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VOIPVoice over IP. Discuss VOIP including Skype, BlueFace, SIP technology and providers
The thread "Voip on poor bandwidth" has not received any replies for a month. It has been automatically closed as a result. You may start a new thread on the topic if the information in this thread is not sufficient.
Some of you on poor connections might be interested to know that you can now avail of cheap voip calls with www.voipdiscount.com They are now running a callback service (similar to jajah.com if you are familiar with that) the differance is that they just charge a 3 cent call setup fee and then you take advantage of their cheap rates (i.e. free to landlines in 52 countries)
Just type in your phone no. and the destintion phone no. and they automatically call you back and connect you.
Even for those with a good broadband connection this will give you much better call quality than using a softphone.
They also have a 5 cent SMS service which is good value if you are texting abroad.
Hi Gordy,sounds good i'm going to look at their site,i use voipstunt sometimes i bought a cordless USB phone on ebay and find it works well.
Chris
Hi Chris. Is the phone that you bought the DUALphone? It's advertised on Skype for €99+shipping. I was considering getting one to release me from always having to be seated at the PC to make calls - although in fairness that's not a particular hassle for me.
Hi Chris. Is the phone that you bought the DUALphone? It's advertised on Skype for €99+shipping. I was considering getting one to release me from always having to be seated at the PC to make calls - although in fairness that's not a particular hassle for me.
Patrick
Hi Rotoura,i bought my phone on ebay it costs around €50 inc.postage.It's a Bell 2.4 Ghz,it came from the states.
Thanks for that Chris. I did a search on eBay and couldn't quite pin down the one that you bought. You could save me a bit of research time and not-to-mention a few €s. Not knowing a helluva lot about this stuff I was just going to go and buy the Skype one. Do you reckon that the one that you bought is the 'Dogs - Ahem'. I intend re-locating abroad in the future and don't want the hassle of a landline so I'm trying to stock up on my gadgets beforehand!
Thanks for that Chris. I did a search on eBay and couldn't quite pin down the one that you bought. You could save me a bit of research time and not-to-mention a few €s. Not knowing a helluva lot about this stuff I was just going to go and buy the Skype one. Do you reckon that the one that you bought is the 'Dogs - Ahem'. I intend re-locating abroad in the future and don't want the hassle of a landline so I'm trying to stock up on my gadgets beforehand!
Patrick
Patrick - To get the best call quality on VOIP you need to have an ATA (analogue telephone adapter) that has an Ethernet jack rather than a USB connection. I use a Zoom X5v which is an ADSL modem and ATA all in one, I then just plug my standard cordless phone into it and get great results.
If you do go for a usb cordless phone make sure it is compatible with other voip services and not just skype, otherwise you will be limiting yourself in the future.
Thanks for that Chris. I did a search on eBay and couldn't quite pin down the one that you bought. You could save me a bit of research time and not-to-mention a few €s. Not knowing a helluva lot about this stuff I was just going to go and buy the Skype one. Do you reckon that the one that you bought is the 'Dogs - Ahem'. I intend re-locating abroad in the future and don't want the hassle of a landline so I'm trying to stock up on my gadgets beforehand!
Patrick
Patrick,did a search myself yesterday and could not find the ebayer i bought from,he sold quite a lot but seems to be gone.If I find anything i'll let you know,this is the same a an house cordless phone with the same jack on the end of it as eircom,it plugs into a small box which then plugs into your USB port.
Voipstunt do it aswell Chris, look on your account page!
Gordy,i've tried this a few times and it's perfect,do you know of anyone else who's tried it?I find it hard to belive that the only charge ic 3 cent st up,i wonder if the calls go through your own phone provider and they charge you.I'll have a look around the net to see any feed Back.
Chris
Last edited by Chris_Navan; 15th June 2006 at 07:10 AM.
Yeh it's great, my mate has a "girlfriend" in Thailand and can call her on her mobile, call is free with just 3 cent setup charge, he swears by it.
It's available on all the Betamax GmbH sites, voipstunt, voipbuster, voipdiscount etc. of particular interest is www.voipcheap.com which has rates to Irish mobiles of less than 10 cent a min. That's a real good deal IMO.
They even have a website called www.webcalldirect.com dedicated to this call type so you don't have to download any software.
I find it hard to belive that the only charge ic 3 cent st up,i wonder if the calls go through your own phone provider and they charge you.I'll have a look around the net to see any feed nack.
Chris
The free calls are just a marketing gimmick for the moment, to help quickly build a customer base, their aim is to outdo Skype!
I don't expect that the free calls will last forever as they are losing money on every "free" call they connect, but I will be using them from now on. I use the regular service with an ATA so don't need the callback service and the missus is normally on the phone to Sweden for upto an hour 4 or 5 evenings a week. Only time I have ever had to pay was when calling a Spanish mobile no.
The 120 day time limit on my original €10 credit is nearly up, but the €8 credit I have remaining will carry over if I buy more before the expiration date. Even if it didn't, I think the service is excellent value.
Thanks for the info Chris_Navan and Gordy. My situation is this: I'm using Skype and lately, thanks to you guys also VOIPstunt. I already have an All-in-One Belkin ADSL Modem with a Wireless G Router - so missus can use laptop or NOT!! Long Story!!! I also have a USB phone which I WON (Whey-Hey) in a PCLive competition. I'm pretty happy with this arrangement. In addition I don't ACTUALLY possess a cordless phone of any description. So that's why I was just thinking of killing 2 birds etc by buying just the USB cordless device. If I got the Zoom, as you suggest Gordy, would I be making my current bits 'n' pieces redundant?
You could just add-on a voip gateway to your existing setup, a reasonable one will cost you around €50 and Dixons have cordless phones for around €25.
IMO this is a much better route than getting the usb cordless, only drawback is you won't have facility to view if Skype contacts are online on cordless as you would with cordless dual phone.
Just to clarify Rotorua, before I lead you astray. At present I don't know of any ATA's that allow you to use a SIP based voip service (such as voipstunt) AND Skype (who use their own non-sip protocol) with an ethernet connection. A US company called Vocal has designed an ATA that will combine SIP and Skype funcionality http://www.lightreading.com/document.asp?doc_id=72872
It appears that Vocal specialise in designing hardware and software, which they then sell on to third parties to manufacture.
I expect that I will be just a matter of time before such ATA's begin to become available...
I previously used voipstunt with their softphone and a Sennheiser headset, when I changed over to the ATA the improvement in call quality has been amazing. Apart from the very occasional bad line, you would think that the call is being made on ordinary phone line.
Wow Gordy! I didn't realise things could get so complex. But Thanks for your interest/support. As I mentioned elsewhere I've a SKype-Branded phone wall-mounted here beside the PC. It works as well as I would have hoped it would. By that I mean that we've never had anyone complain about the quality - except perhaps my father who says that it emphasises the bass tones in my voice - I mean please! We don't really make too many calls from home, but when we do we always use either Skype or VOIPstunt. I also use sometimes the P2P function to other (2) Skype users. My home isn't really big enough to warrant a cordless - I just was thinking about the future - next year actually - when we are seriously considering emigrating and a cordless might get more use. I'd be bringing the PC with me and, subject to a Broadband connection I'd be hoping to use VOIP exclusively - and hopefully also without a landline!! So perhaps for the moment I'll just be happy to muddle on, safe in the knowledge that the telecoms of this island can't rip me off any more. Of course we BOTH have mobiles and THAT is a different story altogether. Incidentally, wife has just gone away on holiday - me to follow on next week - and I will avail of the FREE 250 webtext messages per month which I can send from the O2 website; me being a subscriber of course
Ha ha, free webtexts, I use them as much as possible also. We pay for everything else through the nose after all! What amazes me is that my sister-in-law in Sweden has an unlimited calling plan from Vodafone (i.e. unlimited landline, mobile and international calls) for €65 a month. Can you imagine everyone in Ireland having unlimited calling for €65 a month, the mobile companies profits would be through the floor!
The voip day of reckoning is coming for the mobile companies too. Lots of companies including Microsoft are working on mobile voip applications.
There are some solutions already available, but a little cumbersome. This company www.ipdrum.com produces a cable and software which allows you to connect a (old pre-pay)mobile to your PC, then taking advantage of "call a friend for free" or similar price plans you can call your PC from anywhere and make Skype calls!
Hi Gordy. As someone who seems to know what they're talking about when it comes to such issues as VOIP - did you check out these guys who were featured on this site, (yesterday, i think). VOIP Phones supporting IAX2, SIP, H323 - IP Phones They seem to have all the gizmos for both SKYPE and VoipStunt i.e. SIP and non-SIP. I'm only quoting that last bit as I don't quite know what exactly these protocols do relative to one another - all I know is that they are different and as you pointed out elsewhere it would be limiting to invest in JUST the USB phone. You might check out the site and see. Patrick
The link has modified itself to read that way - I jst entered the URL!
Last edited by rotorua; 30th August 2006 at 11:44 AM.
Reason: That's NOT what I typed!!!
The thread "Voip on poor bandwidth" has not received any replies for a month. It has been automatically closed as a result. You may start a new thread on the topic if the information in this thread is not sufficient.
Voip on poor bandwidth 
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