voip equipment

[maddythebeagle]

I am looking into this and was wondering if folks have had much luck with wireless phone jacks. My understanding is that the VOIP goes into 1 phone so if you want a phone in other parts of the house, you have several options, but the easiest looks to be the wireless jacks for existing phones or buying a cordless phone system with satellite phones. Looking on Amazon.com, the wireless jacks run 25-50 bucks. A good uniden phone system with 3 phones is 140 buck range.

 

[Newell]

I simply ran the VOIP into one of my phone outlets which then enabled all of the other phone outlets for VOIP. I believe it is recommended that if you do this, you should disconnect the land phone line from coming into your house.

I use VONAGE (about 1 year) and have been very pleased.

 

[Arif]

We plan on using voip when we move to Panama. Discovered recently that you can take the box anywhere in the world and still have your local US number. I think Vonage said they will not provide support if they find out your not in the US. Can't beat the unlimited calling plan to call back to the US instead of paying $1-2 per minute the old fashioned way.

 

[AltaRed]

However, it does require you to keep your PC on 24/7. Who really wants to do that?

 

[mickj]

No you don't have to even have a PC, just a broadband connection.

 

[maddythebeagle]

I keep my computer on most of the time and just turn off the monitor. It makes it more convenient to jump on the web, but you dont have to have the computer on?. My broadband connection is down a few hours every once in a while and I dont have a cell phone, but I guess that I would consider a pre-paid if I had VOIP. I live in rural area so my local phone service is kinda expensive. I think with the VOIP, you get a lot of features that would cost a bundle from a landline.

 

[Nords]

I think with the VOIP, you get a lot of features that would cost a bundle from a landline.

Our local phone bill runs about $26/month. We rarely make a long-distance call so we don't even have the service in our home and we just use a 3.5 cents/min calling card. 200 minutes lasts a couple years.

I have a hard time finding a cell phone, VOIP, or calling card that can beat those costs. About the only thing I could shave off the phone bill is the $1.50/month for touch-tone service, but doing that to save $18/year just seems like too much effort for too little benefit. See, Cut-Throat, I'm recovering!

 

[maddythebeagle]

yes, you have to do the comparisons. I use a phone card for my long distance, also. Vonage's basic phone service doesnt look to be all that great (only 500 total mins.) and I think that I would go over. My local phone bill is 31-33 per month and no frills plus the long distance card (maybe a few bucks a month). I might save 5 bucks a month from local voip provider plus a 50 dollar bonus to start AND telling century telephone to go jump off of a cliff.