Voice over IP

[beerbaron]

Any thoughts on those who may be running voice over ip? ?
looking at setting it up at home office
saw this website http://www.freshtel.net/
and was wondering has anyone thought of doing it at home etc considering now that telstra have hiked up lan lines

ive got adsl but not with telstra , which im glad in a way :p

[Al]

At work we use scarp. Lets us chat to our counterparts in different states with a mic and some headphones. Works really well.

[pinchy]

hey bigal, did you mean skype (http://www.skype.com/) ?

A few years ago there was a site, hottelephone.com or something which offered free voip over the internet... I scared the shit out of some rellies over in europe by calling em up for free... wasn't too bad, not comparable against landline, but much cheaper! The site allowed you to call any country for nothing, i used to call the office phone from it just cos I was too lazy to get off my fat arse and pick up the land line behind me... I stopped using it cos they started charging you, but i'll look through my old links and see if I can find it for you...

[Al]

Originally posted by pinchy
hey bigal, did you mean skype (http://www.skype.com/) ?

Yep, I'm that lazy I didn't even move my mouse over it to check.

[That Bloke]

Where I work has an IP communication network with-in & between all it's offices & facilities world wide, I don't know specifically what system it is, it's just called SimNet.

[flow]

Originally posted by beerbaron
Any thoughts on those who may be running voice over ip? ?
looking at setting it up at home office
saw this website http://www.freshtel.net/
and was wondering has anyone thought of doing it at home etc considering now that telstra have hiked up lan lines

ive got adsl but not with telstra , which im glad in a way :p

1. Can you ring anyone with Freshtel? Not what it says on the website the last time I checked.
2. You're reliant on your existing broadband connection - they're going to charge you for the data. Freshtel are also are going to charge you for the call. Add the 2 costs.
3. If you've got an ADSL connection you're still paying the PSTN charge? Can you drop the PSTN line?
4. Do you want 100% calls? What happens between 7-9pm when there's huge amounts of traffic on your ISP? Can you get the call through and what quality is it going to be?
5. Are they going to guarantee the voice quality?
6. What happens if you loose your line? Can you ring them to fix it at 10pm at night. In what time will they fix it?
7. What codec are they using? Does this add delay.
8. Can you use a "normal" phone or are you going to have to use a PC? Do you want to spend $0.50 a day running your PC for 24hours a day? yes- you need to have you PC to recieve calls otherwise!
9. What happens if the power goes? Can you ring 000?

VoIP is a very interesting proposition. Isn't it?

[Kezza]

Originally posted by flow_aus


[snip]

VoIP is a very interesting proposition. Isn't it?

I agree with your points however I feel that there is still potential for a SOHO... Yeah, at this stage you probably cannot totally replace a standard analouge telephone line. However, you could substantiaully reduce your telecommunication charges.

For example, my father runs a business from home (95% of his job is conducted over the telephone) - He pays somewhere in the vicinity of up to $500/month for 2 landlines to his home office.

Now, say he still maintained those two landlines - but was only really using them for incoming phone calls paying the line rental only.. the cost would come down to $50-60/month.. and he could use VoIP at a substantially reduced rate. Sure, if for whatever reason the VoIP was not available he could use the standard analouge phone line, but for the other 90% of the time the internet connection could be used.

Once you start doing the maths you can see that there are some real savings which could be made for small businesses.