voIP (voice over IP) internet phone

[big_fish_guy]

A little off the fishing topic, but good information for anyone that has a highspeed internet connection.(preferable cable)
Has anyone else here tried voIP? I signed up for vonage and have been using it for a week now and I think it's great. No one has been able to tell that I am not on the old phone line until I tell them. And for $30 a month, I get unlimited local and long distance through out U.S. and Canada, plus caller id, 3-way calling, call forwarding, voice mail. It's pretty good. And I haven't noticed any problems when on the internet and someones on the phone. So it works great with my cable internet.
------------------

[This message has been edited by Rick (edited 09-04-2004).]

[morpho]

time warner cable. will be offering this soon we have put it in beta and it will be a modem/phone allin one it works pretty well.. the only problem with vonage is some issies with the modems if you lose packets they will drop and if its broken your all on your own thers no vonage trucks rolling around town..

anny questions on ether comcast or tw's stuff i can answer ya

[big_fish_guy]

well they by mistake sent me two voice terminals, so I have a spare. As for packet loss, that's your isp's fault, not vonage. I havn't had any problems with comcast in a great while. (knock on wood) Vonage has been around for a while now and I feel it is pretty reliable. I wouldn't want to go through the troubles of a beta with another company. plus, vonage is cheaper then what time warner is going to offer. $5 is $5 bucks

[Gissert]

We have Cisco units at work. I have been very happy with them. Some times there seem to be a bit of a delay or echo when calling to certain area codes, but this is very minor.

[morpho]

wait ti'll your vonage takes a power hit or comcast stops letting that stuff go thru ( it may be on the horizon)

[big_fish_guy]

Wait until sprint or att takes a power hit.
What is your point here? Any place can have a power failure or other problems. Not like vonage is more susceptible.
And as for Comcast letting stuff go through... they have no choice. It's just data on the super information highway man. They can't block just specific things, data is data.
What I am waiting for is the government to figure out they are losing money on this because they are not charging taxes. Unlike a conventional phone (land line), the FCC and state are not getting their share.

[morpho]

ah, but they can block data its pretty easy power outages don't really happen on phone systems cuz they are still pretty much run off battery banks.. nothings perfect but with qwest not updating annylines in st.paul things a degradeing pretty fast

edit: the power hit was like frying the modem ect comcast twc ect will replace it with vonage its your to replace

[This message has been edited by mopho (edited 09-07-2004).]

[92python]

The IP phones are handy especially the IP softphone on my PC. My work phone is a softphone on my laptop which travels with me.

The main problem with that technology (and with regular analog cordless phones) is if you loose power at your house, you loose your phone too. That might be a big deal for some people in an outage without another way to communicate. Most people have cell phones now though.

[big_fish_guy]

if you lose power at your house, most people will lose their phones anyway. How many people have regular old corded phones. Most now have cordless phones that require an outlet.
yes a lightening hit will fry things.happens to me all the time </sarcasim>

mopho, I am curious. how can they block data? Seriously. I'm not trying to be an @ss. How is an isp able to block specific data? I know they could block traffic to a certain IP, but the actual data? either post response here or email me, I really want to know.

------------------
[email protected]
My Hunting and Fishing page

[eribac]

I've been using Vonage for about six months, and love it!

The only problem I have had, was when I installed a new router I didn't re-boot the phone box and didn't notice the mistake for about 12 hours. But, once I re-booted the box everything worked again.

My only complaint is that their HSOforum is slow. It is extremely slow to check your voicemail online.

[soultwist]

It would actually be pretty simple for them to filter out this data on their CMTS's. They would just filter out traffic that is directed to the port used by your phone, it would probably be implemented system wide and not directed toward specific users. Comcast filtered out incoming traffic to port 80 while the code red virus was at it's peak, preventing users from hosting their own websites. Also, some providers block port 25 traffic to prevent people from setting up their own email servers. I'm not saying it will happen, but they could.

[big_fish_guy]

soultwist, after I posted I thought of that. But really, would comcast block a port just to block vonage? Not wise.

[morpho]

it is wise, they sell phone svc too same as tw... nothing set in stone just rumers at this point