[OT] VoIP experiences anyone?

Hey. Business Week (I believe) reported that Verizon will be allowing customers to drop the landline requirement for DSL beginning either last week or this week (they said 'Monday', but I'm not sure which). I have Verizon DSL+landline at home and am interested in dropping the landline due to the cost, but I don't want to completely lose the number. Also, I'd like backup to my cell phone in case the phone breaks, runs out of batteries, or just gets into the mood to drop calls, which happens on occassion.

I found a good article on PC Mag, comparing many of the providers right now. It's a good article, but I would like to hear first hand opinions from people I can trust too .

So I'm wondering if any of you have, had, or have used elsewhere, any VoIP services and could comment on voice quality, reliablity, customer service, etc? I really wouldn't use the phone much, don't care about the fancy features at this point, etc, so I want to minimize cost, but not if it means tons of frustration.

You can stop reading here if you don't care about my specific considerations

- At the moment Lingo is a temping, relatively safe (significant brand, decent quality) option, $14.95 for 500 minutes (U.S. Canada, & W. Europe) and your normal array of features, first month free, $40 initial (setup + S&H).
- As far as cheap, there's also a company called Broadvox (.net). Broadvox offers $9.95 for 100 outgoing minutes (U.S. & Canada), unlimited incoming, and standard features. But it's a lesser known brand and the original setup fees & S&H are $52, and I've read bad things about their customer service.
- Finally, talk about low cost, there's actually a free option for Mass, RI, and NH customers, called GalaxyVoice. $25 setup, no monthly fee, unlimited incoming, and 60 outgoing to U.S., and 2.3 cents/minute to U.S., Canada, and 20 other countries. But I have absolutely no outside informatin on this one (edit: I found the 'catch' here, which is only that you have to buy your own adapter. But I don't blame them for not wanting to provide a $50 box if they have no guarantee to ever see a dime from you).

So, if anyone has any experience with any of the above, or any others, I would be very interested. Also, any options with unlimited incoming, unlimited local, or call forwarding that doesn't use minutes, would be big pluses (note that I do not expect all of those ). All opinions are greatly appreciated.

Two things:
Find out if 911 works with your VoIP company. Some, such as our Time Warner, do; others don't. If it doesn't you can still call 911, but they won't automatically pull up your address, etc.. That's especially important if you have an emergency and can't speak or have kids who might not know what to say.
What phone book do you get with your VoIP and can you get the Verizon for your area. TW in Syracuse gives you an inferior "Yellow Book".

Yeah, the 911 is a thought. The free Mass one says 911 is not available, but with $85 in up front costs, it's not as free as it sounds (no such thing as a free lunch).

The others report your home/billing/assigned address to the emergency service. With my cell, my VoIP equipment would stay home, so that's perfectly fine.

As far as phone book, I don't really care. This phone would basically serve the purpose of maintaining my phone number so I don't need to update all the companies, etc who probably only have my home phone, can still receive calls from family who may not have my cell #, and can be used when I'd rather not use my cell for minutes, or can't for whatever reason. Oh, and DirecTV insists I have the satellite box hooked to a phone line to get MLB Extra Innings. I'd put $20 on the fact that if I pulled the phone cord out they wouldn't notice a damn bit of difference, but I'd rather not find out. Also, if I ever get a new TiVo or need to go through guided setup again, I officially need a phone line.

Oh, and I forward my call to my cell when I leave town (like now, although I forgot this weekend - VoIP would be nice cause you can just turn that on online).

I can get Verizon in my area, but the minimum plan is 500 minutes for $20. Considering I use my cell for all long distance calls, I see no reason to change from my landline $25 Verizon plan. But if I could go down to $10...

Oh, the talk of price plans reminds me of one last thing. VoIP providers have apparently started charging "cost recovery fees" like the evil Telco's, so if anyone have Vonage/Lingo/Broadvox, etc, I'm curious how much a $10/$15/$20/etc plan actually costs now. Thanks!

Delta,
For reference, I live in the NYC Metro area and have everything go through cablevision ( DSL, TV, and Telephone) I believe our cost is $30, $60, and $30, respectively. All in it is about $125/mo. We can dial all over the country and speak as often and long as we lilke for the flat fee.

We switched from Verizon, I noticed no difference in quality, whatsoever, I have 911 and 411 as well. We have had it approx. one year and service has interrupted only once, in which our cell phones all worked as substitute.

The only complaint, I had to give up my phone number and get a new telephone number which caused complaints from friends and family.......but worked out swimmingly with my mother in law.

No regrets, it is a great cost saver.

Drew

I have 2 lines through Vonage and am very happy with their service.

Line # 1 is on the $24.95 / month plan (unlimited calls to U.S. and Canada) and I got a new number from them.

Line # 2 is on the $14.95 / month plan (500 minutes to U.S. and Canada) and I transfered my 212 # in NYC from RCN to Vonage (took about 1 month to get # transferred over - they provide temp. # meanwhile).

True monthly cost for line # 1 is roughly $30 / month with all fees and $19 for Line # 2 (assuming you don't go over 500 minutes and don't make international calls).

I highly recommend Vonage over Cablevision and TWC because you can take the digital phone adaptor with you to anywhere there is broadband service in the world. This means you can travel and have people call you at the same # no matter where you are as long as you have broadband access. I doubt you can do this with Verizon, Cablevision, or TWC since they probably require you to be within their own network (i.e., they have to be your broadband provider as well).

And Vonage supports 911 for no additional cost.

Please let me know if you are interested --> referrals will provide monthly credit to the person referred as well as the one who provides the referral.

[Q]veeman5 Wrote:
True monthly cost for line # 1 is roughly $30 / month with all fees and $19 for Line # 2 (assuming you don't go over 500 minutes and don't make international calls).

I highly recommend Vonage over Cablevision and TWC because you can take the digital phone adaptor with you to anywhere there is broadband service in the world. This means you can travel and have people call you at the same # no matter where you are as long as you have broadband access. I doubt you can do this with Verizon, Cablevision, or TWC since they probably require you to be within their own network (i.e., they have to be your broadband provider as well).[/q]

Thanks for the feedback. I'm very glad to hear overall positive reviews of VoIP. I don't think I'd go for Vonage because the $19 line is a good discount over my current $34-$36 (with fees), but in dropping Verizon's local service I believe I will lose my $6/month DirecTV discount. So it's really only a savings of $10 or so. Good, but not the best I can do. Considering it's a 'backup line', I'd like to do better.

Verizon's VoIP is true VoIP. They do not require that you have their service or be on their network. In fact, until now, that would have been ridiculous, because it would mean you'd need analog phone, DSL, and VoIP all from Verizon. Really, why bother? So all their business probably went to cable customers. For me, Verizon's Voicewing isn't enough of a cost savings for me, unless they want to increase my DSL and DirecTV fees for leaving, then maybe.

But I believe you're right for Cablevision & TWC, which isn't real VoIP actually. The way I understand it, cable company phone goes through the cable lines, but not through an internet connection per say. More like going along side your cable modem connection than through it, therefore, you have to be on a cable line to use it. I suppose that's not necessarily true for all of them, but it is for some.

Thanks guys, keep the comments coming. Especially if you use Lingo, Broadvox, or GalaxyVoice (or know anyone who does), but anything is great.

Check out [www.skype.com]

It's based in the UK, but seems very cheap. 30 euros for a year of unlimited calls received from any phone, and 2 cents a minute for outgoing calls with no monthly fee.

I don't have many details, but my mother seems happy with hers through Time Warner Cable Central New York. From the perspective of some one calling in, however, it often sounds echo-like, as if she was talking to me on a speaker phone. I have actually asked her a couple of times if she was on one. Apparently the connection sounds fine from her end.

[Q]DeltaOne81 Wrote:
Oh, and DirecTV insists I have the satellite box hooked to a phone line to get MLB Extra Innings. I'd put $20 on the fact that if I pulled the phone cord out they wouldn't notice a damn bit of difference, but I'd rather not find out.[/q]
It would work fine for a week or so, but eventually the games would be blacked out.

VoIP is great. However, regular long distance at say 3 cents a minute is pretty close to free if you're not calling for hundreds and hundreds of minutes. The technology that makes VoIP cheap also makes traditional landline phone service cheap except for all the tariffs. As more customers desert traditional service the burden of supporting all those rural access and poor-customer tariffs falls on fewer shoulders, the tariffs go up higher, and even more people desert landline service. Eventually something's going to have to be done: tell poor people and rural customers to pay their own damn way (like that'll ever fly) or maintain universal access and charge it against regular federal revenues or the gas tax or something else.

VoIP over you laptop is a good way to keep down the cost of hotel phone calling if you're a traveler, if for some reason you don't have a cellphone. It's a no-brainer if you're overseas a lot.

We run multiple landline phones from the house for business reasons but one of them is about to go because we're going to turn the dedicated inbound fax line over to Internet fax (Venali). The Internet never runs out of paper and it's never busy like a landline phone is when your kids press the Line 2 button by mistake for a voice call.

[Q]CowbellGuy Wrote:

DeltaOne81 Wrote:
Oh, and DirecTV insists I have the satellite box hooked to a phone line to get MLB Extra Innings. I'd put $20 on the fact that if I pulled the phone cord out they wouldn't notice a damn bit of difference, but I'd rather not find out.[/Q]
It would work fine for a week or so, but eventually the games would be blacked out.[/q]
Really? They're not just blowing smoke? Wow. So, I do have to keep some kind of plugable phone line around then.

Skype is a computer-based solution, software that runs on your computer, and isn't a phone nor does it have any available jack. It's a good thought, but not in the category that I'm looking for. Also, it can't receive any calls from traditional phones (i.e. doesn't have a phone number), so it wouldn't exactly meet my goal of keeping my phone number. Still, if you're a college student looking for cheap long distance and free Skype-to-Skype calling, it's an excellent option.

bill, as far as per minute goes, landline can be fine, but I'm looking at keeping my monthly fees down. In order to get anything more than absolute bare-bones local (per minute charge, no caller ID, etc), I had to go to a $25/month plan, now up to $27, and after fees it's regularly $35 or more. For a phone that I use once or twice a month for local calls, 800 numbers, and incoming, that's a bit much (I have my cell for long distance).

At the moment my leaders are Broadvoice and Broadvox (difference companies), each with $9.95 monthly plans, which are about $11.50 to $12 after fees. Broadvoice has an 'unlimited in-state' plan which includes all incoming, toll free, and in-state calls for free, and charges you out of state. Since my cell is in-state, I could forward to my cell without being charged. Broadvox has an unlimited incoming, 100 minutes outbound national plan for the same price. That would be plenty for me, not sure if toll-free numbers count against minutes.

At the moment I could see Verizon increasing my DSL $5 and removing my $6 DirecTV discount if I switched away. But if they left it if I stayed with their VoIP option (VoiceWing) then I would consider that too. The $20 plan includes 500 minutes/month.