VOIP Phone System: Results & Growth Trends

[Greg Bernhardt]

VOIP has been huge hype the past few years. Seems to be dying down a bit. I have a few friends who have vonage with decent results. But overall Vonage has horrific stories and the stock has tanked. What are your results with VIOP and do you see it continuing to grow? Who needs a "land line" anymore with cellular technology? A neat technology I've seen is with Time Warner, when you receive a call, the call info pops up on your tv screen if you have it on.

 

[Astronuc]

I had a friend and colleague at another company and they went VOIP to save money. Well, he had problems getting messages, having calls dropped, and having the system go down periodically so that they would not receive calls.

I've noticed lately that my local ISP drops service periodically, so I'm still leery of committing to VOIP. I like the idea, but I'm concerned about the quality and integrity of the service.

 

[Dr Transport]

The only time I have any outages on my VIOP phone is when the power goes out. Maybe I am lucky, but I have noticed no difference in service and am saving about 50% on my phone bill by tying all my internet services together (VOIP, TV and Internet).

 

[sas3]

I have been using VOIP at home for over a year and have only had one outage for a few hours. The quality seems very good and the price (about $50 a year) can't be beat, that includes, voice mail, caller ID, call forwarding, conferencing, and no charge for US/Canada calls.
Works for me...

 

[Evo]

I'm lucky I have a free unlimited cell phone, so I don't need to pay for long distance. I refuse to give up my corded phone & land line because it works in the event of a power outage, which at my old place was fairly common and could last a week or more. I will never tie all of my services together. During power outages, I could connect to the internet via dial up with with laptop (batteries). It was a life saver at night in the dark.

 

[Moonbear]

We have VOIP at work. For all the usual things phones do, it's fine...doesn't seem any better or worse than a regular land line. What I REALLY dislike about it is I'm left entirely without a means of contacting ANYONE if the internet connection goes down. I will not get VOIP at home for that reason. If my phone goes out, I have email as backup, if email goes out, I have phone as backup. I don't want both to go out in one fell swoop. There are still too many cable outages at home (cable internet), and too many power failures too, so I'm not tying all my communication into something dependent on electricity. Even the cell phone needs to be recharged if power were out a long time, and I've once experienced a cell outage at the same time as a power failure...I think the cell towers got hit by the same storm. I keep a corded phone for use in the event of power failures.

 

[Astronuc]

We have VOIP at work. For all the usual things phones do, it's fine...doesn't seem any better or worse than a regular land line. What I REALLY dislike about it is I'm left entirely without a means of contacting ANYONE if the internet connection goes down. I will not get VOIP at home for that reason. If my phone goes out, I have email as backup, if email goes out, I have phone as backup. I don't want both to go out in one fell swoop. There are still too many cable outages at home (cable internet), and too many power failures too, so I'm not tying all my communication into something dependent on electricity. Even the cell phone needs to be recharged if power were out a long time, and I've once experienced a cell outage at the same time as a power failure...I think the cell towers got hit by the same storm. I keep a corded phone for use in the event of power failures.

You could always use smoke signals.

I know too many folks who've had problem with VOIP, such that I would not rely solely on VOIP, but it might be a reasonable supplement to a land line. We have two land lines from the days when we had one for voice and the other for dial up. We're thinking of eliminating the line formerly for dialup and getting the VOIP package from our local cable company. I have a company cellphone, and the rest of the family has a package of prepaid cell phones that are used primarily for calling in an emergency or if folks are out and about and 'need' to call.

 

[chroot]

I only have a cell phone, and haven't had a land line in years. If there's a huge storm and the cell towers go dark, I can always use an amateur radio autopatch to make emergency calls. If the autopatch goes dark, too, that probably means I should get under some furniture and wrap myself in a space blanket.

- Warren

 

[Oerg]

VOIP was an important tool of communication for gamers, the hype all started from gaming!

 

[mgb_phys]

It depends on whose system - my home phone is VOIP but is supplied by the cable company, so it has battery backup, connects to their cable before it splits to my modem/router and gets it's own preferential routing on their network.
Since any modern national phone system is digital once it gets to the exchange, it's all VOIP ultimately.
Less reliable is something like Vonage because the cable company doesn't give preferential Quality of Service routing for it's data - and my ISP actaully deliberately degrades it to "provide a better service for customers" and definitely not to encoourage you to buy their VOIP service!

Skype is the easiest/cheapest option but the poorest service / quality.