VOIP - a good solution?

[MisterMusty]

Hi, I'm looking into phone lines for my new startup and wanted to ask about people's experience of VOIP. Is the call quality good? Does it break up or crash? I'm going to be calling customers on their mobiles mostly (it's just me so only need one line) and it seems to be a cost effective solution (from some providers!) but it's new technology so wanted to check it's not terrible quality and that's why it's cheap.

and does anyone have any recommended providers?

thanks for all replies

 

[cjd]

I'll leave it to others to comment, but read this while you're waiting

http://www.voipfone.co.uk/Testimonials.php

 

[quikshop]

Its very cost effective and highly useable, but, there is a delay on the line of up to a second so conversations can be a bit difficult at times - you can find yourself talking over each other due to the delay.

 

[cjd]

Its very cost effective and highly useable, but, there is a delay on the line of up to a second so conversations can be a bit difficult at times - you can find yourself talking over each other due to the delay.

That shouldn't happen - have you reported a fault?

 

[one couriers]

Just looked at there rates...seem VERY high,go with a mobile to call a mobile,also try and find another company as I say those rates are well expensive !!

 

[Ben8472]

We use VOIP for all of our lines with Linksys IP Phones (SIP) - no delays whatsoever, it's the same as a BT phone line, in fact the audio quality sounds better than a BT line in my opinion.

quikshop - did you experience the delays with a decent provider such as Voipfone (considering switching to) or Sipgate (currently using) or were you using Skype or a similar service? I found Skype to have delays like you describe when calling PSTN lines.

If you get a decent provider mixed with a decent phone and reliable internet connection, you will find VOIP far better than any traditional landline in every possible way and at a much lower cost.

Ben

 

[sysops]

If you get a decent provider mixed with a decent phone and reliable internet connection, you will find VOIP far better than any traditional landline in every possible way and at a much lower cost.

Yup, what he said.

 

[raf300]

If you get a decent provider mixed with a decent phone and reliable internet connection, you will find VOIP far better than any traditional landline in every possible way and at a much lower cost.

I agree with what TeslaOne and syspos said.
The phone line quality should be perfect.

 

[MisterMusty]

Thanks everyone. So do any of you know of voipcheap?

http://www.voipcheap.com/en/calling-rates.html

They're free for landline calls and 8p for UK mobile calls which is the best I've found so far. Any got any experience of them? I'm not prepared to have a dodgy line just because they're the cheapest!

thanks

 

[one couriers]

I would be interested in knowing what is the best for landlines...I use a mobile on Tesco contract as it cost just £30 a month to call mobiles,and BT homehub thingy and its free to call landlines,but it sometimes just turns off??
I mainly call mobiles,but if theres a way to save I am up for it !

 

[Leomas]

I use sipgate as originally I had a lot of International calls which I could make at local rate which saved a small fortune. The speed of your connection and the quality (not the same thing but there is a close link) will determine just how good the line is and if you check and see download below 2Mb/s or upload below 250kb/s then you could experience poor voice quality with dropouts or such.

 

[sean.browne]

VoIP is a good choice. You can get great rates and the call quality will be on par with traditional telephone lines 99% of the time - if it is done properly.

The nature of data comms means VoIP cannot be as good as an end to end connection over a wire as can be the case in the public switched telephone network (PSTN) although many PSTN calls will use VoIP somewhere on their call leg anyway.

VoIP can work really well, it can also be terrible if not setup correctly.

Sean
AsteriskExpert.co.uk

 

[Alex@AMB]

I give up trying to offer advice to people with telecoms issues.

My PM box/email is always open to enquiries and you might just surprise yourself with just how cheap calls can be, without using shakey at best VOIP.

 

[quikshop]

That shouldn't happen - have you reported a fault?

No I'd not reported it because I assumed it was a common issue with voip - I had exactly the same delay when using Vonage a few years ago. Can you PM me with instructions of how to raise a line fault, and I'll pass that on to my office manager who uses the service.

 

[sean.browne]

I give up trying to offer advice to people with telecoms issues.

My PM box/email is always open to enquiries and you might just surprise yourself with just how cheap calls can be, without using shakey at best VOIP.

(not realising many of the calls he makes on a daily basis will be carried as VoIP for part of their journey)

 

[Jenni384]

Our office landline is on Voip (through Gradwell) and its brilliant, no quality issues at all. And it's so much cheaper than having a business landline through BT or similar.

 

[termsandconditions]

I would be interested in knowing what is the best for landlines...I use a mobile on Tesco contract as it cost just £30 a month to call mobiles,and BT homehub thingy and its free to call landlines,but it sometimes just turns off??
I mainly call mobiles,but if theres a way to save I am up for it !

I gave VOIP a serious look 18 months ago but fears over jitter & latency capped by better than expected call rates from traditional providers (no, not BT) kept me with the copper wire technology of the 19th century. Call me a Luddite but VOIP needs to deliver a clearer advantage.

Having said that if someone can convince me that there's been a quantum shift in VOIP performance over the last year or so, then I'm ready to consider it again. I've already installed Cat 6a cabling for each workstation and so am half-ready for the switch.

Best Regards

 

[cjd]

I gave VOIP a serious look 18 months ago but fears over jitter & latency capped by better than expected call rates from traditional providers (no, not BT) kept me with the copper wire technology of the 19th century. Call me a Luddite but VOIP needs to deliver a clearer advantage.

Having said that if someone can convince me that there's been a quantum shift in VOIP performance over the last year or so, then I'm ready to consider it again. I've already installed Cat 6a cabling for each workstation and so am half-ready for the switch.

The best way is to just try it - unlike traditional telephony you can juts get an account and have a play without having to make any investment. If you have a proper local set-up and decent connection, you'll never have any quality problems. The thing is that if there were quality problems the VoIP industry couldn't exist.

 

[sysops]

The best way is to just try it - unlike traditional telephony you can juts get an account and have a play without having to make any investment.

While I agree with the sentiment, I actually think that is has done more to hold back VoIP adoption in the SME market than to advance it.

Say I've never tried VoIP, and I read your post and think "what the hey, I'll give it a shot". I go to your site, get an account, install a softphone, and dust off my £4.99 headphones and webcam mic. I install on my wifi laptop, and have a play. Maybe it works straight away, maybe it doesn't. If it does work, I'll probably experience some problems, maybe one way sound, maybe no incoming calls. In any case, unless I'm technically inclined and like to tinker, it is unlikely to sell me on VoIP.

On the other hand, if I'm committed to VoIP, buy a couple of decent phones, and read the manual on how to set up my firewall, I will probably have a very different experience and love VoIP.

The thing is that if there were quality problems the VoIP industry couldn't exist.

Couldn't agree more. We've been using VoIP for years, and it works superbly. We get all the benefits of our own PBX, and a whole lot more, for a tiny tiny cost.

 

[raf300]

I gave VOIP a serious look 18 months ago but fears over jitter & latency capped by better than expected call rates from traditional providers (no, not BT) kept me with the copper wire technology of the 19th century. Call me a Luddite but VOIP needs to deliver a clearer advantage.

Having said that if someone can convince me that there's been a quantum shift in VOIP performance over the last year or so, then I'm ready to consider it again. I've already installed Cat 6a cabling for each workstation and so am half-ready for the switch.

Best Regards

There has definately been a quantum leap in performance in VOIP. If you look above the bargain basement providers, you will find companies that provide quality of service and serious enterprise management features for not that much more than you pay for an analogue line per month.

We use VOIP ourselves and even supply it to anyone from one man band businesses to big business with thousands of users.

 

[cjd]

While I agree with the sentiment, I actually think that is has done more to hold back VoIP adoption in the SME market than to advance it.

It certainly has a downside, but it's a bit like Skype. Without Skype people probably wouldn't know about VoIP. But they also think that Skype is the normal quality of service for VoIP - which couldn't be further from the truth.