VOIP i dont get it

[Esk247]

having seen lots of threads recently about VOIP etc i'm still confusled...i thought voip was free or very minimal cost wise but having had a quick scoot around it seems i have to buy some kinda hub, headset, setup the voip service and then do it all through the computer...balls to that..i'll just go to tesco and get an answerphone for £19.99 and get BT to shove another phone line in for £59. I don't get the benefit of voip..i must be missing something....i'll be damned if i'm going to spend £100 odd on equipment only to need the computer on all the time when a simple telephone will do the job perfectly well.

 

[KM-Tiger]

There are two ways of running VOIP:

Through a computer with headset etc - OK for experimenting, but not really good for long term use.

Buy a SIP phone - (£50-100 ish) and plug it into your broadband router - much better.

Advantages of VOIP:

No line rental

Lower call charges. Not free (except to other VOIP users) but lower.

Facilities. Voicemail, call divert, answer calls at home or work, conferences etc, etc. An awful lot of these things are free with VOIP or very low extra cost.

 

[mobyme]

having seen lots of threads recently about VOIP etc i'm still confusled...i thought voip was free or very minimal cost wise but having had a quick scoot around it seems i have to buy some kinda hub, headset, setup the voip service and then do it all through the computer...balls to that..i'll just go to tesco and get an answerphone for £19.99 and get BT to shove another phone line in for £59. I don't get the benefit of voip..i must be missing something....i'll be damned if i'm going to spend £100 odd on equipment only to need the computer on all the time when a simple telephone will do the job perfectly well.

Go to Amazon and get a voip phone for £5.00 or to your local Tesco and get one for £9.99 (not all branches stock them) download skype for free and your up and running. Buy a tenners worth of credit and you can call any phone not just other skype phones and affiliated networks. It will save you a huge amount of money if you call overseas very often. It gives you an extra dimension inasmuch as you don't have to give out your real number unless you wish and can have online meetings with several people at the same time absolutely free no matter where they are in the world. Redirects and answer facilities are a doddle to set up. More recently they have introduced a service where all this can be extended to your mobile. I cannot recommend it enough.

 

[Esk247]

ahhh well that clears a few things up then. i wasn't sure what the direct benefits where....it seems like something i should look in to.

 

[alphanumeric]

sipgate = free local or localrate number

Answer messages get emailed to me as wav files.

Then just use xlite, a free softphone with either a headset or usb phone.

total cost is less than £10 i dont ever use it to phone out, i just use my mobile/home phone for that.

 

[i234i]

i take it this doesnt work on any mobile internets?

 

[alphanumeric]

afaik xlite is availble as a ms mobile download i would also guess at there now being many various sip based applications for smart phones.

 

[cjd]

...i thought voip was free or very minimal cost....

That's the consumer (Skype) stuff. Which is fine.

VoIP for business use is still free - VoIP to VoIP and cheaper VoIP to ordinary telephone; but VoIP comes into its own in doing all the things that corporate systems do - and a lot more - for either free or very low cost too.

(btw - Your PC does not need to be on)

 

[Paul Kelly ICHYB]

1 - VoIP is the technology -it can be free to very expensive, just depends on what you want it to do.
2 - BT = £59 for 2nd line + about £11 per month, so about £180 for the first year, £120 there after plus not the cheapest calls!
3 - VoIP can be free for computer to computer/voip to voip, or, as a normal phone line, can be nothing to a few quid a month - number and call credit.
4 - You do not need anything special,outside of your computer and broadband, although a VoIP phone is probably best.

Benefits
- extra phone lines for next to nothing - definitely cheaper than BT
- incoming/outgoing numbers can be from anywhere in the UK and almost the world!
- lower call costs
- more features are generally built in(dependant on service providers)
- more service providers to choose from

there is more, but I will not bore you!

 

[Onehourpa]

I think if your initial requirements are quite simple Skype is a good starting point. I know a lot of people consider it a bit of a cheapo solution when it comes to VOIP for business, but I've been using it for my business for the last year or so and it's saved me a lot of money. I pay around £7 a month for a skype world subscription which gives me three line in numbers (with a geographic prefix), voicemail and unlimited calls to landlines in around 30 countries, including the UK.
There are occasional issues with call quality and when things go wrong with Skype there's very little support. But then you get what you pay for. (Or in fact do you? Because when I was paying a BT bill of around £200 a month it would still take ages on the line and repeated calls to their customer service people if I had any issues or something went wrong. At least with Skype I know I'm paying very little and there is no pretence of customer service!). But by enlarge I've found Skype excellent. I started using them when I was getting pretty large bills from BT and it has saved my business a lot of money. So I'd say try it out and see if it works for you.

 

[julieanne4]

I was led to believe (by my mother in law) that VOIP was free but I have discovered that its only when you connect to others that have skype (thats what ive got).. I have never called or recevied a call yet and ive had it for nearly a year...

 

[cjd]

I was led to believe (by my mother in law) that VOIP was free but I have discovered that its only when you connect to others that have skype (thats what ive got).. I have never called or recevied a call yet and ive had it for nearly a year...

That's the myth - and truth - of VoIP. Skype was designed for students to talk to each other for free via their PCs, it was only much later that they added the ability to dial out into the PSTN.

But the free, so called, on-net, calls really come into their own when you use VoIP as a PBX - as your extensions are all on-net and therefore calls between them are free, wherever the phones happen to be.

This feature is what allows us to run a business employing people all over the UK and overseas without any offices at all.

 

[Bondy_UK]

sipgate = free local or localrate number

Answer messages get emailed to me as wav files.

Then just use xlite, a free softphone with either a headset or usb phone.

total cost is less than £10 i dont ever use it to phone out, i just use my mobile/home phone for that.

Yes I use Sipgate as well and think its a very good service.
I have two phone numbers, ones my town and the other a London number

If you use ADSL for your Internet, just get a SpeedTouch 716WL modem/router for about £50 because it has FXS ports built in, which means its a normal wireless router for your network with phone sockets in the back.
You can plug 2 normal phones in as long as they are DECT (so any digital cordless phone) and enter your SIP account details in the routers setup menu.

That way you don't need your PC on and have 2 additional phone lines into your office with no line rental

If you are on cable (like I am now), you can in fact still use this router if you reprogram the firmware to change the 4th Ethernet port to a WAN port, which you will plug into your cable modem