

VoIP has been great the many times I've used it. I used VoIPfone in the past and was very happy with the system (apart from one thing and that was they autogenerated a really insecure password and you couldn't change it on their system which was probably one of the most stupid things I've ever seen a company do - if you are going to auto generate a password make it 20 characters or longer).

I've heard that before. If a voip company give their clients an 8 or 9 digit password that's made only of numbers and is difficult to change, what the hell are they doing with their other security.

 

[Chris Ashdown]

I would put it this way from my own experience, Landline by BT is near on perfect quality all the time, VOIP I would say is very good but not quite up to the same quality with a fair number of eco calls or interference from other calls, I would rate them as something like BT Landline 99% good and VOIP 95% Good

 

[cjd]

VoIP has been great the many times I've used it. I used VoIPfone in the past and was very happy with the system (apart from one thing and that was they autogenerated a really insecure password and you couldn't change it on their system which was probably one of the most stupid things I've ever seen a company do - if you are going to auto generate a password make it 20 characters or longer).

1. The password is a 6 digit number. It's needs to be a number so that you can tap it into an ordinary phone's keypad if you want to get a voicemessage that way.

2. You think it's insecure because you don't know how it's protected at the server end - it's rate limited, so literally impossible to hack, try it and see what happens.

3. You can change the password to anything you like, but you can't do it without contacting us because people don't understand that when they change the password their phones will instantly stop working. When we allowed customers to change the password themselves they created an enormous support problem as the majority don't know how to access and change the configurations of their phones.

We've been doing this for 14 years - we are not security naives. We wouldn't be here now if the passwords are insecure - we're a perpetual target being scanned all day long, we'd be hacked within minutes.

 

[webgeek]

I hate to tell you this, but the entire Openreach BT network is now VOIP. Since 21CN became a reality, what we used to think was copper is actually IP networking.

The problem is oversubscribed exchange equipment or overloaded nodes along the route (most times).

You don't need to drop VOIP - you just need a lower latency provider.

 

[Ian J]

We originate 5+ million minutes of VoIP calls per month, they're all monitored,

Isn't that illegal

 

[cjd]

Isn't that illegal

Not the content of course - we couldn't care less what you're saying - just the quality

 

[Stuart Elmes]

We use VOIP in our business now. I was extremely skeptical about it having been on the receiving end of some truly awful squawking calls in the early days of this technology....but I have to say that the quality is bang on nowadays. Just the odd quiet moment used to occur in calls, but we fixed that with a better internet connection

 

[kulture]

I have removed off topic flaming posts. Please stop these personal attacks and keep it relevant.

 

[GraemeL]

Thanks @kulture
So I will repeat what I have said before, I use Voipfone from @cjd and it has been excellent for several years. I do a reasonable amount of travelling to Europe and Asia so I need any calls to my landline number diverted to my mobile. Works perfectly. My customers hear me clearly even when I am in China. In fact the worst reception is when I get a direct call (not through VOIP) to my mobile.
To be honest I was a bit shocked when I read the title of this thread.

 

[Cromulent]

1. The password is a 6 digit number. It's needs to be a number so that you can tap it into an ordinary phone's keypad if you want to get a voicemessage that way.

2. You think it's insecure because you don't know how it's protected at the server end - it's rate limited, so literally impossible to hack, try it and see what happens.

3. You can change the password to anything you like, but you can't do it without contacting us because people don't understand that when they change the password their phones will instantly stop working. When we allowed customers to change the password themselves they created an enormous support problem as the majority don't know how to access and change the configurations of their phones.

We've been doing this for 14 years - we are not security naives. We wouldn't be here now if the passwords are insecure - we're a perpetual target being scanned all day long, we'd be hacked within minutes.

Do you rate limit per account or per IP address connecting to the account? What is stopping me from spinning up thousands of cheap VPS instances all from different parts of the globe on individual IP addresses and trying to brute force an account like that?

If you rate limit the entire account then that is fine. If you only rate limit based on the IP address you have a serious security problem.

 

[KM-Tiger]

Do you rate limit per account or per IP address connecting to the account?

I doubt he will tell you that. It would be unwise.

I think we can be confident that whatever is in place works.

 

[GraemeL]

This was the point the OP was making:-

However, in my experience, whenever I experience a call of poor quality, it's almost always because the other party is using VOIP. I think the worst possible calls come from diverting VOIP calls to mobile.

This has nothing to do with esoteric security questions. Suggest new thread is appropriate for those who find that important.

 

[AllUpHere]

Agreed, in hindsight I could have titled the thread 'please don't divert a number which appears to be a land-line to a mobile'.

My problem actually, Is thinking I'm assured of decent call quality because I call a land-line, but then find myself speaking to someone who sounds like they are on the toilet, or in a field.

I appreciate that this isn't caused by Voip technology, but it does seem to be involved in most diverted and poor quality calls I find myself involved in.

 

[cjd]

Do you rate limit per account or per IP address connecting to the account? What is stopping me from spinning up thousands of cheap VPS instances all from different parts of the globe on individual IP addresses and trying to brute force an account like that?

If you rate limit the entire account then that is fine. If you only rate limit based on the IP address you have a serious security problem.

I'm not discussing any more details about security but you can infer from what I've said that it's not possible to brute force the password.

 

[estwig]

Trolling Colin - Priceless

 

[Darren C]

If you use VOIP in your business, and especially if you divert to a mobile, (or use a softphone app) find a way to keep track of call quality.

May as well add - Wi-Fi may work fine for most applications but for Skype and VOIP it's your biggest hurdle to jump.

 

[AllUpHere]

May as well add - Wi-Fi may work fine for most applications but for Skype and VOIP it's your biggest hurdle to jump.

Thanks Darren, that's a good point.

 

[cjd]

May as well add - Wi-Fi may work fine for most applications but for Skype and VOIP it's your biggest hurdle to jump.

Pretty much all wireless VoIP phones use DECT not WiFi, a very reliable older technology - partly because battery life is also a big consideration. Consumer Skype is a good exception which you don't expect to be great all the time because it's totallty free.

4G isn't that great for real time applications like VoIP either - it doesn't concern itself much with jitter and lag - but it can work, you just can't totally rely on it. It seems likely that 5G will do a lot better as they've deliberately focussed on the problem. You can then expect some good VoIP telephony on a data only contract - but it's going to take some time.

 

[Weber]

VoIP is effectively running your calls over an Data Link, so it's only as good as the set-up, enterprise grade VoIP is perfect if implemented correctly, you carve off (or protect) a set bandwidth, choose your codec and ensure the network (both local and wide) is set-up correctly and there should be zero issue. running calls over the internet has too many variables so there is no 100% guarantee of quality.

 

[JEREMY HAWKE]

I don't think its an issue I us voip and so does the rest of the world now

 

[pelparc]

If VOIP is now excellent quality which it is by the sound of all the above, why are so many phone calls of such poor quality (mainly thinking of 3 of our suppliers)? I just assumed that it was due to poor VOIP not that i know what type of phone system they use other than its not mobile and its always poor.

 

[UKSBD]

If VOIP is now excellent quality which it is by the sound of all the above, why are so many phone calls of such poor quality

I've had a cheap £8.99 handset for the past 5 years - BT Duet
I went out and bought a BT2700 Cordless with an answering machine last week.

Plugged my £8.99 one back in this morning as I could hardly hear what people were saying on the new one

 

[1668JAMES]

I run a small call center and all our system was switched over to voip around 18 months ago. I was sceptical at first but my brother in law who is a director at a telecoms company assured my that the call quality was 100% fine. Since installation we mostly ring outbound to mobiles and we also have some incoming calls diverted to mobiles. We are also connected through ethernet and not wifi. The call quality has been 100% clear, in fact i would say its better than it was before and plus it has reduced my monthly bill by approx 40 - 50%!.

During the installation process I was told that we would need to have 'assured broadband' because we use over 5 phones so maybe the reason you getting poor quality is because your current broadband connection or router needs upgrading?

I am planning to become an associate partner of my brother in laws telecoms company within the next few months so i can provide the same systems to my customers. If you need any advise PM me and i can put you in touch. I'm sure its just a technical problem which can be overcome somehow!

 

[UKSBD]

Just found a review of the BT Duet - http://reviews.telephonesonline.co.uk/the-bt-duet-210/

Not sure if the reviewer is being sarcastic or not but the review just about sums it up

It's like having an old faithful Nokia