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I have to say that Voice Over IP (VOIP) is awesome. I'm in Shanghai right now and can, very cheaply, call anyone I want to. Of course no one is up right now, but I've left my parents voice mail and myself a practice voice mail to make sure it works.

I'm using Skype. Are there better ones out there? Does Google Talk let you dial regular numbers like Skype does?

Menlaan

Skype is about to be bought out by Ebay. I wouldn't get too attached to it in it's current form. I haven't a clue about Google Talk.

I had ATT VoIP and currently have Vonage and I think it's great.

Menlaan wrote:I have to say that Voice Over IP (VOIP) is awesome. I'm in Shanghai right now and can, very cheaply, call anyone I want to. Of course no one is up right now, but I've left my parents voice mail and myself a practice voice mail to make sure it works.

I'm using Skype. Are there better ones out there? Does Google Talk let you dial regular numbers like Skype does?

Menlaan

I still don't really understand most of the hype for VoIP, despite the fact I'm working on deploying a network for it to run on


voice quality wise it ranges from as good as POTS, to quite a bit inferior
Ease of use is about the same
No power = no VoIP (unlike POTS)

the Long Distance price has some difference, depending on your carrier, but it's usually pretty comparable

the only benefit really, is that you can receive calls anywhere on the same number (kind of like a cell phone)


I dunno, there really isn't much of a compelling reason to switch for the average person


for a consultant, or frequent traveller, I can see the attraction to always having your home phone with you, but I'd rather have a Cell phone than have to worry about finding a good broadband connection to go with it all the time

I switched because with a landline we were paying $80 a month and with Vonage we pay $25.

Martrae wrote:I switched because with a landline we were paying $80 a month and with Vonage we pay $25.

that's nuts
land line costs me $11, and $18 for unlimited long distance in NA

I had vonage though we didn't use it enough to even justify the 15/mo we were paying. That was far less then we were paying for SBC's minimum POTS service of $35/mo which had 0 long distance included and limited local calling.

VOIP can work great if its set up correctly and you dont plan on doing any bandwidth intensive things while your on the phone. The down side of course is 911 service is limited to the location that you register with the company, dont forget to change it when you move and dont assume that jsut becasue you change your billing address with and tell them your moving that they will actually make the 911 changes for you, and the whole no power no phone thing sucks also.

Switched to Vonage a couple months ago. $14.99 is about what a phone is worth to me.

It worked great for me while I was in China. It was amazing to have virtually free calls to the US (with Skype you pay per minute and it's very cheap).

Menlaan