VOIP, Discussion, questions and answers

Stranger_Than_Fiction

This thread clearly has lots of really useful information in it but I am rather bewildered and wonder whether someone could answer my query or point me in the right direction.

I have wireless BT broadband and phone line. A client I do a lot of work with has given me a VOIP phone to use so it will be an extension from their office. This is now plugged into my broadband. I was told calls made by the phone will be free but am not sure whether this includes calls to mobiles or international numbers and they were not sure. Would I have to sign up to something separate in order to do this? Can anyone see any disadvantages to just plugging it into my broadband?

Any guidance would be much appreciated.

Thanks.

gas4you

Usually only voip to voip are free and often only with the same company.

I am with Voipfone after cancelling all my office BT lines. I have had nothing but 100% spot on service so far.

essexman77

Rev wrote: »

Okay. I've had a quick look through the thread and am getting confused with all the providers, whats best, whats to be avoided etc. So am looking for a little advice.

I'd like to get rid of my landline (or swap it to the cheapest available since I my mum has a lifeline which needs to be attached to a phone line capable of outgoing calls).

I'd like to be able to use the voip service using a 'normal' style houe phone that has wireless handsets.

I already have a sipgate account. So should I just figure out what handsets are best nd use sipgate, or do as many seem to do and use sipgate for incoming and anther provider for outgoing?

Any advice appreciated. Thanks.

Best thing is buy pap2 device most normel style work on these but may require a ring capaciter lead if phone does not ring which cost about 2 pounds on ebay.

essexman77

sjaddy wrote: »

i have used sipgate for outgoing the last month and it has been great but has cost about £9.30 (the £5.90 for 1000 minutes, we used 905 minutes) and all the mobiles and 0845 costs.

I want to test the voipgain because i think that could be cut even further - also sipgate gave me a local phone number whereas some of the other providers only have a range of numbers for London/Leeds/Nottingham rather than all exchanges.

Only choice really is using 2 voip providers sippgate for your incoming number and another for your cheaper calls using a pap2 device.

jimbo19

I have ported my BT number to sipgate and dumped my BT line.
I have a pap2 set up with sipgate for incoming outgoing calls etc.
Does anyone know who the cheapest voip provider is for 0870 / 0845 numbers on voip ?


Thanks

bluedove

I have ported my BT number to sipgate and dumped my BT line.
I have a pap2 set up with sipgate for incoming outgoing calls etc.
Does anyone know who the cheapest voip provider is for 0870 / 0845 numbers on voip ?

I use 2 voip providers, Sipgate for my incoming calls and Voipgain for outgoing calls.

Uk landline 01, 02 and 03 are free on voipgain whilst 0845 is 4p and 0870 is 3p see here.

Shotgun_Rider

Does anyone here have any experience of using VOIP on a community WIFI network. We are having one installed in the next couple of months due to being in a not-spot and just wondering how you find it?

I've been told that WIFI broadband isn't perfectly suited to VOIP but it would be ideal if it worked as I could drop the phone line in order to pay for the increase in broadband cost.

buglawton

By 'Community' you may mean, shared among many homes. VOIP works very well on home WiFi shared among, say 3 users but maybe not so well when shared with 10 including movie-downloading teenagers and gamers.

Why not try it & see.

But pushing your luck here - don't forget a landline can be good for emergencies.

Shotgun_Rider

buglawton wrote: »

By 'Community' you may mean, shared among many homes. VOIP works very well on home WiFi shared among, say 3 users but maybe not so well when shared with 10 including movie-downloading teenagers and gamers.

Why not try it & see.

But pushing your luck here - don't forget a landline can be good for emergencies.

Thanks buglawton. Each house in the scheme will have 4.5MB download and upload speeds. Which is meant to be guaranteed.

buglawton

Even ADSL (via BT, Sky et al) cannot guarantee that kind of speed all the time!
Best of luck with it.
I would try VOIP for a while while retaining the land-line until VOIP has proven itself.