| Lee Marzke on 27 May 2006 14:38:24 -0000 |
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Jeff Abrahamson wrote: I'm considering buying VOIP service. I've been reading about it. It's cool, both technically and politically (all the crap that comes from nearly a century of telecom regulation compared to the very different development of the internet (and end-to-end)). Jeff, There is a lot to learn when moving to VOIP. As far as VOIP providers they come in both "consumer" and "wholesale" categories, with some companies doing both. I have Speakeasy for DSL and well ( with near 100% reliability ), but use wholesale VOIP. The consumer services usually provide unlimited calling to US, or a list of countries, and may also provide Voicemail, fax services, etc. These services usually provide their own DSL router ( put in front of your own DSL router ) to give priority to voice packets. Rates run from $20 to $40 per month per line. The wholesale providers are like your "Dry DSL line" They provide you origination and termination services only, and no extra features. They do not provide hardware - you must use your own router with priortization. The basic line charges are 50c/month to $11 month. Most do not offer unlimited service, but charge 1c/min to 5c/min. The downside to the consumer services is that every line is expensive ( as you are paying for average usage ) The consumer services generally will not support Asterisk - because you could have a 100 phones on Asterisk all using the same line. They also limit you to 2 simultaneous calls ( 1 inbound, and 1 for call waiting ). If you get any DSL hardware ( ie a linksys box from Vonage ) they WILL NOT give you the password, and that box will only work with that company. If you are just starting out you would have better luck with the consumer services, as you don't have to setup your own firewall rules, router, and priority schemes. If you later move to Asterisk - these services may be acceptable if you have only 1 user on Asterisk - but after that you may need a wholesale service that allows more simultaneous calls. The advantage of wholesale services is that you can test them out with very little ( only a $10 commitment ). You can also get inbound 800 toll-free numbers for about $1/month. But you are going to have to learn a lot about VOIP and/or Asterisk to get good quality. The call quality is possibly dependent on your DSL speeds, your router, the ISP's router the state of every Internet router between you and the destination, as well as the type and quality phone on each end ( especially the phone on the far end ). Some calls may be crystal clear, but you will aways have occasional issues, some that are under the VOIP providers control, and others that are not. You definitely should test out any service for 3 months or so before canceling your existing services. Examples of consumer services: ( See voip-info for more ) vonage.com voicepulse.com packet8.com speakeasy tollfreedirect.net Examples of wholesale services iax.cc connect.voicepulse.com nufone.net There are also free services like http://www.freeworlddialup.com/ FWD - Open standard, not proprietary like Skype If you missed my recent Asterisk talk it is linked on the website: http://www.phillylinux.org/talks.html
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