Voice Over IP?

Has anyone use VOIP service?  I’ve been curious about it for a while, with an emphasis on flexible and low cost business service.  The experience of having had a business line in the past was shocking, though not a fraction as shocking as the experience of utterly useless Yellow Pages advertising and additional, enhanced listings.  I’m sure I blogged about my chagrin when the ad rep quoted a price, I was delighted because that was a little less than I’d expected it to be for the year, and later I learned it was quoted per month, not year, and simply assumed anyone would know that.  But I digress.

I expect it to be useful at some point to be able to have a virtual switchboard setup, such that a call could be routed to an “extension” for someone working from home for me, even if it’s across the country.

Before I ever get that far, I expect to need, fairly rapidly, to have a more basic version even for me alone, with minimal outside help.  We’ll see what happens.

In the meantime, I’m interested in anecdotes, experiences, knowledge sharing, vendor preferences, that sort of thing, if anyone cares to share.

1. I had it a while, and didn’t like it.
   It *can* be as clear as a regular phone, but often isn’t.  It can have echoes, delays, and other electronic distortion.
   All that’s acceptable.
   What finally killed it for me was that if my internet went down for 20-30 minutes, I had no phone.  If the power went out (rare, but happened), I had no phone.
   My cable modem went out, and they said it would take 6-10 days to get a replacement modem.  No phone for 6-10 days?  No thanks.
   Sure, you can get by with a cell-phone for the times the VOIP isn’t working...so why not just skip the VOIP and stick with the cell phone period?  Except that wastes the main point of wanting VOIP: saving money.

   I’ve also noticed that all the VOIP startups promise lots of free and cheap calling...but then the costs rise later.  That included Vonage and the Oceanic cable VOIP.
   Even Skype went from free to $.02/minute for domestic long-distance computer-to-phone calls.

   Which is pretty much the best answer: if you want VOIP, Skype is still about the best deal around.  There are handsets that can be purchased that make your computer work well as a line-in/out VOIP phone, without paying any monthly fees at all.

   Posted by Nathan  on  07/20  at  04:09 PM  from  Hawaii

2. We’ve used Skype quite a bit since we don’t have a land line and don’t get great cell phone coverage in the actual apartment.  It’s always sounded great and they’ve got some really cheap services.

   Posted by Beth  on  07/20  at  06:49 PM  from  DC

3. We have it and love it. If the cable goes out, it does go out. If the power blinks off, same. We had clarity problems at first, but now it sounds like a regular phone with no delays. The outages will only be a problem for us during hurricanes, but we have cell phones that we will charge up ahead of time (and have car chargers if our batteries run out). And it is so much cheaper. We pay a total of $25 for 2 phone numbers, 500 minutes (we could pay $50 for unlimited, but we never talk even close to 500), and everything included (call waiting, caller ID, long distance, etc.). Before, we were paying $40 for call waiting only, and it was ridiculous.

   Posted by sarahk  on  07/21  at  12:10 AM  from  south of hell

4. I have Vonage, and I’ve been fairly happy with it for non-business use.  I don’t use the phone very much, and it was the coolest thing to be able to forward calls to my cell phone. 

   However once I switched my Vonage account so that calls only went to my cell phone when Vonage was down, I was shocked by how many times my cell phone rang with calls to my Vonage number.

   So I wouldn’t consider VOIP for a business for the present time, unless you also have a business cell phone and forward the VOIP line to the cell phone.

   Posted by Dave  on  07/21  at  01:41 PM  from  Indy
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