voip

[dynamic08]

I'm thinking about going down this route.

Although my broadband at work is very slow around 100k a second download speeds.

Any advice?

 

[cjd]

I'm thinking about going down this route.

Although my broadband at work is very slow around 100k a second download speeds.

Any advice?

Is this for one phone or several?

If your broadband is very poor - 100kbs is poor - you can still use VoIP by using a low bandwidth codec - the standard GSM codec only uses about 35kbs for example. But if you wanted to use email and web browsing as well as make calls, in all honesty, it wouldn't be a good solution for you - you would need to use a router that prioritised your voice calls over everything else and in practice, that means you wouldn't be using the Internet when on a call.

Do you know why your broadband is so pathetic?

 

[Anjam]

I'm thinking about going down this route.

Although my broadband at work is very slow around 100k a second download speeds.

Any advice?

Is that the speed shown when you do a speed test (like speedtest.net) or is that the throughput windows shows you when you are downloading a file? If the former then it's hardly broadband! There used to be a clause in ISP Ts&Cs that they will give you a minimum speed which used to be 64k but now I think it is 256k. Maybe some of the service providers on here will be able to shed some light.

 

[dynamic08]

We are miles from the exchange and its an old copper wire.

100k on speed tests and I cant watch a youtube video for example with out it spluttering everywhere.

This is only for 1 line. I just want the incoming calls coming into it which will just be web phone sales.

 

[cjd]

This is only for 1 line. I just want the incoming calls coming into it which will just be web phone sales.

Well it's worth trying and cost nothing to do it.

Sign up for a free account here:

https://www.voipfone.co.uk/signup.php

There's a free 056 telephone number with that - it's good enough to test with, but if it works out for you a proper 01 or 02 number is what you need.

Then download the free softphone and set the codec to GSM. To get a proper idea you'll need a headset, but if you haven't got one, your PC speakers and microphone will at least tell you if it works ok.

If it doesn't cut out and jitter all over the place you'll know that it's worth buying a proper hardware telephone.

Just out of interest, what speeds do you get if you enter your number here?
(bottom of the page)

https://www.voipfone.co.uk/broadband.php

 

[Anjam]

speaking from experience, i would steer well clear of voip.

even if you had a good broadband connection.

Why?

would only go down this route if you can afford a leased line......

Even for one user?

...........and sip.

What has affordability got to do with SIP?

 

[Faevilangel]

speaking from experience, i would steer well clear of voip.

even if you had a good broadband connection.

theres no guarentee of service with it, if your broadbands dodgy and it goes down, hey presto you have lost your phone to.

would only go down this route if you can afford a leased line and sip.

I have VOIP and have done for getting on for 2 years and had no issues that weren't my fault. If my BB does go down then I could be screwed but I can login to my voip account and redirect the number to another within a few seconds so I know if the worst happens, then I won't lose out.

I had a choice when choosing a number for my business, either pay BT to put a new line in and then line rental etc (£150+ £13 a month line rental) or pay £2 ish a month for my VOIP line + my calls.

I can take my voip with an office move so win win for me, I am not tied down but I have the flexibility of a mobile without the stigma.

 

[cjd]

anjam.....what is it with people on here that need to quiz and question other members responces.

The problem is that your response is wrong. It may be your opinion, but it's a poor one and needs to be corrected.

Broadband is generally very reliable these days, so long as you use a good business provider and don't use a cheap consumer version.

Should your broadband fail, a decent business VoIP service provider will automatically fail the service over to either a landline or a mobile. This happens on our service within 120 seconds of failure.

If your landline fails what failover do you have?

If a JCB rips through the lines outside your office, you unplug your phones, send your staff home with them, plug them into their own broadband and everything works exactly as it did in the office.

That's a free 100% disaster recovery service. That kind of service, if it was possible at all, costs thousands of pounds pre-VoIP.

And yes, I am selling VoIP, but you'll note from my post that I am concerned that in this OP's case it might not be the best solution for him. Luckily we can test it at no cost and find out.

 

[Ben8472]

VOIP is very good if you have a high quality broadband connection.

cjd is correct about the DR benefits too. If you lose your internet connection you can either connect to another internet connection or contact the VOIP provider and ask for the numbers to be diverted (diverts can be configured instantly). Some providers even offer automatic fail-over where if an IP phone fails to communciate with the SIP server the calls are automatically diverted to a pre-configured number.

Unfortunately there are a lot of rubbish VOIP providers out there, many of which are running a simple Asterisk setup on a low spec server which can only handle about 50 concurrent calls before falling over. They sell this cheap setup as a business VOIP solution and people fall for the marketing and sign up and receive a terrible level of service then go away thinking that VOIP in general is the problem.

If you stick to a decent provider with a good infrastructure you really cannot go wrong.

The service quality will be equal to or far superior to that of a traditional telephone line.

Voipfone are one of several providers I would recommend.

Ben

 

[dynamic08]

I wont be able to test untill monday when I'm at the office. I have at the moment a landline that is connected to the mobile but I'm sick of the 12ppm costs so want to get away from this.

I have a bt business telephone line and broadband so the voip runs through this correct?

 

[cjd]

I have a bt business telephone line and broadband so the voip runs through this correct?

Yes, that's correct.

Did you do the line test?

 

[JDX_John]

Firstly, are you talking 100 Kilo BYTES or BITS? The former is how file downloads are reported but 100KB/s is nearly 1 Megabits which is certainly broadband although obviously not great.

I was told once that Skype uses a smart algorithm which decomposes sounds into waveform combinations (Fourier Analysis) and allows it to work on VERY bad lines. It's very easy to test of course... just try phoning people with it.

 

[Anjam]

anjam.....what is it with people on here that need to quiz and question other members responces.

all i was doing was giving my feedback and opinion.

im not trying to sell anything as you probably are.

well, are LL's particuarly cheap?? if you know where i can get one cheap, then point me in the direction!!

dont belittle mine or others responces.

when we are giving true feedback and not trying to defend the products or services that we sell.

Ok lets clear some things up, maybe I was a bit blunt earlier so here goes....

Firstly I am not here to sell anything, I have nothing to sell. Check my posts, I have never offered any services or even disclosed what I do. I am just here to learn from other peoples experience and along the way I share what little experience I may have.

Secondly you completely wrote off a multi billion pound industry based on your experience but didn't explain why you formed your opinion to which of course you are fully entitled.

You suggested that the OP only considers VoIP if they can afford leased lines so I asked if that was the case even if they had one user. In the same comment you referred to SIP as if it was a superior and more expensive voice product.

You have the right to have an opinion but at least share what formed it, you may just have been unlucky or had a poor implementation/supplier.

You must have joined this forum to share knowledge or seek it so at least do one or the other.

 

[JDX_John]

anjam.....what is it with people on here that need to quiz and question other members responces.

I think the clue is in the name "discussion forum". If you expect to post your opinions and that nobody can challenge them, you're the one who doesn't get it.

 

[dynamic08]

No test yet not untill monday.

I used skype before from that line though and it was very very bad and I would not have used that further for business.

 

[dynamic08]

Voipfone Broadband is available on this line with estimated speed of 500 Kbps down and maximum upload speeds of 832 Kbps. For full details of all the features available in this package, please see below you may also find package 2 to be more beneficial depending on your requirements.

 

[cjd]

Voipfone Broadband is available on this line with estimated speed of 500 Kbps down and maximum upload speeds of 832 Kbps. For full details of all the features available in this package, please see below you may also find package 2 to be more beneficial depending on your requirements.

Yuk :-(

It's not often you see a faster up speed than down.......but at least it's workable.

 

[domains]

You have a serious line threshold issue, what is the rough distance from your exchange? The dslam panel in your exchange is running K cable with that speed and your internal wiring / DP wiring needs sorting 100%

We had a client with d4aisy BB, who had 125k for so long that it seriously made her loose money, we looked into it, spent AGES proving to BT/Daisy/Whoever that it was an issue with the line (which 5 BT openreach / 3 d4aisy proved it wasnt!) so she now has 1.8mb DL and 356k up, she is 7km from her exchange!!!!!

So as we have no info, best to get off BT and get on a dongle, at least you will get 1.2mb min DL speed, more than enough to run voipfone's excellent service

What is your exchange?

 

[dynamic08]

we are from memory around 12km from exchange we are basically at the very limit.

 

[domains]

Sat or dongle, forget dsl/adsl, even on a spread polled combo line (4 polled crap slow lines together) you will only ever get 1mb max.

That is a serious distance, at which point, have you looked into community and / or other ways to connect, you can bootjump (hop) a decent signal from someone on a 20mb line (if exchange supports it) or 8mb old dsl max, to a number of access points that would cover your area with about 2-2.5mb.

Are you able to PM us your postcode as we may be able to point you to the local hopper or openworld jump DP.