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The Internet Technology

Is VoIP the Way to Go? 64

Posted by Cliff from the bypassing-your-baby-bell dept.
Howpostsgetratedsuck asks: "My cable operator now offers VoIP local and long distance for one flat rate. Does anyone have any experience with or use a VoIP service provider? What are the pros and cons? What do you give up? Do they provide more than one number for my dedicated fax line? Is it better to just use wireless services for everything and dump the landline pots service altogether? Should I stay "status quo" for a while longer? I use the telephone in my business office for about 90% of my telco anyway."
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Is VoIP the Way to Go? More

Is VoIP the Way to Go?

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  • Try it out and tell us!

  • it's the next big thing ... (Score:5, Interesting)

    by HughsOnFirst ( 174255 ) on Sunday November 09, 2003 @08:56PM (#7431071)
    If you get the option to use some sort of standard like SIP for your
    phone, you can set up your own software call distribution system where
    some calls ring your phone, some go to voicemail, some get forwarded to
    your mobile etc.

    When I was at cisco, these sorts of services were the "bet the company
    on it products of the future"

    The funny thing is, some of the most interesting implementations of
    this sort of thing are open source, one of which is vovidia [vovida.org] which got bought by cisco [vovida.org]
    , but is still operating as an open source operation. The guy who
    started has been aquired by cisco twice.

    • While it *IS* the next big thing... (Score:1, Informative)

      by Anonymous Coward
      ...VOIP is still in its infancy of practical adoption. It is nowhere near as reliable as "legacy" PBX phone switches and the sound quality is certainly poorer. There are very many technical factors which can undermine its operations over a given set of network hardware and links too. On the bright side there are a bazillion possibilities for features that you'd never dream of in the legacy phone system world, but I fear the vendors will ultimately slap the systems together in half-assed, slipshod fashion ju
    • Take a look at Asterisk [asterisk.org]

      VoIP is not offered in my area but I'm itching to build a homemade PBX. And there is a bunch of features for voicemails and transfer that you would be able to use with the provided SIP or H323 calls.

      Gog
    • Yep, watch the Telcos in 2004, 2005 as VoIP nears Prime Time. SIP has changed the face of VoIP for the better.

      Here are some good books on the topic:

      SIP Demystified
      http://tinyurl.com/v90m

      Internet Communications with SIP
      http://tinyurl.com/v90n

      SIP: Understanding the Session Initiation Protocol
      http://tinyurl.com/v90o ..this last one is my favourite.

      Werd to big bird!

  • Sound Quality is Worse (Score:4, Interesting)

    by DaRat ( 678130 ) * on Sunday November 09, 2003 @09:00PM (#7431097)
    We have VOIP Cisco phones at work. I'm sure that there are cost advantages and it's kinda handy to be able to just pick up your phone, go to any Ethernet port, plug it in, and get all of your calls like normal.

    But, the sound quality isn't quite as good as our old phones used to have. There are times when it's a bit like a walkie talkie: there's a bit of static before/after the other person starts or finishes talking. The sound quality while talking is generally pretty good though (but not as good as the old phones).

    I don't know if your setup requires having new VOIP phones or not, but when I got my new VOIP phone, I needed to also get a new corded headset since my old one doesn't work with the Cisco phone.

    Ron
    • We probably use the same phones you do... the Cisco ones are pretty standard from what I've seen. They also support roaming profiles. They allow you to basically tell the system where you are so you can get all your calls as usual.. just somewhere else than normal. So, if you know you'll be at a coworker's desk for a while, you can have your calls show up there.

    • Re:Sound Quality is Worse (Score:3, Informative)

      by Pii ( 1955 )
      Your Cisco IP Phones should sound every bit as good, if not better, than your old telephone system.

      If the call quality isn't pristine, chances are you've got network issues.

      Your Network/IP Telephony guys ought to be looking at Layer-2 QoS settings (Maybe Layer-3 if your Voice traffic is traversing subnets), VAD (Voice Activity Detection), and Echo-cancellation settings.

      If the equipment in your network infrastructure is up to snuff, and it's configured properly, you should never be aware that you're us

    • I don't know if your setup requires having new VOIP phones or not, but when I got my new VOIP phone, I needed to also get a new corded headset since my old one doesn't work with the Cisco phone.

      There are two types of headset pinouts: headset and handset. Sounds like you had a handset pinout. You can easily chop the end off, repin it out and recrimp it.

      Here's a URL to help:
      http://www.rvs.uni-hannover.de/people/einhorn/hea d set/index_e.html [uni-hannover.de]

      No need for an amplifier since the Cisco 7960/7940 will do th
    • The Cisco VoIP system has a feature called "Comfort Noise" that automatically generates a hiss/static when it doesn't detect any voice traffic in a call. According to our vendor they added this feature because people were used to hearing some minimal amount of background noise when both parties were silent, and when they didn't here it people started wondering if the connection had been droped. In actuality the connection quality is just so good that there is no naturally occuring "self-noise" from the ph

  • Uptime (Score:4, Insightful)

    by sporktoast ( 246027 ) on Sunday November 09, 2003 @09:04PM (#7431114) Homepage

    So. How often does your cable go out? And for how long?

    I'm all for giving the local telcos some competition. (Especially now that consolidation means they're less and less local [sbc.com] any more.)

    But really, what's your cable company's track record on service quality? That'd be the first thing I'd be concerned about.

    -Sporktoast

    • Re:Uptime (Score:3, Informative)

      by joto ( 134244 )
      So. How often does your cable go out? And for how long?

      This is really true. I don't know much more about this than your average Joe. But my cable-company specifically tells you, that if you need reliable access to emergency numbers, etc, you should have an alternative to VoIp, such as mobile phone or fixed lines.

      I think that should tell you either that the cable-company is afraid of getting sued (which is quite unlikely here in Norway), or the reliability is really bad (which is much more likely, althou

    • Re:Uptime (Score:3, Informative)

      by Sandman1971 ( 516283 )
      Not just cable uptime but you have to take into consideration power outages. Regular landlines are generally not affected during power outages. But with VoIP, you're basically SOL if the power goes out.

  • Why, sure it is! (Score:1, Funny)

    by Anonymous Coward
    Of course VoIP is the way to go. I, for one, miss that unreliable crackly sound of CB Radio. VoIP sure brings back memories.

    "Breaker breaker, cyber-buddy!" Sign me up

    10-4 !

  • Vonage (Score:3, Informative)

    by Bistronaut ( 267467 ) * on Sunday November 09, 2003 @09:29PM (#7431231) Homepage Journal
    I use Vonage [vonage.com], and it rocks. It has nothing to do with your computer - you just plug it into your gateway and go. No one will ever know that you're using VoIP if you don't tell them. They have business plans that include a fax line. I haven't had POTS for a long time.

  • VoIP is a Good Thing (Score:4, Interesting)

    by KCardoza ( 593977 ) on Sunday November 09, 2003 @09:58PM (#7431384) Homepage
    I use Skype's peer-to-peer VoIP service, to talk to my girlfriend, (*Gasp* A slashdotter with a girlfriend! And now, seven angels will play seven trumpets...) and I have to say, if VoIP can reach a broad enough audience to hit critical mass, POTS services are headed the way of the dodo. I mean, why not? You pay for broadband service, and voila, no more long distance bill. All it really needs is a cheap, dedicated box, with a handset, a small keyboard for entering usernames to call, a little LCD screen, and a cheap Nic. If they could sell something like that, I know I'd buy it, and so would pretty much everyone on my friends list. But, what do I know?

  • Vonage - Acceptable Service (Score:3, Informative)

    by harryk ( 17509 ) <jofficer AT gmail DOT com> on Sunday November 09, 2003 @10:26PM (#7431498) Homepage
    I have been using Vonage now for the past 3 months, and let me tell you this, the only problem with it is that when you are downloading, or uploading something, the phone cuts out a bit. You never lose the call, it just sounds less like a phone.

    That being said, I haven't found any other problem with it. If I decide to take it with me to work, I can (although i wonder if it'll work ? ) I can just unplug the ATA and goto town. Its an awesome piece of hardware, and i wouldn't be caught dead using a POTS line now. It just doesn't make any sense. Vonage also has a feature to forward calls after a certain period of No Answer. i can forward to voicemail or to a cell phone, or whatever.

    I'm all for VoIP, and at $35US, its worth it!

    harryk
    • I use packet8, and noticed the same problem. I set up QoS in pf on my openbsd fw, and it completely fixed the prob. Now, when i'm on the phone, I just see my bittorrent uploads drop about 40k/s :)
      • I too setup QoS and received the same fix. This is an awesome service in general, although now we just need a few more competitors to bring the price down another $5 or so.

        Unfortunately, I have not had the opportunity to actually travel with it yet, although thats an excellent idea.

        I may end up just bringing it to work, and testing.
    • I travel frequently and use Vondage. With this I am able to use my "land line" in a hotel:
      - Great quality
      - Very reliable so far
      - I am reachable on my home phone
      - I can spend an hour on the phone and not get hit with a huge bill

      I would highly recomend the service.

      • Re:Traveling (Score:2, Interesting)

        by raju1kabir ( 251972 )

        I travel frequently and use Vondage. With this I am able to use my "land line" in a hotel

        For what it's worth, I've brought a Vonage box on trips to Europe and Latin America with pretty good results. On European broadband it was always perfect. In Latin America sometimes the calls would be too choppy to use; other times it worked fine. Usually in the evenings it worked better.

        But just being able to make and receive free international calls from a hotel room (or a random spot when using my Linux laptop

  • what about power outages? (Score:5, Interesting)

    by Dark Fire ( 14267 ) <clasmc@RABBITgmail.com minus herbivore> on Sunday November 09, 2003 @10:35PM (#7431544)
    In the age of cell phones, this may not be an issue for some, but if you plan on replacing your land line with voip over your broadband, what happens when you need to call someone during a power outage? You could setup a UPS, but you probably need to power more than your voip phone. You will need to power your cable modem/dsl modem and possibly some sort of firewall/nat device. A UPS will only buy you 15 minutes to an hour unless you get an expensive unit. I have yet to year a real great solution to this problem. Also, if your power is out, will your dsl/cable even work? Just because your equipment has backup power doesn't mean your cable provider/dsl provider does. Any thoughts?
    • Gasoline generators provide power for long periods of time.
    • This is a common problem for most people. Because cordless phones are becoming more and more common (e.g., I haven't owned a corded phone for about 8 years), a lot of people caught in the East coast blackout of 2003 couldn't make calls at all. Thus, cell phone circuits became overloaded, meaning you couldn't use you cell phone either. A simple plug in phone would have solved all the problems.

    • In the age of cell phones, this may not be an issue for some, but if you plan on replacing your land line with voip over your broadband, what happens when you need to call someone during a power outage?

      Aside from the strawman-killer cell phone, how about your neighbor's phone?

      While I've never had a power outage in 5 years at my address - the good thing about living up the street from the White House in Washington DC I guess - I have never in my entire life felt the need to phone anyone during a power

  • I work for a rather large company and all of our phones are VoIP. Works flawlessly. In the many years I have been hear we have never had one problem
  • Why don't you ask your ISP these questions? They should be able to provide better answers than /.

  • The question needs to be more specific (Score:5, Informative)

    by j-turkey ( 187775 ) on Sunday November 09, 2003 @10:57PM (#7431651) Homepage

    With all due respect to the author, the question (as it stands) is not worded particularly well, and there is very little chance that a reliable answer will emerge.

    One extremely important detail that you are leaving out is who is offering the service. You also fail to mention the specifics of their operation. IP telephony and VoIP are very different, and there's no way to be sure which one you're talking about. (You clearly indicate VoIP, but the term is so misused that I'm taking your usage of the term with a grain of salt. Pardon me if I have done so erroneously).

    Because your cable operator maintains control over your lines, they are able to offer service guarantees that other services (like Vonage [vonage.com]) cannot. I cannot say whether or not your operator does take advantage of this, however. Think of it this way: Typically, when you choose an IP telephony solution, you're getting a leased line to your IP telephony provider's data center. They control everything along the way -- and can use routing protocols like QoS and ToS reliably, ensuring that your packets make it to where they need to go, when they need to get there. With a VoIP solution (again, like Vonage), your service is running over public Internet lines. The VoIP provider has no way of guarantying that the packets will get to them in a timely fashion. In the short time I've spent hacking around my Vonage service, I've found some ToS packets -- but since Vonage has no control over this, your ISP (or any other router along the way) can just ignore these ToS (and/or QoS) packets. In short, your packets get there when they get there. Sometimes it will work great, others it just doesn't work at all.

    If you can provide a link to some technical information about the service, I'm sure that some of the more saavy folks here can disseminate that information and tell you whether or not the technology should work. It's up you your cable operator to actually follow through with the reliability (again, you left out the detail of who your provider is). This is the first I've heard of cable operators offering such a service (although I have a bit of experience with a number of different types of VoIP and IP telephony services).

    However, if you're in the US, I'd suggest that you try it out. I've switched to Vonage. My primary motivation was my unwillingness to do business with Verizon...and even with deregulation, if I use POTS, I'm paying my local monopoly. So I gave up on it. Just remember that YMMV, so don't sign any long-term service contracts.

    Good luck,

    --Turkey
    • I agree. I posted this message to Ask Slashdot several times recently and it got rejected. Isn't this a heck of a lot better than what this post asks?

      A couple days ago this /. article [slashdot.org] asked whether price competition would run VoIP-to-POTS companies out of business. It specifically mentioned Packet8 [packet8.net], Vonage [vonage.com], and VoicePulse [voicepulse.com]. I've been considering switching to a VoIP-to-POTS provider for quite a while now, and wonder what experience other SlashDotters have had with these or related services. To be speci

      • What advice can you give about cost, performance, security, ease-of-setup, etc?

        The only consumerland service I've used is Vonage -- and they do exactly what you asked for. It also allows you to use your normal analog phone. I kept my POTS line for a few months while I tried out Vonage. It was good enough, so I dropped Verizon. I've found that Vonage is not as reliable as the POTS services -- sometimes incoming calls don't make it through, as well as outgoing calls not connecting. That being said,

  • When I was overseas in the middle east last month, I worked in an office with a bunch of land-lines, and a VOIP line that was linked to a number in the US. Thus, no more excessive 28 cents/minute, etc. But once in a while, there would be network lag. Sometimes it would be on our end, sometimes in the US, and sometimes it was just network congestion in general. This had the net effect of causing a MASSIVE delay in transmission. Try having a conversation where both parties don't hear what the other says

    • I live in Israel and want to talk to the USA a lot for both talking to friends and work related issues. I have been thinking about getting an IP phone via a local company [younevercall.com] and will probably do it in the next few months. It seems like a great deal better than the phone cards I have been using for this kind of thing.

  • I would like to roll my own VoIP. I would like an adaptor that allows me to connect an ordinary phone to my network. This adaptor would give the phone an IP address, and you could send commands from Linux to make the phone ring, and if it's off-hook to send and receive digital audio, decode touch-tones, etc.

    Then I would like another adaptor that allows me to connect the phone line to my network. This would give the phone line another IP address, and you could send commands from Linux to pick up the phone,

    • I would like an adaptor that allows me to connect an ordinary phone to my network. This adaptor would give the phone an IP address, and you could send commands from Linux to make the phone ring, and if it's off-hook to send and receive digital audio, decode touch-tones, etc.

      This is mostly doable...and your OS of choice is (for the most part) irrelevant -- be it Linux, *BSD, Windows, or QNX. With a service like Vonage [vonage.com], you get a Cisco ATA, which you plug your ordinary phone into. It differs slightly

    • A lot of what you are requesting has already been done by the Asterix [asterisk.org] open source pbx project. They recommend using their sponsor's (Digium [digium.com]) hardware to interface your computer with your phone/phones but apparently other hardware is available.

  • No 911, No Faxing, questionable availability. (Score:4, Informative)

    by blastedtokyo ( 540215 ) on Monday November 10, 2003 @04:39AM (#7432707)
    First, realize that there's usually no usable 911 service. They often try to route 911 to the local phone number for the police but the police won't get your address or treat the call as an emergency.

    Second, Depending on the codec that the provider's using, it might not allow faxing. Vonage I believe allows it up to 9600 bps but most of the others do not. Similarly, voice quality will vary.

    Finally, reliability is definately an issue. I wouldn't cancel your normal line. I use packet8 which is very cheap but I'd say it's dead for outgoing or incoming calls for about 5 hours every week. There are times when your calls will drop midconversation as well. My ISP is usually rock solid but there are enough points of failure (ISP, VOIP gateway, local phone number provider) that it's not great for reliability.

    • First, realize that there's usually no usable 911 service. They often try to route 911 to the local phone number for the police but the police won't get your address or treat the call as an emergency.

      If his house ever had POTS service, LEC's in the US are now required to offer 911 service, regardless of whether or not the line is paid for. If he has an extra phone lying around, he can just plug it into the old POTS line for 911 use only.

      Secondly, Vonage offers E911 service that gets routed to a diff

    • My printer [russnelson.com] has an Ethernet connection and will fax over the Internet.
      -russ

  • VoIP & Power (Score:2, Insightful)

    by gutter2424 ( 545561 )
    One reason I haven't bought into Vonage is because we frequently lose power and Comcast service isn't as reliable as I'd like. I'm also not sure if Vonage works with security systems like ADT? The power thing is a big deal... at least when you lose power, the phone lines usually still work.
  • Here is something else to consider. If you have a home with a security system, it may be hard wired into the telephone line to send out the alert. Mine has a "seizer" that will take over the phone line even if it is in use so that the alarm can send out its alert. I am dubious if this would work well at all with a VOIP setup. It may require you keeping the phone line at a minimum with a minimal local calling plan (e.g. pay per local call).

    Unless of course if you have an network capable alarm system -

  • blackout (Score:2, Insightful)

    by aberson ( 461047 )
    can you call 911 when the power goes out? if not, keep the POTS line even without any calling plans or packages on it... for $10/month it's a nice ability to have.

  • I've cut the cord (Score:2, Informative)

    by w1irh ( 243032 )
    I have been using Vonage for 2 months now and have gotten rid of Verizon. Sound quality is excellent, and it works with FAX and even though Vonage says it won't, with my TiVo's modem. Only thing I miss is that the caller ID doesn't have name info. I am using it with a Panasonic KX-TD308 key system. The Vonage ATA box connects right into a CO line interface on the Pana system and it works perfectly.

    You still need to be aware that power failures will knock you out, because even if you put the cable modem and

    • Re:I've cut the cord (Score:1, Funny)

      by Anonymous Coward
      There is something hilarious about using a modem with a VoIP setup. Digital to analog to digital to analog to digital.
      • Yeah there is... but you left one D/A out! The Panasonic KSU is a digital switch too.....So the modem signal does another A/D -> D/A before it gets to the ATA

        phase jitter, you say?? Amazing that it works. But if I trade the ReplayTV in for a newer one that can connect right to my LAN, I forfeit the "lifetime" subscription that the present unit has... so I stick with this hilarious situation :)

  • I'm on packet8 (Score:3, Informative)

    by dougnaka ( 631080 ) * on Tuesday November 11, 2003 @01:12PM (#7445343) Homepage Journal
    It's not 100%. It didn't work well on my 384k wireless but does work well generally on my comcast cable modem. The service isn't working correctly always, we have to reboot the DTA twice a week on average, and sometimes, especially in the early evenings (5pm-7pm) the call quality can drop off. There are often times echos on the line, and sometimes the audio gets garbled. My phone is currently non working since the latest upgrade to the DTA's firmware (which was very easy to apply BTW, click a link they emailed you, wait... done)

    That being said, I don't really mind the problems with packet8, my phone bill is $20.55/month every month. The thing works good most of the time, and my calling needs are generally flexible. My wife and I both have cell phones for 911/emergencies and other calling. For me, the VoiP phone is more of a security blanket for the wife. We don't need a home phone in my opinion, and she's resistant to change.

    BTW, from everything I've heard & read on places like dsl reports VoiP forums [dslreports.com] Vonage is MUCH higher quality than packet8. Packet8 uses like 8k/sec (I am not sure if it's kbits or kbytes, but I suspect bytes), and Vonage can use well over 40k/sec.

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